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The Pacific Slope superstorms and the Big Winter of 1861−1862
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The Pacific Slope superstorms and the Big Winter of 1861−1862
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Content
The Pacific Slope Superstorms and the Big Winter of 1861-1862
by
William J. Cowan
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY
May 2021
Copyright 2021 William J. Cowan
ii
Epigraph
“The world to come must be composed of what is past. No other material is at hand.”
—Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain
iii
Dedication
For the Ancestors
iv
Acknowledgements
I thank the University of Southern California, the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, &
Sciences, and the USC Department of History. With deep gratitude, I thank my committee: Bill
Deverell, Peter Mancall, and Bill Handley.
I thank Lori Rogers, Sandra Hopwood, Simone Bessant, Melissa Calderon, Jennifer
Hernandez, and the entire USC History Department staff.
I thank the Bancroft Library, the Huntington Library, the Western History Association,
the USC-Dornsife College and Graduate School, and the Martin Ridge Family, the Gunther
Barth Family, the Russell Family, and the John R. Hubbard Family for funding this project. I
thank Peter Blodgett, Clay Stahl, Theresa Salazar, and the countless archivists who contributed
their time and expertise.
I thank my cohort, Simon Judkins, Jordan Keagle, Randall Meissen, Skyler Reidy, Jenna
Ross as well as colleagues Karin Amundsen, Jillian Brandt, Corey Blanchard, Michael Block,
Julia Brown-Bernstein, Jiakai Chua, Jillaine Cook, Christina Copeland, Jonathan Dentler,
Harrison Diskin, Laura Dominguez, Max Felker-Kantor, Stan Fonseca, Nick Gliserman, D.J.
Gonzalez, Alicia Gutierrez-Romine, Justin Harr, Tahi Hicks, Yesenia Hunter, Sayantani Jana,
Nadia Kanegawa, Sachiko Kawai, Christian Paiz, Young Sun Park, Carlos Parra, Keith
Pluymers, Josh Poorman, Steve Samols, Gary Stein, Angelica Stoddaard, Yu Tokunaga, Dan
Wallace, and Emily Warren.
I thank my USC professors James Adams, Lisa Bitel, Sam Erhman, Phil Ethington,
Richard Fox, Wolf Gruner, Lon Kurashige, Paul Lerner, Lindsay O’Neil, Nathan Perl-Rosenthal,
Steve Ross, George Sanchez, Vanessa Schwartz, Carole Shammas, Brett Sheehan, and Diana
Williams.
I thank Enid Baxter Ryce, Phillip Glass, Laura Muscatine, Larry Schick, Honest Engine
Films, and all the War & the Weather collaborators.
I thank Elizabeth Logan, Jessica Kim, Taryn Haydostian, and the Huntington-USC
Institute for California & the West. I thank Amy Braden and Grace Converse of the USC-
Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute.
I thank my mentors at UC Riverside, Monte Kugel, Cliff Trafzer, Mike Davis, Cat
Allgor, David Biggs, Rich Minnich, and Earl Sisto. I also thank my teachers Lynda Bell, James
Brennan, Tom Cogswell, Kendra Field, Leon Garcia, Cathy Gudis, Steve Hackel, Randy Head,
Ray Kea, Tom Lutz, Rob Patch, Robert Perez, Sterling Stuckey, Devra Weber, and Howie
Wettstein.
I thank Seth Archer, Julia Bourbois, Bob Przeklasa, Todd Luce, Kevin Whalen, Matt
Sakiestewa Gilbert, Carolyn Schutten, Kristen Hayashi, Natalie Anderson-Patch, Sean
Milanovich, Daisy Ocampo, Josh Little, Miranda Roberts, Colin Whiting, Steve Teske, Nicolette
Rohr, Jimmy Stroup, Carlos Dimas, Santos Roman, Jeremy Billy, Delban Leslie, Josh Gonzalez,
and all my colleagues at UCR.
I thank the families Azargoshasb, DeMello, Farrokhi, Freeman, Ford, Gonzalez,
Hamadahni, Henry, Hosseni, Johnson, Jordan, Kaplan, Katebian, Kemp, Knox, Larson, Longe,
Mendoza, Mora, Musa, Neufeld, Payesteh, Roberts, Rodriguez, Thompson, Vahedi, and Walker.
With great appreciation, I thank my parents Stephen and Mary, my sisters Krystin and
Katelyn, my in-laws, John, Sandy, Phil, and Samantha and the extended Cowan, Latino, Kösch,
and Yogi clans. My deepest gratitude goes to my wife and best friend Anastasia Latino and our
pibbles Lucille and Luna, (oh) and our felines Keytone and Beetlejuice. A thousand apologies to
those I missed.
v
Table of Contents
Epigraph .......................................................................................................................................... ii
Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ vii
List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................x
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1
Chapter 1: Deep histories of the Pacific Slope ..............................................................................15
Origins and outlines ...........................................................................................................18
Major hydroregions ............................................................................................................28
Ocean and atmosphere .......................................................................................................44
A timeline of weather and water extremes ........................................................................46
Chapter 2: Superstorms, atmospheric rivers, and Indigenous memory .........................................76
Rivers in the sky .................................................................................................................78
Indigenous histories of superstorms ...................................................................................85
“There is the work of Warm Wind” ...................................................................................92
Moist Tongues, Pineapple Expresses, and the ARkStorm ...............................................103
Disaster, storytelling, and memory ..................................................................................107
Chapter 3: “The Big Winter”
Part 1: November – December 1861 ................................................................................111
Part 2: December 1861 – January 1862 ...........................................................................181
Part 3: February – Fall 1862 ............................................................................................281
Chapter 4: Disaster, literature, and popular memory of the Big Winter ......................................309
Bret Harte: “Notes of Flood and Field,” and “The High-Water Mark” ...........................311
Margaret Kerr Hosmer: You-Sing and a true story of the Sacramento Flood .................325
Twain: The Isle of Honey Lake Smith, a desert snowstorm, and the
great landslide case of 1862 .............................................................................................339
vi
Chapter 5: Lost towns and landscapes of memory: local history and the Big Winter .................355
Kalapuya Champoeg and the Métis world of the Willamette ..........................................357
The Genízaros of Agua Mansa and La Placita de los Trujillos .......................................371
The lost Chinese Temple Island of Yuba River ...............................................................392
Conclusion: .................................................................................................................................406
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................415
Appendix: Selected Meteorological Data ....................................................................................441
vii
List of Tables
Table 1: Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory’s daily rainfall and temperature data for Nov. 1861 - June 1862 ..441
Table 2: San Francisco Presidio daily rainfall and temperature data for Nov. 1861 - Jan. 1862 ...............................442
Table 3: Marysville, California daily rainfall and temperature figures for January 1862 ..........................................443
Table 4: Fort Sacramento, Sacramento California daily temperatures and rainfall totals, Nov. 1861 – June 1862 ...444
Table 5: “New” San Diego, California daily rainfall and temperature data for Nov. 1861 – Jan. 1862 ....................445
Table 6: Combined daily rainfall totals for 10 sites California ..................................................................................446
Table 7: Combined rainfall totals at Sacramento and Grass Valley California ..........................................................447
Table 8: Selected daily meteorological data for November 1861 from Fort Vancouver ............................................448
Table 9: Selected daily meteorological data for December 1861 from Fort Vancouver ............................................449
Table 10: Selected daily meteorological data for January 1862 from Fort Vancouver ..............................................450
Table 11: Selected daily meteorological data for January 1862 from San Francisco, California ..............................451
Table 12: Selected daily meteorological data for January 1862 from “New” San Diego, California ........................452
viii
List of Figures
Figure 1: The Pacific Slope of North America. ............................................................................................................23
Figure 2: The Northern Slope. ......................................................................................................................................31
Figure 3: The Central Slope ..........................................................................................................................................35
Figure 4: The South Coast ............................................................................................................................................39
Figure 5: The Southern Slope .......................................................................................................................................41
Figure 6: The Great Basin of the Pacific Slope. ...........................................................................................................43
Figure 7: Watersheds of the Pacific Slope ....................................................................................................................44
Figure 9: FEMA 100- and 500-year flood hazards on the Pacific Slope ......................................................................74
Figure 8: Composites of primary AR pathways in three regimes ...............................................................................102
Figure 12: “Flood 1861, Oregon City,” Oregon Historical Society. ..........................................................................119
Figure 13: The Steamer Onward near Salem, Oregon, 1861, Public Domain. ...........................................................133
Figure 14: “Sacramento during the flood. View north from R St. Levee,” California Historical Society. ................138
Figure 15: “Sacramento during the flood. View north from R Street levee.” California Historical Society. ............145
Figure 16: “‘La Grange,’ prison brig, 1860,” California History Room. ...................................................................147
Figure 17: “Sacramento: Fires & floods: Floods of 1862, View from top of building 4
th
and N St.” California History
Room. ................................................................................................................................................................149
Figure 18: “Sacramento during the flood, view taken from Mr. Hamberger’s residence, on N Street, between fourth
and fifth.” California History Room. ................................................................................................................151
Figure 19: “The Old Agricultural Pavilion," California State Library .......................................................................155
Figure 20: “Sacramento during the flood. 1
st
Street (Front Street), south from I Street, #19.” California History
Room .................................................................................................................................................................157
Figure 21: “Sacramento during the flood K street east from 4
th
St.” neg no 22513, California Historical Society ...161
Figure 22: “Sacramento during the flood. View taken from Mr. Hamberger’s residence on N St., between 4
th
and 5
th”
Bancroft Library. ...............................................................................................................................................164
Figure 23: T “Sacramento City During the Great Flood of 1862. No. 31. View North from R Street Levee.”
Sacramento Co.: Sacramento: Lawrence & Houseworth, #31; stereo 1495, California State Library, Picture
Collection ..........................................................................................................................................................167
Figure 24: "The Floods in California," From London Illustrated News, 1862. ..........................................................170
Figure 25: “L Street, looking east from the Levee, on the banks of the Sacramento River. #30.” California History
Room. ................................................................................................................................................................177
Figure 26: “M Street, east from Sixth Street, showing the Street Ferry Boats. #17.” California History Room .......178
Figure 27: “Sacramento During the flood. J Street East of Third Street.” Charles Weed, 1862, California History
Room (Left). Figure 28: “Sacramento during the flood. J Street East of Third Street.” California History Room
(Right) ...............................................................................................................................................................186
Figure 29: “Sacramento during the flood, California State Library. ..........................................................................189
Figure 30: “Sacramento During the Flood. View North from R Street Levee," Bancroft Library .............................197
ix
Figure 31: “Sacramento During the Flood, Taken from the top of the Pavilion, 6
th
and M St.,” California History
Room. ................................................................................................................................................................204
Figure 32: “Head of Stockton Channel From El Dorado Street Bridge during 1862 Flood, Stockton CA,” Wm. M.
Stuart, Bancroft Library. ...................................................................................................................................211
Figure 33: "Spotlighting Seattle's Story" series, Episode 114 entitled "Seattle's Coldest Winter", 1931, Suzzalo
Library University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections. ...................................................................215
Figure 34: “Sacramento during the flood. View taken from Mr. Hamberger’s residence, on N St. between 4
th
& 5
th
.”
California Historical Society .............................................................................................................................222
Figure 35: “L Street, Looking East from the Levee, on the Banks of the Sacramento River. #30.” California
Historical Society ..............................................................................................................................................228
Figure 37: “Sacramento During the Flood. Taken from the top of Pavilion, 6
th
& M. St.”, Bancroft Library ...........235
Figure 38: “Flood Waters in Sacramento,” A Camera in the Gold Rush, California Historical Society ...................238
Figure 39: “Sacramento City Flood of 1862,” View of Flooded K Street, looking east from the levee. What Cheer
House at right. Bancroft Library .......................................................................................................................242
Figure 40: The Shubrick, Public Domain. ..................................................................................................................243
Figure 41: “Sacramento during the flood. Taken from top of Pavilion, 6
th
& M Sts.” California Historical Society.
...........................................................................................................................................................................257
Figure 43: “Nash & Fogg Boots & Shoes, During 1862 Flood, Stockton, CA,” Bancroft Library ...........................262
Figure 44: “View of Stockton from Photographer’s Studio During 1862 Flood,” Wm M. Stuart, Bancroft Library 266
Figure 45: “Sacramento: Fires & Floods: Flood Jan 1862,” California History Room. .............................................267
Figure 46: Poster for "California Food Mazurka,” Huntington Library. ....................................................................286
Figure 47: “Sacramento City. Central RR Works at China Slough,” Bancroft Library. ............................................300
Figure 48: "You-Sing offering to help Mary" from Hosmer, You-Sing. ....................................................................331
Figure 49: "The Rescue," Image from You-Sing, Margaret Hosmer. .........................................................................334
Figure 50: “Crossing the Flood,” and “The Rescue,” from Roughing It!, 1871. ........................................................346
Figure 51: “Advance in a Circle,” and “Camping in the Snow,” from Roughing It!, 1871. ......................................348
Figure 52: Mr. King with Champoeg school children (c. 1859), Oregon Historical Society. ....................................364
Figure 53: Author at Champoeg high water marker ...................................................................................................369
Figure 55: “The Bell at Agua Mansa,” San Bernardino County Library. ...................................................................386
Figure 56: "Chapel Agua Mansa," California Historical Society ...............................................................................389
Figure 57: "Long Bar, Yuba River," California History Room. .................................................................................393
x
Abstract
The Pacific Slope Superstorms and the Big Winter of 1861-1862 tell the environmental
and social histories of the wettest and coldest winter on the West Coast in the last three centuries.
Simultaneously, this dissertation presents a broad overview of atmospheric rivers, elemental
meteorological features in the region’s past, present, and future. This meteorological force, and
the Big Winter of 1862 in particular, demonstrate that western American aridity is but part of the
region’s water history. This dissertation reveals issues of environmental justice and disaster relief
in the 19
th
century North American West. In so doing, it also investigates the legacy of these lost
histories lingering in nineteenth century western fiction and tucked away in local historical sites.
1
“The story has no obvious beginning, and no obvious ending because the point is that the history of a disaster, like the
history of anything, is infinitely long, and varied.”
–Andy Horowitz, “Disasters Have Histories”
1
Introduction: The Pacific Slope Superstorms and the Big Winter of 1861-1862
It was the twilight of the Little Ice Age. But, there were still glimmers of that fading momenta yet
brewing. The era had been colder, wetter, and the weather tempestuous. But the climate was
changing.
From his perch at Neah Bay on the far western tip of Washington Territory at the entryway
of the Juan de Fuca's Strait, the Salish Sea, and Puget Sound, James Swan watched the next wave
of storms wheel along the Pacific horizon. It had already been a remarkable winter there, but on
the third morning of November 1861, Swan saw the most dreadful surf and tallest tides he had
ever seen, an omen of the wicked winter to come.
2
At Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia
River, the rains fell heavy and steady through the month, and the river slowly began to rise. Ten
days of rain began in San Francisco Bay on the 10
th
, and by the next day, the rain started to fall in
California’s Great Central Valley. For what seemed like the entire month, a thick fog coated
everything in heavy dew across San Diego and on the 14
th
, the rainstorms had reached the U.S.
1 Andy Horowitz, “Hurricane Betsy and the Politics of Disaster in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, 1965-1967,”
Journal of Southern History Vol. 80, No. 4, November 2014; “The Complete Story of the Galveston Horror:
Trauma, History, and the Great Storm of 1900,” Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques Vol. 41, No. 3,
Winter 2015. Chad Parker, Andy Horowitz, and Liz Skilton, Disasters Have Histories”: Teaching and Researching
American Disasters,” OAH Blog, 2018; Fagan, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850, Basic
Books, 2001.
2 Coined by François E. Matthes in 1939, this cooling of the northern hemisphere lasted roughly from the 16th century
to the mid to late 19th century. NASA notes three distinct sub periods, starting in 1650, 1770, and 1850. Some
climatologists argue it ended in 1850, though that could be due to regional variations; For more see John A.
Matthews and Keith R. Briffa, “The ‘Little Ice Age’: Re-Evaluation of An Evolving Concept,” Geografiska Annaler,
2005, 20. These early rains hit in different places along the coast on different dates and some regions, especially the
north had as many as six weeks of cold storms leading up to the first of December, while regions to the south,
Southern California and Arizona were relatively sunny and dry in the waning of Fall that year. For Swan see #5
Daily Journal 1861-1862, Diary number 5, entry on November 3, 1861, James Gilchrist Swan Papers, Special
Collections, University of Washington Libraries, Seattle, Washington.
2
Mexico border.
The Big Winter of 1861-1862 was one of the most severe ever to hit North America. That
season a series of powerful atmospheric rivers and a plunging jet stream inspired a chain of massive
storms that overwhelmed every waterway on the Pacific Slope of North America.
3
From
approximately November of 1861 through May of 1862, the sequence of storms crashed across
the West Coast, landing from British Columbia to Baja California and as far inland as Arizona,
Nevada, Utah, and Idaho.
Storms dumped snow across the Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges. Rains hammered down
nearly uninterrupted for months. Waterways up and down the Slope overflowed. The Willamette
River stretched like a sheet across its entire eponymous valley and over almost every town.
California's Great Central Valley became a gigantic 500-mile-long contiguous lake system that
lasted into the next year. Steamboats skimmed back and forth in straight lines over submerged
towns and ranches as they delivered supplies to stranded communities and families and rescued
people and their animals from treetops and rooftops. The lower Colorado spilled across the desert
and into the sea.
As the winter wore on, sinking temperatures froze waterways across the Pacific slope.
Skaters carved up frozen lakes around Puget Sound while the Columbia River was encased in ice.
Rivers flooded, then froze, then melted and overflowed again. Stormwaters poured through the
City of Sacramento at least four times that winter. Steamers used bay water in their boilers, and
anglers pulled freshwater fish out of San Francisco Bay for weeks. The floodwaters poured through
3 The heavy rains and valley-wide floods were caused by “synoptic weather patterns configuring air flow into the
West Coast to produce strong atmospheric rivers, combined with a series of mid-latitude cyclones.” This pattern
“shifted from north to the south, along the West Coast of the U.S.” as the Big Winter unfurled. The “soggy weather
pattern initially struck Oregon, then moved south and stalled — pummeling northern California…The moist pattern
then shifted further south, finally causing extreme flooding into Southern California....” Larry Schick, “Warning
from the Past: The message, meteorology and myths from the Great West Coast flooding of 1861-1862,” U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers Presentation, June 26. 2012.
3
the streets of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego. The Santa Ana ran at least four feet
deep and seventy miles wide as it spilled across the coast. At its peak flow at Agua Mansa, the
Santa Ana moved 725,000 cubic feet of water per second, comparable to the Mississippi at high
water. Up and down the West coast, nearly every dam, bridge, ferry, and mill were damaged or
destroyed. Farm equipment and crops washed away leaving transformed landscapes in the
aftermath. Floodwaters scrubbed entire towns from the soil, dislocated communities, and scattered
families. Provisions dwindled and swelled in price. Hundreds of thousands of livestock drowned,
froze, or starved to death. Hundreds, maybe even as many as a thousand people died.
4
For at least a time, Washingtonians remembered that dreadful season as the "Big Winter."
Oregonians once called it the "Great Flood." In Utah, it was the "Year of the Floods." In California,
it was the "Great Calamity" and the “Winter of the Floods.” Notorious nineteenth-century booster
and historian J.M. Guinn dubbed the deluges "Noachian." For North Americans on the Pacific
edge of the continent—miners on the Fraser and Salmon rivers, Métis steamboaters near Portland,
Chinese miners in the Sacramento Valley, Californio ranchers, LDS colonists in Utah Territory,
Genízaro settlers near Los Angeles, Klamath, Modoc, Yokuts, and other Native Peoples
throughout the region, and for Euro-American settler-colonists across the Pacific West—these
collective catastrophes were stark and haunting moments of regional and local memory. But, since
that time, they have been largely forgotten.
Blending environmental history, Indigenous studies, critical disaster theory, my
dissertation—which I have nicknamed "Flood Meridians" for ease—is the first reconstruction of
the Big Winter of 1861-1862.
5
It is also a deep dive into the history of atmospheric rivers and the
4 Casualty statistics are murky; estimates drawn from newspaper reports, personal correspondence, Sacramento
coroner records.
5 The events of that winter, especially the floods, have been remarked upon over the years, but most written on these
are only a sentence of a passage. Scholarship that gave more attention to localized aspects of the Big Winter include:
4
storms they transport to North America. For eons, these distinctly west-coast phenomena,
exemplified by the superstorms of 1862, have shaped, and reshaped the physical, cultural, and
social geographies of the Pacific Slope. To tell more about the history of these atmospheric forces,
this dissertation presents broad research finds in Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, and
western meteorology. This is ultimately a work of history, and so it relies heavily on the historian's
conventional sources—diaries, letters, newspapers, government reports. But it also incorporates
Indigenous oral histories, and evidence from the Earth's archives—tree rings, preserved pollen,
and other matter in soil layers, and sea and lake floor core samples—to resurrect these histories.
6
W. H. Brewer, Up & Down California, Robert Cleland Cattle on a Thousand Hills. H. H. Bancroft, History of
California, Vol. 8, 1860-1890, 647; Edward Lansing Wells, “Notes on the Winter of 1861–2 in the Pacific
Northwest,” Northwest Science 21, 1947, 76–83. Paper presented at the American Meteorological Society,
University of Washington, Seattle, 19 June 1936. Edward Lansing Wells delivered a paper on the flood to the
American Meteorological Society at the University of Washington in June of 1936. Lansing Wells combines official
weather records, newspaper accounts, the diary of George H. Himes, and the personal recollections of a “Mr. S. T.
Walker of Forest Grove.” Wells worked forty-nine years for US Weather Bureau as a meteorologist for the Bureau
office at Boise, Idaho and finally the in Portland, Oregon where he retired as senior meteorologist in 1944. Karle,
Water and Power, Reisner, Cadillac Desert, Robert Kelley, Battling the inland Sea, Hundley, The Great Thirst,
Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear, George R. Miller, “The great Willamette River flood of 1861,” Oregon Historical
Quarterly, 100, 187-207; Meteorologist George R. Miller also worked with the Bureau—now officially the National
Weather Service. He spent over thirty-five years following weather patterns across the upper West at Medford,
Denver, Salt Lake City, and Portland. Miller gives great credit to Suzanne Miller and Edward Hubbard of USGS,
Oregon District, and Richard Cassidy, US Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District. “The flood produced by the
January 1862 storm was the largest, in terms of estimated peak discharge, of three major late nineteenth century
floods in southern California whose magnitude equaled or exceeded the largest twentieth century flood.” Wayne N.,
Engstrom, “The California Storm of January 1862,” Quaternary Research 46, no. 2, 1996, 141-148; Jared Orsi,
Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban Ecology in Los Angeles, California, 2004. Andrew Isenberg, Mining
California, Ingraham and Malamud-Roam, The West Without Water. Moreover, there have been several detectives
of the Big Winter over the years, and I am indebted to their work: Larry Schick, Leon Hunsaker, Claude Curran, W.
Leonard Taylor & Robert W. Taylor, Joel Pomerantz, and Allan Shields. The team of Hunsaker and Curran have
been following flooding in Sacramento for much of their lives. Please see their Hunsaker, Leon M., and Claude W.
Curran. " Lake Sacramento": Can it Happen Again? 2005; “Five on 5 - Leon Hunsaker & Dr. Claude Curran,”
KOBI-TV NBC5 / KOTI-TV NBC2, January 6, 2018, https://kobi5.com/features/five-5-leon-hunsaker-dr-claude-
curran-68881/.
6 While there has always been interest in the history of disaster, there has been increased interests in these events in
the history of North America. John C. Burnham, “A Neglected Field: The History of Natural Disasters,”
Perspectives AHA, 1988, 22-24; Joanna Leslie Dyl, Seismic City: An Environmental History of San Francisco’s
1906 Earthquake, Washington Press, 2017; C.F. Talman, “Storms Have a Hand in History Making,” NYT Magazine,
July 29, 1928, 16. C. B. Valencius, The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes; Linda Gordon, Pitied but Not
Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare, Free Press, 1994. Michele Landis Dauber, The Sympathetic
State: Disaster Relief and the Origins of the American Welfare State, Chicago, 2012; Christopher Morris, The Big
Muddy: An Environmental History of the Mississippi and Its Peoples from Hernando de Soto to Hurricane Katrina,
Oxford, 2012, Philip L. Fradkin, The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly
Destroyed Itself, California, 2006; Patricia Bellis Bixel and Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Galveston and the 1900 Storm,
5
“Flood Meridians” offers a geographical and meteorological overview of that long winter.
It recovers the sequence, timing, and expansive topographical extent of the Big Winter’s
superstorms and their consequences. It presents historical examples of how Pacific storms can
move fast, hit hard, and appear repeatedly over a vast geography for weeks and even months. At
the same time, this study investigates the history of atmospheric rivers and the storms they bring
to the Pacific West and emphasizes atmospheric rivers' function to the weather and the water cycles
of the Pacific Slope. They influence wet and dry periods, end droughts, cause floods, sustain
wetlands, refill reservoirs, floodplains, and fisheries, and stress flood control systems. The
sequence and succession of disasters that occurred that winter forces us to reimagine what we think
we know of disaster, vulnerability, and resilience in these geographies.
7
The superstorms of that winter are a glaring reminder that aridity is only part of the story
of the American West. In the public imagination the demise of the West Coast will come not by a
cascade of storm water, but by earthquake, drought, wildfire, or insurrection.
8
Because of the
Texas, 2000; Ted Steinberg, Acts of God : The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America, Oxford, 2000;
Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World, Verso, 2002; Donald
Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, Oxford, 1982.
7 L. Quarantelli, and R. R. Dynes. “Response to Social Crisis and Disaster,” Annual Review of Sociology 3, no. 1,
1977, 23–49; G. A. Kreps, “Sociological Inquiry and Disaster Research,” Annual Review of Sociology 10, no. 1,
1984, 309–30; Samuel Henry Prince, Catastrophe and Social Change: Based upon a Sociological Study of the
Halifax Disaster, Leopold Classic Library, 2017; Graham Owen, “After the Flood: Disaster Capitalism and the
Symbolic Restructuring of Intellectual Space.” Culture and Organization 17, no. 2, 2011, 123–137; Adams,
Vincanne, Taslim Van Hattum, and Diana English, “Chronic Disaster Syndrome: Displacement, Disaster
Capitalism, and the Eviction of the Poor from New Orleans,” American Ethnologist 36, no. 4, 2009, 615–36; Rich
Hutchings and Marina La Salle, “Archaeology as Disaster Capitalism,” International Journal of Historical
Archaeology 19, no. 4, 2015, 699–720; David McCullough, The Johnstown Flood, Simon & Schuster, 1987.
8
Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, 1999 and “Los Angeles after the Storm:
The Dialectic of Ordinary Disaster.” Antipode 27, no. 3, 1995, 221-24: “Paranoia about nature, of course, distracts
attention from the obvious fact that Los Angeles has deliberately put itself in harm’s way. For generations, market-
driven urbanization has transgressed environmental commonsense. Historic wildfire corridors have been turned into
view-lot suburbs, wetland liquefaction zones into marinas, and flood plains into industrial districts and housing
tracts. Monolithic public works have been substituted for regional planning and a responsible land ethic. As a result,
Southern California has reaped flood, fire and earthquake tragedies that were as avoidable, and unnatural, as the
beating of Rodney King and the ensuing explosion in the streets. But the social construction of “natural” disaster is
largely hidden from view by a perverse ideology that simultaneously imposes false categories and expectations on
the environment, and then explains the inevitable discrepancies as proof of a malign and hostile Nature.”
6
Slopes unique geology, water there works differently. Water moves through that landscape faster
and more violently, and the timing of its arrival can be volatile. From a meteorological perspective
alone, the Big Winter of 1862 is significant. The sheer amount of precipitation was historic. It was
one of the seven wettest winters in the last two thousand years and likely coldest over the previous
three hundred. More rain fell in eight weeks over Sonora, California than in any 12 months on
record. Over one hundred inches fell in only a few months, and perhaps a national record 84 inches
of snow fell over twenty-four hours in the Sierra. Stream systems up and down the Pacific coast
erupted in short succession, turning inland valleys into large lakes and coastal plains into expansive
quagmires. It rained for thirty consecutive days in some places. Walla Walla, Washington received
615 percent of its normal precipitation. The Dalles in Oregon received 176 percent of its average.
California alone received over 200 percent of its so-called average rainfall. San Diego recorded
300 percent of normal. Sacramento over 400 percent and San Francisco recorded a 500 percent
increase in precipitation. The extreme freeze that followed was equally historical, with the freezing
temperatures at sea level in the Pacific Northwest and frozen rivers across the American West.
9
Exceptional winter, exceptional data, to be sure, but it will happen again, which is all the more
reason to grapple with all that 1861-62 was, mean, and did.
"Flood Meridians” also explores the social history of disaster of the Big Winter.
10
In doing
the dissertation pushes issues of environmental justice back into the 19
th
century showing that
9 “Periods of snowy, cold weather and episodes of warm rain accompanied by melting snow alternated during the
winter, leading to extreme flooding.” McGlashan and Briggs, 1939, 430 – 431; Null and Hulbert, 2007; Dettinger &
Sidler, 1967, Lynch, 1931; Engstrom, “The California Storm of January 1862”; Roden, 1989, 105.
10 Though researchers have noted the episode, it has generally been another footnote in the region’s history.
Historians have yet to piece together what was in fact a coast wide megaflood, which in some sites remains the
highest flood waters recorded to date. The existing literature gives an impression of momentous, but fundamentally
parochial events unrelated to each other or the overlapping colonial, national and international histories of the
region. Likewise, historians have also spent less time interrogating the ways large scale weather and climate
disruptions predisposed the far West and the eastern Pacific basin—both social and environmental landscapes—for
the continued expansion of the United States’ empire and the consolidation of the U.S. nation-state. While some
Americanists maintain that U.S. imperialism technically begins in the 1890s, a growing coterie has also pointed to
7
historical contingencies made certain populations more susceptible to the fallout of the
superstorms of ‘62. It conjures an array experiences and responses to extreme catastrophe in an
era when neither the states, nor the federal government assumed the responsibility of protecting
and rescuing its populace from environmental hazards, especially in far western states and
territories. Across these overlapping disasterscapes, we see instances of individual and community
volunteerism, heroism, and resilience. We see how those suffering the brunt of the devastation
looked to family, friends, neighbors, and strangers, institutions formal and informal, for emergency
rescue and aid.
11
These histories reveal that although the devastation was widespread, it was the
poor and non-white, particularly Indigenous Peoples and Chinese Americans, who suffered
disproportionately, and who were predominantly left out of the recovery efforts.
That winter’s disasters also struck deep as economic and political wounds. Floods, freezes,
famines, and culling devastated the livestock industries, especially those involving cattle. The Big
Winter sped the decline of the Californio cattle economy. The floods and debris flows washed
away or buried orchards, vineyards, and gardens, weakened agricultural production and the food
supply. Overloaded rivers damaged or destroyed almost every dam, mill, bridge, ferry, interrupted
mining, commerce, travel, and communication, and disrupted the just-completed telegraph. The
storms swamped California's capital, drenching Leland Stanford's inauguration and eventually
ever more examples of imperial intention and action by the United States that predate the Spanish-American War.
Ned Blackhawk, Violence over the Land Indians and Empires in the Early American West, Harvard, 2006; Pekka
Hamalainen, The Comanche Empire, Yale, 2009; Brian DeLay, War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the
U.S.-Mexican War, Yale, 2009; Pekka Hamalainen and Samuel Truett, “On Borderlands,” JAH, 98, no. 2, 2011,
338–61; Eric T. L. Love, Race over Empire: Racism and U.S. Imperialism, 1865-1900, North Carolina Press, 2004;
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Beacon, 2015; Virginia Scharff, ed.,
Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West, California Press, 2015; Anne F. Hyde, Empires, Nations, and
Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860, Nebraska Press, 2011; Ari Kelman, A Misplaced
Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek, Harvard, 2013.
11 John P. Clark, The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism. Contemporary Anarchist Studies,
Bloomsbury, 2014. Jacob Remes, Disaster Citizenship Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era,
Illinois, 2016.
8
forcing the governor, legislature, and supreme court to move to San Francisco, a move some at the
time wanted to make permanent. The court indeed ended up staying. The disasters of the Big
Winter encouraged wetlands reclamation, industrial agriculture, extensive lowland settlement, and
eventually large-scale flood control across the Pacific West. While California’s Central Valley is
a familiar case for these processes, the Big Winter reminds us that Sacramento is not the only
example of settler decisions to build and rebuild in flood plains. The Anglo-Americans who came
to conquer the Slope and its peoples, believed they could conquer nature as well, despite suffering
through the devastations of that winter. And they had to dramatically alter the hydroscapes of the
Slope to do so.
12
“Flood Meridians” is divided into five chapters. In chapter one I present a geo-biography
of the Pacific Slope—a relatively brief but deep history of what and where the Slope is, how it
came to be, and how its geo-systems "work." Every corner of the region endured the effects of the
Big Winter of 1862. The specific idiosyncrasies of the variegated geographies of the Slope dictated
how severely the storms of that winter landed. This chapter outlines the geography of the Pacific
Slope based on its major river systems. It presents a brief geologic history of the landscape and the
importance of the ocean, mountains, and watersheds in delineating its major regions. Oceanic
storms hit coastal ranges, make rivers, and have created the Pacific Slope of North America over
vast spans of time. In this chapter I also chart a broad chronology of extreme wet and dry events
in the history of the Pacific Slope. The section investigates precipitation extremes over the past
centuries to contextualize the winter of 1861-62.
13
The Big Winter was an exceptional season with
12 J. M., Albala-Bertrand, “Political Economy of Large Natural Disasters: With Special Reference to Developing
Countries,” OUP Catalogue, Oxford, 1993.
13 David Chang argues that the formulation “Pacific World” ignores Indigenous “concepts of history and geography
and obscures Atlantic influences on the Pacific. For Chang, 19th century California was one of “many nodes in a
globalizing world” where Indigenous and Settler-Colonial societies interlinked through “social networks, family
relationships, and colonial processes.” For California and the Pacific World Melillo, Strangers in a Strange Land,
Gulliver, “Finding the Pacific World,” Cartwright, “Pacific Passages,” and Osborne, “Pacific Eldorado.” Stacey
9
extraordinary precipitation totals. This chapter shows that while rare, these types of exceptional
storms and the weather hazards they create are a recurrent element of the Pacific Slope.
14
In doing so, I look to again answer the question of what defines “the West.” Aridity has its
place in our understandings, of course, but it is not enough nor sufficient. I argue that a hydraulic
framing is one way to bound what we generally call the American West. We need to
reconceptualize how we have been thinking about this space and how weather and water work
there. Precipitation acts differently there because of the unique topography and geologic history of
the Pacific Slope. These storms show us one way how, as the floods that winter highlight and
outline this geography. This section wrestles with what and where the West Slope is and how the
Pacific and its storms shape the landscape by connecting rivers to rain cycles. The point here is to
re-envision the "West"—one of many Wests—by watersheds and the storms that charge them.
15
Chapter two investigates the history of atmospheric rivers, one of the fundamental forces
that have shaped the Pacific Slope through time. This section looks at how the combination of
vernacular, professional, and Indigenous knowledge creation informs our understanding of
atmospheric rivers and how these contributed to the recent "discovery" of atmospheric rivers.
While atmospheric rivers seem a new phenomenon, Native Peoples have observed and recorded
Smith, Freedom’s Frontier, 254; Chang, “Borderlands in a World at Sea,” 400; Gibson and Whitehead, Yankees in
Paradise, 103-30.
14 Flood suppression prefigured/proceeded the official era of fire suppression in the American West . Like wildfire,
certain types of flooding be returned to certain landscapes. While destructive, flooding also retains aspects that are
beneficial to the landscape. Much like wildfires, floods are dynamic processes that manifest within the mechanisms
of the material world. Riparian plant species and their assemblages have evolved to be reliant upon flood
disturbances to reproduce. Floods clear excess litter and spread seeds. Flooding also scrubs sediments, fertilizes
flood plains, and replenishes gravel beds for spawning fishes. Water percolates down through the coarse rock and
fine silt of alluvial fans, making it into Southern California's underground aquifers. Floods shape landscapes and
influence how societies shape landscapes which in turn shapes floods, continuing the cycle. Flooding is more than
just a meteorological or hydrological process. It is also a historical one. And so are societal responses to flooding.
From White Rose Network, University Of Leeds, Sheffield & York.
15
John Wesley Powell's watershed states idea of a century ago, United States et al., Survey of the Colorado River of
the West: Letter from the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Transmitting Report Preliminary for Continuing
the Survey of the Colorado of the West and Its Tributaries, by Professor J. W. Powell, 1872.
10
the warm winds and aerial rivers for hundreds of generations. First Peoples have lived on this
landscape the longest and know it best. The longest-tenured peoples know the land and its
processes. Their oral traditions both record past superstorm events and anticipate their return in
stunning detail. This chapter shares a collection of Indigenous oral traditions of Pacific storms and
floods and argues that these histories show traditional ecological knowledge of atmospheric rivers.
Kim Tallbear reminds us that “long before western science came to these shores, there were
scientists” in North America. “Western science is a powerful approach, but it is not the only one.
Indigenous science provides a wealth of knowledge and a powerful alternative paradigm." And we
will need to look to both as we move deeper into the uncertainties of the Anthropocene and
atmospheric rivers and their impacts will grow more severe.
16
Chapter three reconstructs the events—floods, freezes, famines—of the winter of 1861-
1862 from Seattle to San Diego. It tells stories of the disaster, resiliency, the different ways people
responded, and communicates the exceptional size and power of this caravan of storms.
Simultaneously, it describes the ways individuals and groups responded to the collection of
disasters that winter. The chapter will look at the multiple formal and informal institutions that
came to the aid of those most afflicted. While the rescue and relief efforts near the major cities of
Sacramento and San Francisco were robust, many others, peculiarly Native Peoples, Chinese
Californians, ethnic Calfornios who suffered disproportionally, and the section will also examine
how those tried to understand the events through different political, cosmological, scientific, or
cultural perspectives.
The fourth chapter looks at cultural representations and historical memory of the Big
Winter in Western American literature. It recounts how some of the events of that winter were
16 Kim Tallbear quoted from Robin Wall Kimmerer, “A Letter from Indigenous Scientists in Support of the March for
Science,” April 21, 2017, Milkweed.org.
11
remembered and mediated in public culture in the immediate aftermath and how they were
remembered in the years that followed. It compares writings by Margaret Hosmer, Bret Harte, and
Mark Twain, all of whom survived that incredible winter to write about it. The chapter argues that
one reason why a winter so "Great," "Big," and "Noachian” has been forgotten, is that it was
subsumed in the larger-than-life tales of the Old West. These pieces of American literature read
much differently considering the reality of the horrors of the Big Winter. More, the authors work
shows the Anglo-settler need to interpret natural events, racial others, and the interactions between
the two during the Big Winter to employ moral arguments about racial injustices and the retributive
power of natural disasters to remake the world.
Chapter five brings local history to coastal catastrophe. The section focuses on three
specific settlements destroyed by the floods of 1861-62 and their divergent stories from that winter
to the present. Champoeg on Oregon's Willamette River, Agua Mansa along Southern California's
Santa Ana River, and the Chinese island temple village on California's Yuba River were thriving
settlements. Each was wiped from the earth during the Big Winter of 1862. Each though has
garnered different amounts of historical significance over the years, public faced historical
marking that reflects this. While these sites hold of local importance, their connections to the West
Coast's worst winter in the last three hundred years are mostly unknown. And one location, a little-
known Chinese town on an island in the Yuba River, like the storms that destroyed it, has been
overlooked. This chapter explores how generations of settler-colonial settlement strips knowledge
from the landscape and public memory, again points to the connections between natural events,
racial justice, and the politics of place.
A founding premise of disaster studies is that there is no such thing as a natural disaster.
This principle underlies the study of the past as well. Disasters look less random or less inevitable
12
when we appreciate them as products of social arrangements and human decisions. We can
highlight the contingencies that put people and communities in danger and how things could have
been different. Reconstructing past cataclysms helps us plan better for future disturbances.
Studying the history of disaster helps us find past precedent for current and coming catastrophes.
Disasters haunt the human psyche. Every society develops disaster discourses. Every generation
reimagines its demise. New mentalities and technologies promise protections while producing new
pathways to doom. History doesn't just happen. Disasters don't just happen. History is made, as
are disasters. And disasters have histories.
17
Though now lost mainly to West Coasters, for many people on the nineteenth century
Pacific Slope, the winter storms of 1862 delivered the defining environmental upheaval of their
lives. And while largely forgotten by most who now live in these waterscapes, the effects of the
Big Winter altered the landscape and perceptions of the landscape and encouraged successive
17 The field of disaster studies has expanded with the growing awareness and impacts of global warming. Most studies
have focused on descriptive accountings of specific events, differing social and cultural responses, and policy and
emergency management. Common themes and debates include climate change, the Anthropocene, slow disaster,
“natural” disaster, and connections to capitalism, anarchism, colonialism, and surveillance. On natural disaster for
example: “The shifting of tectonic plates, for instance, may not be absolutely predictable, but from a geological
point of fire it is ‘normal.’ Most of these shifts go unnoticed, and no geologist would think of labeling them a
catastrophe. In other cases, nature may supply the trigger for disaster, but whether we call a natural occurrence a
catastrophe depends largely on our perception of its impact on humans.” from Christof Mauch, Natural Disasters,
Cultural Responses, Case Studies Toward a Global Environmental History, edited by Christof Mauch and Christian
Pfister, Lexington Books, 2009, 4. “Extreme natural events happen all the time, such as storms, earthquakes,
droughts, or landslides for instance, but they only become disasters if they affect inhabited areas and if they meet
populations that are unprepared for them.” Collection curated by Katrin Kleemann, Rachel Carson Center for
Environment and Society. Disasters always political consequences. The Mississippi floods of 1927, Lawrence
Powell reminds us, “made Herbert Hoover’s reputation, spurred the passage of the most comprehensive flood
control measure in the nations’ history, and helped launch the career of Huey P. Long, himself a force of nature.
Like wars and depressions, natural catastrophes can serve as detonating events, to use the late Arthur Schlesinger
Jr.’s evocative language, nudging history’s cyclical movement on a new direction—in the present case towards civic
engagement.” Disaster in state formation; Forces of disaster capitalism and disaster anarchism combined to shape
the state, regional politics, flood control and relief.” Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster
Capitalism, Picador, 2008. John P. Clark, The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism,
Contemporary Anarchist Studies, Bloomsbury, 2014. April Stapp, “Crises Transformed: The Motivations Behind
Engagement in Anarchy.” ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2017. Mark Schuller and Julie K. Maldonado,
“Disaster Capitalism.” Annals of Anthropological Practice 40, no. 1, 2016, 61–72; Antony Loewenstein, Disaster
Capitalism: Making a Killing out of Catastrophe, Verso Books, 2015.
13
generations of settlers, in turn, to modify the waterways of the Pacific Slope. So let me try to
conjure some histories. And as you follow along, remember that landscapes also have memories.
And water always finds its way.
14
15
“We think ourselves gods upon the land, but are, at most, mere tourists”
—Mike Davis, “Los Angeles After the Storm: The Dialectic of Ordinary Disaster”
1
Chapter 1: Deep histories of the Pacific Slope
All histories are cumulative, a maddening bricolage of all things past. A landslide of happenings,
repeatedly folding over themselves, revealing even while burying. That accretion weighs heavily
on the present, influencing events as they slide towards the future. Landscapes accrue in similar
ways and exert their own kind of gravity, their sway on events over time.
To understand the Big Winter of 1862, we must make some sense of "the Slope"—what it
is, where it is, and how its formation and continued transformation both shapes and is shaped by
Pacific storms, particularly atmospheric rivers. The storms of 1861-62 and the watersheds they
amplified reveal the outlines of the Pacific Slope and suggest ways of rethinking how we imagine
and understand the North American West. Younger than the rest of the continent, the patchwork
lands of the Pacific Slope emerged from a deep and arcane past of dramatic and violent
disturbances, of forces and processes slow, silent, and sometimes invisible—all combining to
produce some of the most distinct geographies on the planet. And yet, the Slope of today appears
much different than the one of the deep past, and in specific ways, the one of just a couple hundred
years ago.
This chapter offers passage through a kind of geomorphologic chronicle—a
geobiography—of Pacific North America.
2
Drawing from the Earth archives, the interpretations
1 Mike Davis, “Los Angeles After the Storm: The Dialectic of Ordinary Disaster,” Antipode 27, no. 3, 1995, 221–41.
2 A bioregional approach “regards region as a physical and cultural ecology of place, where ecological and cultural
systems interact to shape one another. Through this relationship, cultural structures and meanings can be discerned,
biotic processes understood, and historical change traced;” Richard A Minnich, The Biogeography of Fire in the San
Bernardino Mountains of California: A Historical Study, California, 1988; Nico Roymans et al., “Landscape
Biography as Research Strategy: The Case of the South Netherlands Project,” Landscape Research 34, no. 3, 2009):
337–59; A “historical research strategy, based on the concept of ‘landscape biography'…first introduced into Dutch
landscape research in the 1990s by archaeologists Kolen (1995), Roymans (1995) and Gerritsen
16
of past and present geoscientists, Indigenous histories, and clues from eighteenth and nineteenth-
century travel accounts and newspaper reports, what follows traces the Slope's history as a distinct
region from deep time into the present. This chapter gives glimpses of the Pacific West's hidden
hydrologies: the forgotten waterscapes of interlocking streams, lakes, lagoons, and wetlands, that
once marbled the Coastal Slope as well as the rivers in the sky that recharge and reshape this
region. The movements of lands and waters—whether through glaciation, rising or falling oceans
and their currents, or the storms the oceans nourish, or by rain, snow, ice, and the streams they
feed—shaped the contours and characteristics of the Slope. By seeing the Pacific West
geologically, meteorologically, and hydrologically, we can see better the overlapping histories that
make the Slope. Moreover, we see the connected and contingent forces that cause the drought, fire,
and flood events that characterize the American West. Extremes in wetness are as much a
characteristic of the American West as are extremes in dryness.
The Big Winter of 1862 was one of the wettest in the geologic record. But the same Earth
archives point to even wetter seasons in the long history of the Pacific Slope. To gauge where the
fearsome winter of 1862 fits in the history of precipitation extremes, this chapter also broadly
tracks the history of standout precipitation extremes in the Pacific Slope’s past over roughly the
past two millennia. This chapter shows how the Big Winter was the wettest season in the last three
hundred and one of the eight wettest winters in the previous 2,000 years.
3
At the same time, this
(1999)…formulation of the concept by the geographer Marwyn Samuels (1979)…landscapes cannot be
conceptualized without taking into account the individuals and groups that have shaped them over time…sense of
the multi-layered nature of landscapes…All landscape transformations necessarily involve a reordering, reuse and
representation of the past which gives landscape development an almost non-linear character…life must be lived
amidst that which was made before, Meinig, 1979, 44; On the concept see also Ingold, 2000; Bradley, 2002; On the
Pacific West, check out Adam Sowards, United States West Coast: An Environmental History, ed. Mark R. Stoll,
2007; Also Robert Bunting, The Pacific Raincoast: Environment and Culture in an American Eden, 1778-1900,
1996, 3.
3 Porter et al, “Overview of the ARkStorm scenario: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2010-1312,” 183 and
appendixes; Porter et al., Special Issue.
17
timeline shows that the winter storms of 1861-1862 were an extreme example—even an
extraordinary example—of a surprisingly common Pacific Slope occurrence.
This chapter also lays out a brief history of how Spanish and later Anglo-American changes
to the landscape and land-use patterns increased and even encouraged precipitation extremes'
destructive potential. Until the 1930s, their responses to these extremes in weather and water,
especially in California’s Central Valley, where flooding was almost a seasonal issue, were at best
uneven. After countless "fumbles" and generations of sobering trials and errors, newcomers
rapidly, if unevenly, remade the waterways of the Pacific Slope, like Puget Sound, the Willamette
Valley, California’s Central Valley, and California's South Coast, into more "disciplined,"
"rational," and ideally predictable/reliable systems. Those water redistribution and flood control
systems are old, and some parts were built with a different climate and water reality in mind.
The stories we tell of North America's West are so often ones of aridity and the struggles
to “civilize” desert wastelands.
4
The landscapes rendered so foreign as to make them Martian. To
some, waterlessness is the expanse's defining feature, mainly as the 100 meridian migrates east
with the warming climate.
5
From the Hohokam’s ancestors to the present, human societies have
invented ways to move and store water in a landscape where it is not always certain when the next
4 For biblical interpretations of the desert and their influence on settler-colonial imaginations of the American West,
Limerick, “Desert Passages,”
5 United States et al., Survey of the Colorado River of the West: Letter from the Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, Transmitting Report Preliminary for Continuing the Survey of the Colorado of the West and Its
Tributaries, by Professor J. W. Powell, 1872; Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley
Powell and the Second Opening of the West, 1982; Philip L Fradkin, A River No More: The Colorado River and the
West, 1984; Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West, 1992; Marc
Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, 1993; William D Rowley, Reclaiming
the Arid West: The Career of Francis G. Newlands, 1996; Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an
Agricultural Landscape in the American West, 1999; John Wesley Powell and Wallace Earle Stegner, The Arid
Lands, 2004; B. Lynn Ingram and Frances Malamud-Roam, The West without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts,
and Other Climatic Clues Tell Us about Tomorrow, 2013; Mike Davis, “The Coming Desert,” New Left Review, II,
no. 97, 2016, 23–43.
18
storm will come or how much water it will promise.
6
But dryness is just part of the story, one stop
in time, in dynamic hydroscapes. At worst, this framing amputates the Pacific Raincoast, the Sierra
Nevada, and the Northern Rockies from "the West" and at best flattens a diverse set of landscapes
and hydrologic systems. "Desert" can mean many different things, but what many envision is often
far from reality. Precipitation does not stay put forever. Water moves across and through
landscapes.
Throughout this long timeframe, we can see how water movement—seen best at time of
extreme wetness, but ever-present and ever-powerful—outlines the North American West in ways
that the framing of aridity alone cannot. Water, by way of storms, rain, and snow, has long carved
the landscape. The Slope is hydrologically different than east of the continental divide. Because of
the Slope's geologic past, the weather there acts differently, and therefore so too does the water.
And to understand how flooding works differently there, how storms interact with the landscape
in specific and consequential ways, we must appreciate the underlying framework of the Slope
itself. The storms that fueled the Big Winter were a function of the Slope. Storms and floods,
especially those driven by atmospheric rivers, are not just things that happen to the landscape.
They are part of the landscape and part of its history. Storms shaped the landscape, and in turn, the
landscape shapes the storms. And they too have a history. But first, like the waters, let us follow
the Slope.
Origins and outlines
The Pacific Slope of North America perches on the eastern half of the great ring of shakes.
7
6 Michael Woodson et al., “Hohokam Canal Irrigation and the Formation of Irragric Anthrosols in the Middle Gila
River Valley, Arizona, USA,” Geoarchaeology 30, 2015, 271–90.
7 “Slope” is a concept from the earth sciences and is the “basic element of landforms…all topographic study is the
study of how slopes change through time…slopes are ever changing… [Pacific Slope is unified] regarding day-to-
19
It comprises the lands to the sun-setting-side of the great Cordillera—twelve-thousand miles of
mountains sailing south to north from Cape Horn to the Bering Sea—joining the Andes with the
Sierra Madre Occidental, the Rockies, and the Yukon ranges.
8
This great zipper marks continental
day tectonic reality as well.” JoAnne Nelson, “The Geology of Western North America,” British Columbia Ministry
of Energy and Mines, Victoria, BC, Canada, 2004; Joseph A. DiPietro, “The Cordilleran Orogenic Belt,” in
Landscape Evolution in the United States, 2013, 409–21; Darrel Hess, Dennis Tasa, and Tom L McKnight,
McKnight’s Physical Geography: A Landscape Appreciation.
8 The term "Pacific slope" might come off as a bit old-timey, perhaps outdated. It is commonly linked to Earl Pomeroy
and his landmark 1965 regional study of the same name. Pomeroy's Pacific Slope is exclusive North American and
U.S. focused. Pomeroy relays a history of how the "six states of the Far West grew into their statehood by
cataclysmic process: gold rush, the novelty of citriculture, the revolution wrought by the railroad refrigerator car,
"business unionism," Prohibition, women's suffrage, exclusionism, tourism, religious revivalism, conservationism,
and progressivism." For Pomeroy, the Pacific Slope "changed so fast that it skipped entire stages of normal social
evolution and thus seemed less advanced than it was." But the expression is older. I have noted several publications
produced between 1840 and 1910 that used the phrase (some quite extensively). Though I’m sure the formulation is
older, the earliest published use of the term I've encountered thus far is in the 1840 Encyclopædia of Geography
describes the United States: "Two great mountain ranges traverse the United states, dividing the country into three
distinctly marked natural sections; the Atlantic slope, the Mississippi valley, and the Pacific slope." An 1850
reference in the American Review: A Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art, and Science, "Pacific Slope to
describe the 1,000 some odd mile between the Rockies and the Great Ocean." And in his 1840s Narrative of the
Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the year 1842…" John C. Frémont's noted he turned "back upon
the Pacific slope of our continent" to "recross the Rocky mountains." He also called the Columbia the "only great
river on the Pacific slope of our continent which leads from the ocean to the Rocky mountains." By the 1910s, the
term seems to have fallen out of prominence in general discourse, earth scientists, particularly geologists, and
biologists, found it useful to continue using the term to designate the region; Earl Pomeroy, The Pacific Slope: A
History of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada; Hugh Murray, The Encyclopædia of
Geography: Comprising a Complete Description of the Earth, Physical, Statistical, Civil, and Political, 1840, 371;
"Central Pacific Railroad Company, Railroad Communication Across the Continent, with an Account of the Central
Pacific Railroad of California. A Description of the Route, the Progress and Character of the Work, Its Resources
and Business Prospects, with the Foundation and Advantages of Its First Mortgage Bonds. New York, February
1868," 1868; John Ross Browne, Resources of the Pacific Slope ...: With a Sketch of the Settlement and Exploration
of Lower California, 1869; The Texas Almanac for ... and Emigrant’s Guide to Texas, 1869 by Joseph Schafer.
Other uses of the term Pacific slope include: Harvey Rice, Letters from the Pacific Slope: Or First Impressions,
1870; John Todd, The Sunset Land, Or, The Great Pacific Slope, 1873; The Californian, 1880; Theodore Thaddeus
Sobieski Laidley, Strength of Wood Grown on the Pacific Slope: Determined at Watertown Arsenal…, 1881; United
States Department of the Treasury Bureau of Statistics, “Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States,”
1883); George Ferdinand Becker, “Summary of the Geology of the Quicksilver Deposits of the Pacific Slope,”
1889; California et al., “Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly ... of the Legislature of the State of
California,” 1889; Eduard von Martens, Biologia Centrali-Americana: Land and Freshwater Mollusca, 1890;
Horace Annesley Vachell, Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope, 1901; John Gill Lemmon, Oaks of Pacific Slope,
1902; John Gill Lemmon and Sara Allen Plummer Lemmon, How to Tell the Trees and Forest Endowment of
Pacific Slope, 1902; American National Red Cross, A Record of the Red Cross Work on the Pacific Slope, 1902;
Harry Lee Newton, A Slide from the Pacific Slope: Monologue, 1903; Joseph Schafer, The Pacific Slope and Alaska,
1904; Guy Carleton Lee and Francis Newton Thorpe, The History of North America: The Pacific Slope and Alaska,
1904; George Bishop Sudworth, Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope, 1908; John Charles Frémont and John Torrey,
Narrative of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North
California in the Years 1843-’44 1840, pp. 240 and 258, and George Hooker Colton and James Davenport
Whelpley, The American Review: A Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art, and Science, 1850; National
Geographic Society, “Continental Divide,” National Geographic Society, May 11, 2016.
20
divides as it simultaneously unites hemispheric ones. The Cordillera governs the direction of
watershed drainage across both continents. All waters falling east of the great divide eventually
flow out to the Arctic Ocean or spill into Hudson's Bay, the St. Lawrence River, or the Gulf of
Mexico before eventually joining the Atlantic.
9
Those of the Pacific slope fall into its namesake.
If you tried to hike along this multicontinental ridgeline, you might begin one crisp morning
on an island off the far tip of South America near the Mar de Hoces also known as Drake's Passage.
Moving northward, the lands beyond where your shadow falls to the west constitute the great
Pacific Slope of the Americas. They include most of Chile and the westernmost wedges of Peru,
Ecuador, and Columbia. Continuing your jaunt northwest across the Darién Gap and along the
Panamanian isthmus into Mesoamerica, you might notice that here the Slope also includes much
of Costa Rica, western Nicaragua, southwestern Honduras. From Oaxaca and Guerrero to
Michoacán and Jalisco up through Sonora by the Sea of Cortez, you ride the back of the Western
Mother Mountains—the Sierra Madre—through the western reaches of México, the long rocky
strip of Baja California in the distance.
Deep into your trek atop this great backbone, the trail divides around the Great Basin—the
Sierra Nevada route continues up ahead. Still, you veer east, ambling along the continental divide
above the western banks of the Rockies. Over your left shoulder to the west, you scout the states
of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and just beyond the Sierra and Cascades' jagged peaks against
an endless Pacific, you spot California, Oregon, and Washington, their coastlines dropping sharply
into the sea. The far western limits of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming pass just below your
feet. There, the great tether twists northwest away from the Front Range, where in Montana it
9 On the Cordillera as an axis of historical analysis, see Edward Melillo, Strangers on Familiar Soil: Rediscovering
the Chile-California Connection, 2015.
21
guides you by Triple Divide Peak, the hydrological highpoint of the continental United States.
10
Following again atop this steep and rocky blockade, you make your way towards the Canadian
border where at the turn of the nineteenth century, the Slope marked the eastern limits of the
contested Oregon Country. By 1846 marked the boundaries of US claim to the region.
11
Not too far into British Columbia, your journey will take you past Snow Dome—the true
hydrological apex of North America and a continental crossroads where melting snow can meander
its way into one of three different oceans—before the path hurries you along the Omineca and
Cassiar Mountains towards the Yukon Territory and through the land of the midnight sun. There
the mountains sink into the waves among a maze of fjords and tidewater glaciers, a tail of islands
slung out into the sea. It is here in Alaska where the trail ends and begins anew on the shores of
Cape Prince of Wales, where you show your windblown face to the Bering Sea, the vast ocean
beyond, and the setting sun sublime.
12
From out beyond the Kármán Line aboard the International Space Station, the Slope's
surface appears coarser, more manifold, and more tortured than the comparatively calmer, spongier
smoother texture of most of the North American landmass. Through tectonic, volcanic, glacial,
hydrologic, and meteorological processes throughout more than seven hundred million years, the
Pacific Slope emerged, a mishmash of mismatched earth parts assembled fragments of countless
10 Located in Glacier National Park, the peak marks the divide between the Pacific, Northern (Laurentian), and
Atlantic drainages.
11 Britain, France, Russia, Spain, and later the United States, not to mention numerous Indigenous polities, claimed
the region; George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound for Great Britain; Alexander Mackenzie in 1793 overland;
Lewis and Clark Expedition 1805-06; David Thompson (North West Company) and Simon Fraser 1807 and ‘08;
borders specified in US-British Treaty of 1818 following War of 1812; U.S. and Britain 1818 Anglo-American
Convention set boundaries at 49th parallel in “joint occupancy”; Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 Spain relinquished
claims north of 42nd parallel; Russia relinquished claims south of 54/40’ in treaties with US and Britain (no
Indigenous); 1843 Provisional Government of Oregon; 1848 Oregon Territory; 1853 Washington Territory; D. W.
Meinig, The Great Columbia Plain: A Historical Geography, 1805-1910, 1968; Richard Somerset Mackie, Trading
Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific, 1793-1843, 1997.
12 Trails do exist. The Continental Divide Trail is a 3,100 US National Scenic Trail for the hiking enthusiast out there,
but that is just the U.S. portion of the Cordillera. There is also the 2,600-mile Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail
(PCT). Robert W. Sandford, Ecology & Wonder in the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site, 2010.
22
terranes of varied ages—island-like shards of tectonic plates from far across a proto-Pacific Ocean.
But there is still a logic to this jumble. For generations, these various continental debris collided
and caromed before eventually fastening themselves to the primordial Laurentian craton—one of
the oldest landforms on the planet—merging into the continent we currently call North America.
13
Geomorphologic forces from within the Earth and the atmosphere and the planet's gravity continue
to structure the landscape. The Earth's internal igneous and tectonic processes uplift and warp the
planet's surface creating continents. They fold elongated belts of crust, building mountains. They
produce earthquakes, volcanoes, and lava flows that further transform the countryside. Fueled by
the sun's radiation, energy from the atmosphere and other external weathering forces and processes
like weathering, mass-wasting, and erosion wear down and fill in the terrain. The movement of
winds and waters—the Pacific Ocean is persistently caressing and carving the coastlines, shaping
its beaches and cliff faces while storing the energy that influences weather and the storm systems
that water the Slope. Water in all three of its states—as vapor in winds and storms, as a liquid in
precipitation and stream flows, as a solid in snow, ice, and glaciers—scores and scours the
landscape. And again, this flow of the water downhill towards the Pacific delineates the greater
Slope from the rest of North America.
14
13 “The Pacific Province,” USGS, Geology, Minerals, Energy and Geophysics Science Center Home,
https://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/parks/province/pacifmt.html; Courtney, “How the west was made: Western North
American Orogenies,” Courtney, Lucky Sci, October 3, 2015. “Pacific Mountain System: Mountains, North
America,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed October 6, 2018.
14 Beaches, coastlines, lakes, river channels can accumulate during times of ‘normal weather' and erode during heavy
storm falls. Beaches and mouths of rivers; Wayne N. Engstrom, “Nineteenth Century Coastal Geomorphology of
Southern California,” Journal of Coastal Research 22, no. 4, 2006, 847–61. Hess, Tasa, McKnight, McKnight’s
Physical Geography, 249-250.
23
Figure 1: The Pacific Slope of North America. (Left) Coastal Slope in blue. From north to south the major interior watersheds are
the Fraser, Columbia, Great Basin, and Colorado. (Right) North, Central, and South Coasts. Maps by author and ArcGIS.
The Pacific Coast straddles an active seismic boundary where two tectonic plates devour a
third while grinding against one another. The North American Plate continues to consume the
remnants of the oceanic Juan de Fuca Plate, broadcasting temblors and stirring volcanoes along
the Pacific Northwest coast. From a slow-motion maelstrom of rifts, collisions, subductions, and
uplifts to an era of oceans and islands, through a prolonged period of stretching and tearing of the
continent's interior, to a time where the middle of North America held a vast if relatively shallow
sea, and even including a mysterious missing twin continent, the region has endured ages of
significant tectonic activity that continually remade the continent.
15
Around six-hundred-million
years ago, what is now the Slope sat in the southern hemisphere and gazed up from beneath the
15 The Slope went through four major tectonic phases including a “Rifting/Open Margin phase,” an extended “Oceans
and Islands phase” that appeared like a modern southeastern Pacific, followed by an Orogenic phase, and a “Post-
collisional phase commenced during the early Tertiary when parts of the East Pacific Rise subducted under the
continent." On the "Lost Twin," "Australia, Australia/Antarctica, and Siberia attracting the most adherents" Nelson,
"The Geology of Western North America," 2004.
24
waves of the Panthalassa Ocean, an ancestor to the Pacific. Imagine waves crashing against an
archaic coastline somewhere in the middle of Arizona, Utah, or Montana, the rest of what is now
the West beneath the sea. Evidence of this ancient ocean floor now sits in sedimentary rocks high
top the Sierra Nevada and throughout the Basin and Range. Sometime around two-hundred-fifty-
million years back, the supercontinent Pangea began to splinter. A remarkable efflorescence of
mountain formation followed this tectonic divorce. This sequence of orogenies—the process by
which the folding and compacting of the Earth's crust push up peaks—lifted the high ranges of the
Slope over the past two-hundred-million years. The Nevadan orogeny lifted the Klamath and
Sierra Nevada ranges. The Sevier and Laramide birthed the Rockies and the ranges of western
Utah and eastern Nevada. All the while, a string of volcanic islands gradually pushed their ways
from Oceana towards the Laurentian landmass. Simultaneously, shallow seaways invaded its
interior, leaving much of today's' Pacific West a massive north-south reaching isthmus.
16
Between seventy and forty million years ago, the Pacific Slope began to resemble today's
topography. The land surface between the Colorado Plateau and Oregon pulled apart, shredding
and collapsing the lithosphere into the high-altitude washboard of mountains and valleys of the
Basin and Range region. At the heart of this expanse is a massive internally drained sink that
stretched across two-hundred-thousand square miles, and today only the absence of adequate water
flow keeps runoff into the basin from joining with the Pacific, as it did during the most recent ice
age. The North American plate's lip began elbowing into the East Pacific Rise—the boundary
between the Pacific and North American Plates—awakening the Denali, Queen Charlotte, and San
16 Today’s Pacific basin is the “successor of the original ocean which split Laurentia—our continent’s cratonic core—
away from the rest of the Precambrian supercontinent Rodinia, an ocean that widened until the late Paleozoic time, it
became Panthalassa, the World Ocean.” Timeline of orogenies: Nevadan (~180 Ma), Sevier (~120 Ma), Laramide
(~80 Ma), Cascadia orogeny (~34 Ma), From Nelson, “The Geology of Western North America," 2004; Anderson,
B., A. Moore, G. Lewis, and W. D. Allmon, “Fossils of the Western US,” 2014; Mark Lucas, Robert Ross, and
Andrielle Swaby, The Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Earth Science of the Western US, 2014, 81–123; Moore et al.,
"Fossils," 2014; Cortney, "How the West Was Made," 2014.
25
Andreas faults.
17
Towards the end of this period, the Cascadia orogeny began churning up the
Cascade range, a sky-high pile-up of lava flows and volcanic debris, a strand of "explosive pearls"
running parallel to the coast from Northern California to British Columbia that is among the
steepest, most rugged, and rainiest on the continent, and remain active. Klamath histories tell of
the explosion of Mount Mazama that spooned out Oregon's Crater Lake, the deepest lake in North
America.
18
Mount Saint Helens may have faded from the public's memory, but at least thirteen
volcanic centers continue to stir beneath Cascadia.
By the beginning of the last ice age, around three million years ago, the Sierra began to rise
and tip toward the Pacific, sloping long and gently towards the Central Valley. This left an abrupt
drop off to their east, creating the Owens and Death Valley to the east and deepening the rain
shadow that falls across the Great Basin's western side. The Sierra are the cooled and coalesced
southern cousins of the Cascade Range. But their molten motors have gone dormant. These giant
17 William R. Dickinson, “The Basin and Range Province as a Composite Extensional Domain,” International
Geology Review 44, no. 1, 2002, 1–38; Arturo Gómez-Tuena et al., “Petrogénesis Ígnea de La Faja Volcánica
Transmexicana,” Boletín de La Sociedad Geológica Mexicana 57, no. 3, 2005, 227–83; USGS, “Geologic Provinces
of the United States: Basin and Range Province,” September 22, 2015;, D. Reynolds, & J. Christensen, “Nevada.
Portland, Oregon,” Graphic Arts Center Pub USGS for “Geologic Provinces,” 2001; Nelson, “Geology”; Also: P. J
Coney, “Cordilleran Tectonics and North America Plate Motion,” 1972, 462-465; Karl Karlstrom and Michael
Williams, Refining Rodinia: Geologic Evidence for the Australia-Western U.S. Connection in the Proterozoic,
Geology Today, Vol 9, 1999, 1-7; Stephen Johnston and Gabriel Gutierrez-Alonso, “The North American Cordillera
and West European Variscides: Contrasting Interpretations of Similar Mountain Systems,” Gondwana Research 17,
2010, 17-36; C.R., Scotese, “The Paleomap Project,” 2001, http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm; James Sears and
Raymond Price, “New Look at the Siberian Connection: No SWEAT,” Geology 28, May 1, 2000, 423-426.
18 The eruption occurred about 8,000 years ago, and the lake is just under 2,000 feet deep. "A long time ago, so long
that you cannot count it, the white man ran wild in the woods, and my people lived in rock-built houses. In that time,
long ago, before the stars fell, the spirits of the earth and the sky, the spirits of the sea and the mountains often came
and talked with my people. The Chief of the Below-World (Mazama) spewed fire from its mouth. Like an ocean of
flame, it devoured the forests on the mountains and in the valleys. On and on the Curse of Fire swept until it reached
the homes of the people. Fleeing in terror before it, the people found refuge in the waters of Klamath Lake. Once
more the mountains shook. This time the Chief of the Below-World was driven into his home and the top of the
mountain fell upon him. When the morning sun arose, the high mountain was gone…for many years, rain fell in
torrents and filled the great hole that was made when the mountain fell.” Chief Lalek ended his story this way: "Now
you understand why my people never visit the lake. Down through the ages, we have heard this story. From father to
son has come the warning, look not upon the place for it means death or everlasting sorrow," from David Hurst
Thomas, Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity, 2000, 249-251.
David R Montgomery, The Rocks Don’t Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah’s Flood, 2012, 176.
26
cores of once liquefied rock reveal themselves as the iconic flecked granite edifices and as artifacts
of millions of years of volcanism, uplift, and continuous erosion. As the planet's temperature
vacillated between long glacial and brief if warmer interglacial periods, ice sheets expanded across
the highlands and spread down into channels, growing and shrinking and sliding, slowly carving
mountains and valleys.
The inlets of Puget Sound and the precipitous cliff faces and hanging valleys of the Sierra
Nevada—Yosemite, Hetch Hetchy, and the Kings and Kern Canyons emerged from this icy era.
The American West's iconic edifices—its sinuous thrust-fold belts, towering granite and sandstone
megaliths, volcanoes living and dead, wandering glacial erratics, its scarps, plateaus, and
cordilleras—endure as cenotaphs to this fractious past.
19
The great rivers of the Slope punch through these ranges their waters back to the Pacific
19 The foothills and Front Ranges of the Rocky Mountains are one example of the fold-thrust process in the West. The
Columbia Plateau, Snake River Basin, and Basin and Range exemplify post-orogenic volcanism and faulting; The
lands east of the Rockies are epeirogenic, are deformed only mildly having escaped most of the tectonic violence
that generated the Cordillera. The combined efforts of these geologic forces over incomprehensible swaths of time
formed mineral and other deposits key to industrial, agricultural, commercial, medical, and even domestic uses.
Gold is the most common metallic resource in the Columbia Plateau and the Sierra Nevada, and from the Great
Basin, miners pull over three-quarters of the gold produced in the United States. The accretion and volcanism of the
last forty million years transformed temperate and subtropical organisms into the pockets of petroleum and gas
deposited across the Slope from Mexico to Alaska. Deposits of gold, silver, copper, and even iron, along with
petroleum, coal, natural gas, and uranium have brought conflict and change to the American West. But, beyond the
"gold laden gravel," some deposits are less known but key to the industrialization and expansion of the United States
across the last two centuries. Bentonite—named for Fort Benton, Montana—is an absorbent aluminum silicate clay
for the late Cretaceous used in papermaking, in iron and steel casting, as a supplement in animal feed, an ingredient
in cosmetic and baby powders, and even in kitty litter. Almost half, though, becomes drilling mud to ease oil and
water boring, much of which happens in the West. Diatomaceous earth, a fluffy, siliceous sedimentary rock is the
fossilized remnants of ancient hard-shelled creatures called diatoms. This stuff is used in all kinds of abrasives from
metal polish to toothpaste, as well as infiltration and pest control, not to mention it was the stabilizing component of
Nobel's TNT—which was also critical to U.S. expansion across the continent. Pumice, foam-like microbubbles of
volcanic glass, has long been an ingredient in cement and is used in water filtration systems, chemical containment
and cleanup, and in cosmetics. Zeolite, a super porous aluminosilicate mined from open pits, is similarly used in
water purification, asphalt concrete, and in the petrochemical industry, but it is most ubiquitous in the worldwide
detergent industry. The list is far from exhaustive but offers an idea of the minerals mined across the western portion
of the continent. Joseph A. DiPietro, “Chapter 21 - Tectonic Style, Rock Successions, and Tectonic Provinces,” in
Landscape Evolution in the United States, 2013, 345–63; Nelson, "Geology"; J.W. Hosterman and S.H. Patterson,
“Bentonite and Fuller’s Earth Resources of the United States,” Report, Professional Paper, 1992, USGS Publications
Warehouse; USGS, “An Overview of Geomorphology,” from International Journal of Research and Scientific
Innovation (IJRSI), Vol 3, Issue 8, August 2016, 195-197; https://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/parks/province/pacifmt.html
27
for tens of millions of years. From the Yukon and Fraser in the far north to the Columbia-Snake,
Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Colorado along the continent's rounded flank, to the Balsas and
Lerna-Santiago in the south.
20
These stream systems are among the longest-lived actors on the
land, eroding mountains, forming watersheds, transporting hydration and organic matter, shaping
the landscape along the way. Some streams, like the Columbia, have endured longer than the
mountains they drain. Except for the Upper Colorado and Lower Columbia, the Slope's rivers tend
to move, jumping channels, shifting outlets, sometimes dramatically during wet times. The Los
Angeles river danced back and forth over the centuries, periodically emptying to the west into
Santa Monica Bay through the Ballona Creek, other times south into San Pedro Bay, and often not
at all.
While destructive force, overflowing rivers also benefit the landscape, and much like
wildfires, some riparian species and plant assemblages evolved to be reliant upon flood
disturbances for propagation and migration. Floodwaters can clear forest litter and spread seeds to
preference certain species. They can scrub salt deposits, enrich floodplains, and replenish gravel
beds that invite breeding salmon and trout. Water percolates down through the coarse rock and fine
silt, recharging underground aquifers—lakes of banked water.
Combined, these forces, the uplifting mountains, the water cycle's progressions through
weather and drainage, combine to produce the great water systems of the Pacific West. These flood
lines mark the boundaries of the Slope. These waterscapes, the major valleys, plains, and coastlines
20 Geologists estimate that the Colorado, for instance, is 75 million years old, while the Sacramento is relatively
young at around 25 million years of age; Sue McClurg, Water and the Shaping of California, 2000, 5; Richard
White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River, 1996; Jeff Quitney, "Columbia, Sacramento,
San Joaquin & Colorado: Rivers of the Pacific Slope," Coronet Films, 1947. Building the reservoir required the
government to forcibly remove Indigenous people from their ancestral lands—these lands were flooded. Also,
neither the Coulee nor the Chief Joseph Dam, next dam downstream, contain fish passage meaning no Salmon reach
Grand Coulee on their own. The next largest dam downstream, the Rocky Reach Dam incorporates a system of
ladders for fish to climb for seasonal migrations and spawning.
28
of the Slope are predisposed to intense Pacific storms, atmospheric rivers, and substantial floods
and their power to rework the landscape.
21
This is part of an old and natural process and defines
the Slope.
22
Major Hydroregions
Riverways nurture lifeways. Fundamental sources of energy and essential conduits of
movement, they are the central nervous system of most ecologies on the planet. Their ebbs and
flows help shape landscapes and structure geographies, drainages, and in western North America,
they define the Pacific Slope. Throughout the Slope, First Peoples organized much of their lives
in rhythm with these vascular networks and the weather patterns that animate them. Water systems
linked peoples from the desert and mountain interiors to the worlds of the Pacific valleys and
coastlines. Villages, shared workspaces, and meeting places often arose at the confluence of
waterways—hubs of gathering and exchange. In more recent years, First Nations, European,
21 An atmospheric river (AR) is a “long, narrow, and transient corridor of strong horizontal water vapor transport that
is typically associated with a low-level jet stream ahead of the cold front of an extratropical cyclone. The water
vapor in atmospheric rivers is supplied by tropical and/or extratropical moisture sources. Atmospheric rivers
frequently lead to heavy precipitation where they are forced upward—for example, by mountains or by ascent in the
warm conveyor belt. Horizontal water vapor transport in the midlatitudes occurs primarily in atmospheric rivers and
is focused in the lower troposphere. Atmospheric rivers are the largest "rivers" of fresh water on Earth, transporting
on average more than double the flow of the Amazon River.” Cordeira, J. M., F. M. Ralph, and B. J. Moore, 2013:
“The development and evolution of two atmospheric rivers in proximity to western North Pacific tropical cyclones”
in October 2010. Mon. Wea. Rev., 141, 4234–4255. Guan, B., and D. E. Waliser, 2015: “Detection of atmospheric
rivers: Evaluation and application of an algorithm for global studies.” J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 120, 12, 514–12,
535; Neiman, P. J., F. M. Ralph, G. A. Wick, J. D. Lundquist, and M. D. Dettinger, 2008: “Meteorological
characteristics and overland precipitation impacts of atmospheric rivers affecting the West Coast of North America
based on eight years of SSM/I satellite observations.” J. Hydrometeor., 9, 22–47. Ralph, F. M., P. J. Neiman, and G.
A. Wick, 2004: “Satellite and CALJET aircraft observations of atmospheric rivers over the eastern North Pacific
Ocean during the winter of 1997/98.” Mon. Wea. Rev., 132, 1721–1745. Zhu, Y., and R. E. Newell, 1998: “A
proposed algorithm for moisture fluxes from atmospheric rivers.” Mon. Wea. Rev., 126, 725–735.
22Quitney, “Columbia, Sacramento, San Joaquin & Colorado”; Mary Ann Resendez, “Geology of the Sierra Nevada,”
Central Sierra Historical Society, August 17, 2010; Jerome S. Ricard, “Meteorology on the Pacific Slope,” William
Wallace Payne et al., Popular Astronomy: a Review of Astronomy and Allied Sciences, 1908, 92-98; A R. Orme,
“Pleistocene Pluvial Lakes of the American West: A Short History of Research,” Geological Society, London,
Special Publications 301, January 1, 2008, 51–78; and Scott Stine, “Extreme and Persistent Drought in California
and Patagonia during Mediaeval Time,” Nature 369, no. 6481, June 1994, 546–49; Hess, Tasa, & McKnight’s
Physical Geography, 57; Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth, 1999.
29
Pacific Islander, and Métis trappers and traders built their trading posts near these junctions—ideal
places to land and launch boats, to plug into the long-standing trade networks on the continent,
and to hunt the area for pelts and deer and elk meat. The first colonial sites—Spanish, British,
Russian, and US-American—often arose along the rivers at the busiest of these intersections.
Settlers-colonials often built their businesses, farms, and houses near the river’s landings for easier
access to the expressways of the time. Missions, forts, towns, mills, depots, storehouses, almost
all agriculture, transportation, and mining industries relied on the waterways for irrigation and
energy.
23
Waterways though are temperamental. Sometimes volatile. And always powerful,
whether present or absent. Rivers move. And weather moves rivers.
The common trajectories of atmospheric rivers shape an aerial waterscape, which interacts
with the Slope's topography, merging the watersheds of the sky with the watersheds on land. The
mountain ranges and river systems of the Pacific West contour the Slope's major regions. For
example, the Cascade and Coast Ranges girdle the Puget Trough. The Sierra Nevada and Coast
Ranges ring California's Great Central Valleys. Southern California's Transverse and Peninsular
Ranges hedge the South Coast of the Californias from the Tehachapi to Río Tijuana. While the
greater Slope includes all watersheds west of the Rocky Mountains, the coastal Slope encompasses
Five major interconnected hydroregions defined by their mountain ranges and drainage basins.
This is where atmospheric river driven storms deliver the heaviest rains and snows.
The first of these sections, moving north to south, is the is the greater Columbia/Willamette
Valley-Puget Trough-Georgia Basin and its coastal and basin foothills. Hydrologically it reaches
23 The population of California in 1862 was roughly 500,000 people, of which 100,000 lived in San Francisco.
However, these counts undoubtedly low as they did not count Indigenous peoples or those avoiding the eyes of the
state for various reasons. United States. Bureau of the Census and United States. National Archives and Records
Service, Population Schedules of the Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, California, Microform, Washington,
National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1965.
30
up with the Columbia into Canada, as well as south into parts of northwestern California. It is
divided into two broader sub regions, the interior northwest Slope and the coastal northwest Slope.
The Willamette-Puget Trough is a glacial depression about forty miles wide and stretches from the
Willamette-Puget lowlands to North over several hundred miles past the Columbia River into
Puget and Vancouver Island. Rain and snowmelt from the enclosing ranges drain into the valleys
and eventually the sound, a maze of inlets, channels, and islands linking the Northwest to the
Pacific through the Juan de Fuca and Georgia Straits. To the east, in the rain shadow of the
Cascades, are the western reaches of the Columbia Plateau, the Snake and Deschutes river valleys,
and the northern edges of the Great Basin, home to the Yakama, Spokane, Cayuse, Palouse, and
other First Nations. Connecting the two regions was the critical crossroads at Cello Falls on the
Columbia River, one of the richest fisheries on the continent. To the west stand the Olympic
mountains in the north and Coastal ranges in the south, forming a cul-de-sac that drains towards
Vancouver Island. The Sound itself is a cluster of hilly peninsulas and islands surrounded by a
massive inland sea. The Sound acts as a sink, drawing heavy clouds and temperate air that hovers
over the region like a wet coat, often bringing overcast skies and misty weather and is famous for
its heavy winter rains even though New York City gets more rain annually than Seattle.
24
Even
with all that rainfall, the trough's glacial birth left the soil rocky and graveled, too sandy for most
agriculture. The lands near the mouths of rivers along the Sound had better soils but flooded. Often.
Of the Pacific West's waterways, the Columbia River has the greatest discharge and is deeply
significant in the history of the Northwest slope. Five miles wide at its mouth and deep enough to
allow ocean-going ships one hundred miles upstream, the river has supported settlements,
workscapes, and sites of meeting and exchange and has been a conduit for commerce and human
24 Klingle, 7; Bunting, 3.
31
mobility for at least fifteen thousand years.
25
Figure 2: The Northern Slope. Willamette-Puget-George Trough and coastal Slope in light green. Map by Author and ArcGIS.
The conjunction of the Pacific's waters and the Slope's surface shape the region's ecologies.
The banks of the lower Columbia River at its juncture with the Willamette sat low, and on the
highlands on either bank intermingled with conifers spread giant oaks so many waterfowl—both
resident and migratory—that they whitened the lower Columbia. A vast floodplain forest skirted
the Willamette River and spread out across the countryside, a patchwork of foothill conifer forests,
oak openings, riverine woodlands, marshlands, and prairies. Along the valley floor grew stretches
25 M. Thomas P. Gilbert et al., “DNA from Pre-Clovis Human Coprolites in Oregon, North America,” Science, 2008,
786–89; Lisa-Marie Shillito et al., “New Research at Paisley Caves: Applying New Integrated Analytical
Approaches to Understanding Stratigraphy, Taphonomy, and Site Formation Processes,” PaleoAmerica, 2018, 82–
86; Lauriane Bourgeon, Ariane Burke, and Thomas Higham, “Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to
the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada,” PLOS ONE 12, no. 1, 2017.
32
of Oregon white and California black oaks interspersed with Pacific madrones and bigleaf maples
and the occasional Douglas fir or Cedar. Cedar trees were crucial for longhouses, canoes, and
clothing. Oregon ash, black cottonwood, white and red alders, and various willows extended for
miles along the river's entire length and branches. Among the undergrowth thick with shrubs
beaked hazelnuts and western swordfern and kaleidoscopic with purple vetch, yellow western
buttercup, and wooly sunflower along with a vast array of fruiting shrubs like Oregon grape,
ghostberry, salmonberry, coast strawberry, Saskatoon sugarplum, and the vermillion jewels of the
red-berried-elders.
26
Beyond the riverine forests, stretching for millions of acres across the
Willamette Valley, spread plains sprouting with California oatgrass and Idaho bentgrass, clumps
of onespike and needlegrass, bunches of red fescue and three-foot-tall tufted hairgrass, and
cerulean fields of camas so far-reaching and blue they appeared like lagoons themselves.
27
And
surrounding the Valley, the Coast Ranges to the West, and the sunsetting side of the Cascade
Mountains.
28
The Willamette Falls is the “first barrier to be meet with it about forty miles up from its
mouth,” trapper Alexander Ross noted in 1811. The river there is “interrupted by a ledge of rocks,”
26 There has been much written on the mighty Columbia and Colorado and both tend to dominate discussions of rivers
of the West, but there are other water systems worth paying attention too; sure, scholars know, but the public largely
ignores these ‘other' often “Hidden Hydrologies” of the Pacific West, “Hidden Hydrology,” Hidden Hydrology,
https://www.hiddenhydrology.org/, accessed February 8, 2019, Bunting, 73; Jerry F Franklin and C. T Dyrness,
Natural Vegetation of Oregon and Washington, 1989, 124-126.
27 Alexander Ross was a Scottish Canadian fur trader. He described the lower Columbia: “The banks of the river
throughout are low and skirted in the distance by a chain of moderately high lands on each side, interspersed here
and there with clumps of wide spreading oaks, stands of pine, and a variety of other kinds of woods. Between these
high lands lie what is called the valley of the “Wallamitte [sic],” the frequented haunts of innumerable herds of elk
and deer…. In ascending the river the surrounding country is most delightful…” Bunting, 74; Edward R. Alverson,
“Use of a County Soil Survey to Locate Remnants of Native Grassland in the Willamette Valley, Oregon,” in
Ecosystem Management: Rare Species and Significant Habitats, Bulletin no. 471, 1990, 107; Deady, “History and
Progress of Oregon After 1845,” 70; Anne Sutherlin Waite, “Pioneer life of Fendel Sutherlin,” Oregon Historical
Quarterly 31, 1930, 375. Kimbark E. MacColl, E., The Growth of a City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon
1915-1950, 1979. MacColl cites Peter H. Burnett, Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer, 1880, 181.”
28 MacColl, E. Kimbark, 1979; The Growth of a City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1915-1950, Georgian
Press. MacColl cites Peter H. Burnett, Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer, New York 1880, 181.
33
he continued, that ran across the Willamette “from side to side in the form of an irregular
horseshoe, over which the whole body of waterfalls at one leap down a precipice of about forty
feet, called the Falls.”
29
During the winter wet season, especially during heavy rainstorms, the Lower Columbia
would rise and during the summer melts would often flood. The Willamette River was especially
susceptible during winter months and would rise, sometimes more than twenty feet above its usual
level, overflowing streams making it marshy much of the year. These wetlands sustained and
flocks of black brants, sandhill cranes, great blue heron, trumpeter swan, Pacific diver, short-tailed
albatross, among uncountable other waterfowl and seabirds. And surrounding all this a near-
endless mosaic of Anthropogenic forests. Spruce, western red and incense cedars, hemlock,
Ponderosa, and Sugar pine, and Douglas-fir spread out across the west-facing inclines of these
ranges, stretching north to south from British Columbia to northwestern California and eastward
from the ocean to the western rises of the Cascades, and to their west, the great Northwest coast
stretches from Vancouver Island and the western slopes of the Olympic ranges to Port Orford and
the north-facing rises of the Klamath Mountains on the southern Oregon Coast.
In the coastal waters teemed pods of whales and harbor porpoises. Up and down this
shoreline, sea lions, otters, and harbor seals lounged explored coastal estuaries, and swam up
rivers. Coastal peoples harvested mussels, clams, mollusk, oysters, urchins, and the treasured
dentalium tusk shells. River otter and beaver communities prospered in the estuaries and streams,
like the Umpqua and Rogue Rivers. Even harbor seals ventured inland, likely chasing sturgeon,
29 Bunting, 74; Edward R. Alverson, “Use of a County Soil Survey to Locate Remnants of Native Grassland in the
Willamette Valley, Oregon,” in Ecosystem Management: Rare Species and Significant Habitats, Bulletin no. 471,
1990, 107; Deady, “History and Progress of Oregon After 1845,” 70; Anne Sutherlin Waite, “Pioneer life of Fendel
Sutherlin,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 31, 1930, 375. Kimbark E. MacColl, E., The Growth of a City: Power and
Politics in Portland, Oregon 1915-1950, 1979. MacColl cites Peter H. Burnett, Recollections and Opinions of an
Old Pioneer, 1880, 181.”
34
lamprey, euchalon, and multiple kinds of salmon upstream. Indigenous lifeways relied heavily on
fishing and whaling—particularly salmon, halibut, and shellfish, particularly for coastal peoples.
critical crossroads at Cello Falls, one of the richest fisheries on the continent. The Chinook,
Snohomish, Lummi, and Makah, among others, became the prominent nations of the coast. This
biotic abundance helped support Indigenous populations for thousands of years, and eventually the
stimulus for the European incursions in the form of exploratory expeditions, trapping parties, and
trading forts that hooked the northwest to global markets.
30
The Sacramento-San Joaquin River-Tulare Lake Basin complex, its adjacent coastal plains,
form the second major region of the coastal Slope. California's Great Central Valley sits like a set
of giant inverted ribcages, a network of interwoven watersheds that collect and carry waters off
the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges' eastern faces. To the west of those redwood-covered
mountains, the Slope's Central Coast splits in two around the Golden Gate. Central Coast North
extends south from Port Orford in Oregon through the salmon-filled Klamath Trinity, Eel, and
Russian stream systems, to the Marin Headlands and the Bay's shores. Central Coast South
stretches south from the San Francisco Peninsula's western beaches over the Monterey Bay and
through the Salinas River watershed and just beyond San Luis Obispo Bay. Coastal areas of
California tend to be cooler, blanketed in onshore fog. The ranges that cordon off these coastal
strips stand covered in evergreen forests towing with Coast redwood, Douglas-fir, and Sitka
30 Kat Anderson, Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural
Resources, 2013; Bunting cites Gabriel Franchère and Jedediah Huntington, from Franchere’s Narrative of a Voyage
to the Northwest Coast, 1811-1814; Meriwether Lewis et al., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
November 2, 1805-March 22, 1806, vol. 6, 410.6:9, 22-23, 208, 210; James Gilchrist Swan, The Northwest Coast or,
Three Years’ Residence in Washington Territory, 83-85 John Ball, “Oregon Trip—Troy Lectures, Second Lecture,
1835,” typescript, John Ball papers; Pierre-Jean de Smet, Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Mountains in
1845-46, 109; Alexander Ross, Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813, 1986,
114; James Douglas Of Hudson’s Bay Company: “…the intermixture of woods & fertile plains…excellent pasture,
fuel, and building materials of the best quality,” from Bunting, 25, quoting Douglas to the governor, October 18,
1838, in John McLoughlin et al., The Letters of John McLoughlin from Fort Vancouver to the Governor and
Committee: First Series, 1825-38, Champlain Society for the Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1941, 241.
35
spruce, north from Big Sur. East of the Valley rests the Great Basin's western fringes where Goose
Lake once connected the Upper Basin to the Pit River and the Sacramento.
Figure 3: The Central Slope is the second major hydroregion. Three main basins from North to South, Sacramento, San Joaquin,
and Tulare. Coastal Valleys and plains in light green. Map by author and ArcGIS.
The Central Valley is the largest hydroregion on the coastal Slope. It comprises three
interconnected water systems, the Sacramento River valley, the San Joaquin River valley, and the
Tulare Lake basin, moving north to south. The Pacific West's inland valleys tend to be both hotter
and dryer during summer months yet colder than the coast during winter months.
31
The Valley
31 Suzie Earp, “Flood Histories in the Counties in the Alluvial Fan Task Force (AFTF) Study Area,” Water Resources
Institute, Cal State San Bernardino: A California Dept. of Water Resources Project coordinated by the Water
Resources Institute and California State University San Bernardino; http://aftf.csusb.edu/index.htm,
http://aftf.csusb.edu/history.htm, 2.
36
once was an expansive labyrinth of riverine woodlands and tule filled wetlands, girded by oak-
wooded grasslands, alive with tule elk, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, packs of Grizzlies.
32
Here
too, Indigenous fire farming has long been part of the remaking of the landscape. The Valley's
foothills were populated with blue oaks and grey pines and toyon forests, chamise, and other
chaparral shrubs. Near limitless stands of towering Jeffery, Sugar, and Ponderosa pines covered
the mountainsides, and among them, the hulking water pumps of Douglas-fir and giant Sequoia,
some hundreds of years old.
William Brewer described thick tree cover remained, traveling along the Sacramento
twenty years earlier: "We kept on our slow and winding way, often on bars and shoals that took
longer to get over. A wide plain bordered the river on each side. We caught distant views of the
mountains, but generally, we saw only the river and its banks", which were "covered with trees—
willows, cottonwoods, oaks, and sycamores—with wild grapevines trailing from them." "We were
in the 'sloughs,' as the many mouths of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers are called."
33
The mountain snowpack that gave the Sierra Nevada its name is the most crucial source of
fresh water in the region. Atmospheric rivers are vital to this snowpack and historically may have
32 In what is currently California, the North Coast watershed is the wettest in the state and is made up of the Klamath,
Smith, and Eel Rivers which deliver around one-third of the runoff in the entire state. Approximately 29 million
acre-feet of annual runoff. David Carle, Introduction to Water in California, 2009; Richard B Rice, William A
Bullough, and Richard J Orsi, The Elusive Eden: A New History of California, 1988, 22; Michael Barbour,
Terrestrial Vegetation of California, 2007. Quitney, "Columbia,” about half of the total runoff in California; The
Sacramento includes the Feather and American rivers and flows for about 447 miles and carries about 22 million
acre-feet of runoff. The San Joaquin includes the Merced, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, and Mokelumne rivers and flows
for north for about 365 miles and moves around 6 million acre-feet of runoff. The Tulare basin catches the Kings,
Kaweah, Tule, and Kern rivers; David Carle, Introduction to Water in California, 2009; more than 90 percent of the
original riparian forest has since been cut down, McClurg, 6; Rice, Bullough, and Orsi, Elusive Eden, 22.
33 The Big Winter was largely responsible for the financial struggles of the State Geologic Survey, and it never
attained its goals—a grand and detailed overview of California. Whitney still published 6 volumes on California, but
Brewer went near bankrupt because of his experience with the Survey. With the help of Daniel Coit Gilman and
Leland Stanford, Brewer published his journal as Up and Down in CA and became Professor of Agriculture at
Sheffield Scientific School from 1864-1903. McClurg, 33. William H Brewer, Up and down California in 1860-
1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer, Professor of Agriculture in the Sheffield Scientific School from 1864-1903,
1966..
37
sustained mountain glaciers.
34
Banked for the dry time, snowpack helped nurture gigantic seasonal
wetlands that covered more than five million acres from Mount Shasta in the north to the Tehachapi
in the south. Across the great valley floor stretched a maze of trees and grasslands interlaced with
streams and lagoons. The waterways were thick with beaver and their dams, occasioned by swarms
of insects. Kern, Tulare, Buena Vista, and other lakes spotted the Valley's southern reaches and
acres of tightly packed stands of tules—thick, rounded, bulrushes over ten feet tall—picketed both
shorelines of the Sacramento all the way to the Delta, the whole system of waterways crowded
with rushes from the Sacramento river basin to Buena Vista Lake just north of the Tehachapi. The
rushes around Tulare Lake stood fifteen feet tall, shielding the lake and its rich waters. Native
groups here, like the Tache and Monache peoples, built tule rafts to navigate these waterways.
Runoff from the Kings, Kaweah, White, and Tule rivers fed this great lake, once one of the largest
freshwater bodies in the American West. The size of the lake, like the surrounding wetlands, varied
widely in size. During wet times the lake spanned two-hundred-thousand acres, and as stream
flows slowed and temperatures warmed or consecutive seasons were dry, it would slowly shrink.
35
During the wet season, deep tule fogs sat low and heavy, sometimes hugging the entire four-
hundred-mile-long valley floor.
Like in the north, these waterways often flooded, with water levels rising with winter
storms or the Spring thaw. Atmospheric rivers delivered winter rains, and growing rivers spilled
34 Prince, H. D., Cullen, N. J., Gibson, P. B., Conway, J. & Kingston, D. G, “A climatology of atmospheric rivers in
New Zealand, J. Climate,” 2021.
35 Well into the late 19th century, Tulare Lake was once the biggest body of freshwater west of the Great Lakes or the
Mississippi River. But like the Aral Sea or Lake Chad, Tulare Lake was depleted for irrigation and agriculture and
by the early 20th century, the lake was largely dry. Flood control dams on Tulare’s four main arteries had strangled
this seasonal lake. The Lake reached its maximum recorded size during the floods of 1861-1862, engulfing nearby
Kern and Buena Vista Lakes and swelling to nearly 500,000 acres. The lakebed is now filled with rows of crops like
cotton and safflower, though it has occasionally reminded locals of its presence, occasionally returning, like it did in
1969 when it again became one of the state’s largest lakes. The Lake made reappearances in 1978, 1983, 1997
though never as large as it once was, McClurg, 42. Rice, Bullough, and Orsi, Elusive Eden, 22.
38
across valleys pooling into huge lakes. During very wet seasons, these three water systems connect.
The entire Central Valley complex would transform into Lake California—a contiguous body of
water from today's Red Bluff to Bakersfield, lasting until late spring and summer as the waters
drained away.
36
Maidu histories recall flooding so heavy that the Histum Yani—currently the
Sutter Buttes in the Sacramento Valley—was the only land above the water line and a profoundly
sacred place for its role as a refuge. The Tulare basin would spill into the already overflowing San
Joaquin and its tributaries, which moved northward. It meets the south-flowing Sacramento at the
Delta—an expansive system of fresh and saltwater marshes, estuaries, and islands filled with reeds
and tules and bunch grasses armpit-high. These river systems that marry at the Delta, then drain
into the Bays of San Pablo and San Francisco and out through gates into the sea. Ohlone histories
tell of a time when the Bay was a lake, slowly filling before connecting with the sea, but by the
time the Franciscans named it for their patron, it was a colossal bay girded by a long point of land
that strains far out into the ocean and peered out like an island. Along the shore of the bay to the
north stood white-faced cliffs and the northwest the opening of an inlet that entered far inland.
37
To the south of the Central Valley, from Point Conception to the beaches of Baja sweeps
the Bight of Southern California and the Slope's South Coast. This third major district of North
America's coastal Slope comprises the A-frame of the Transverse and Peninsular ranges—the
Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, San Gabriel, San Bernardino ranges, and the Santa Ana, San Jacinto,
and San Pedro de Martir mountains—and the river systems the watersheds, coastal basins, and
river valleys that drain them. Just off the coastal sagebrush coifed shores to the west loom the
36 Robert Kelley, Battling the Inland Sea: American Political Culture, Public Policy, and the Sacramento Valley
1850-1986, 1989.
37 Rice, Bullough, and Orsi, Elusive Eden, 22; McClurg, 18; Michael G Barbour et al., Coastal ecology, Bodega
Head, 1973; California et al., Geologic Guidebook of the San Francisco Bay Counties: History, Landscape,
Geology, Fossils, Minerals, Industry, and Routes to Travel, California Dept. of Natural Resources, Div. of Mines,
1951.
39
Channel Islands, extensions of the Santa Monic Mountains, places with over 15,000 years of
human history on the Pacific Slope.
Figure 4: The South Coast is one of the most heavily populated hydroregions on the Slope. Map by author and ArcGIS.
The rivers of the South Coast's basins flooded with the winter rains, spreading wide and
sometimes wander from their former channels, distributing sand across the landscape and onto the
South Coast's silver and black beaches. When the rivers' flows slowed and narrowed, the sandy-
bottomed channels they cut would remain, hundreds of feet wide, sandbars and fallen trees and
over sandy beds and shaded pools and swimming with rainbow, steelhead, and cutthroat trout. The
Ventura River drains the Santa Ynez Mountains and flows south through the Ojai Valley to the
sea at Old San Buenaventura. The Santa Clara River descends some eighty miles from the Soledad
Mountains to the seas near Ventura, where past winter floods tore away an intervening bar of sand.
The Santa Paula, Sespe, Piru fed the Santa Clara and banked in underground caverns, like the one
at Hueneme. The Los Angeles River channel runs short, but its wetlands were once extensive. Like
most of the South Coast rivers, its waters spilled over and spread out over the countryside, forming
ponds, lakes, and marshes. From the river to the tidewaters, south and west of where the Pueblo
would be, spanned large thickets of willow and larch mixed with tracts of marsh. Giant
40
cottonwoods and alders lined the banks and filled the channels of the rivers like the sprawling San
Gabriel, the river channel well over one hundred yards wide. In some places, the waters flowed
only knee-deep over beds of quicksand. The longest and most powerful among them, the Santa
Ana spread one hundred yards wide, and during wet times the waters flowed deep and fast and
"crystalline and beautiful." In some places, waters flowed year-round.
38
The perception of the
Mediterranean-type climate, while a close approximation, fails to describe the long-term weather
patterns adequately.
39
California, especially along its southern latitudes, enjoys hot and dry
summers caused in part by high pressure, dome-like air systems. This layer of high-pressure air is
exceptionally stable and creates regular weather patterns. The South Coast is the smallest
hydroregion geographically, and some might argue it belongs to the greater Southwestern Slope,
but its short but explosive rivers and history of population density earn its independence.
38 During Gaspar de Portolá's 1769 expedition into what is now California, Father Juan Crespí documented the trek.
Crespí's accounts provide some of the most extensive descriptions of Alta California before it Europeans attempted
to shape it to their cultural conventions. He makes a note of the evidence of substantial flood events that had the
potential to be landscape-altering Juan Crespi, Diario y descripcion de los dilatados: A description of distant roads:
original journals of the first expedition into California, 1764-1770; translated by Alan K. Brown, 2001; Juan Crespí
and Herbert Eugene Bolton, Fray Juan Crespi: missionary explorer on the Pacific coast, 1769-1774, 1927, 147-8. JJ
Warner from James Miller Guinn, A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs:
Also Containing Biographies of Well-Known Citizens of the Past and Present, 1915. John Steven McGroarty, Los
Angeles from the Mountains to the Sea: With Selected Biography of Actors and Witnesses to the Period of Growth
and Achievement, 1921; Font, Vol. 4, p. 169; Diary of Captain W.H. Emory in “Los Angeles,” by J.S. McGroarty,
Vol. I, p 169, January 7, 1847.
39 Carey McWilliams reminds us that "such words as ‘Mediterranean' and ‘subtropical' are most misleading when
applied to Southern California. Unlike the Mediterranean coast, California has no sultry, summer air, no mosquito-
ridden malarial marshes, no mistral winds. A freak of nature—a cool and semi-moist desert—Southern California is
climatically insulated, shut off from the rest of the continent." McWilliams also adds, perhaps most accurately, that
"Most people believe that there are only two seasons in Southern California: ‘the wet' and ‘the dry.' However, this
crude description fails to take account of the subtle changes that occur within the two major seasons . . . California
has two springs, two summers, and a season of rain." Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island on the
Land, Peregrine Smith, 1980, 9-11.
41
Figure 5: The Southern Slope. Light green is the Lower Colorado. Map by author and ArcGIS
Beyond the Peninsular ranges, the backsides of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains
drains the Salton Sea Transboundary watershed that in wetter times connected to the Lower
Colorado, the fourth major hydroregion of the coastal Slope—the Lower Colorado River-Salton
Trough region. This region also includes the southern Mojave Desert and southwestern ends of the
Great Basin and the interior Slope. The high desert plains striated with seasonal arroyos and spotted
with dry lake beds that would come to life with the winter rains or summer thunderstorms and
flash floods of the Mexican monsoon and far beyond the rain shadow, a scattering of saline and
alkali sinks amid the rim lands.
40
While the waterways of High Desert did once drain into the
40 Santa Clara and Ventura through the Santa Ana, San Gabriel, and Los Angeles south beyond the San Diego and
Tijuana rivers. The Channel Islands stretch from San Miguel in the north to San Clemente in the south and include
42
Pacific—the Mojave River bled into the Colorado during very wet times—these waterways no
longer connect to the Gulf of California.
41
The ocean-facing slopes of Southern California's ranges
often collect upwards of fifty inches of precipitation, while the deserts beyond average four inches
in the same season.
42
The Colorado has the largest watershed in the southwest, and in times past,
its lower half poured out through the Delta—that extends 87 miles from the border to the Sea of
Cortez. The Salton Trough drained all of today's Imperial Valley into the Colorado River Delta
and Gulf of California Estuaries, the Desierto de Altar to the east of the Delta, and the salt flats
southeast of the Cienega de Santa Clara. Before the impoundment of the Rio Colorado, its delta
was a habitat for shrimp, croakers like the corvina, the totoaba, and the now critically endangered
vaquita porpoise swam the Mar de Cortés.
43
the famous Catalina Island. Some of the oldest evidence of site in the Americas is on these islands. David Adams,
“Review of Variability in the North American Monsoon,” Dept. of Geography and Regional Development,
University of Arizona; http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/changes/natural/monsoon/.
41 Some have wondered why these regions have been a “donut hole” in Western history. Maybe it is in part that these
regions are geographically a kind of donut hole.
42 While California averages seventy-one million acre-feet of annual runoff, as little as fifteen million acre-feet of
runoff or as much as one hundred and thirty-five million acre-feet of yearly runoff has been recorded. The annual
volume of rivers that flow from the Sierra can be twenty times greater in wetter years compared to dryer ones. The
same holds for precipitation totals. Over one hundred years, Los Angeles may receive an annual average of fifteen
inches of rainfall. Closer investigation though, reveals that the mean is a compilation of several years of less than
five inches with years above three feet of rainfall. In California, the "average is merely an abstraction." Stats from
Carle, Water in California, 23. One acre-foot is roughly 325,851 gallons, 43,560 cubic feet, or 1,233.5 cubic meters
.One acre-foot of water is “the amount of water it would take to cover an acre to a depth of one foot” and is the
“most common unit of volume measurement in modern-day water resources management and is used to express the
amount of water carried by streams and aqueducts and, also the capacity of reservoirs,” from Gumprecht, The L. A.
River; also see Davis, “Los Angeles After the Storm,” 221-241; Baron, W. R. “Retrieving American Climate
History: A Bibliographic Essay,” Agricultural History 63, no. 2, 1989, 7-35; and Earp, “AFTF Study,” 2.
43 “Between AD 200 and 900” spread of corn villages in the southwest…the “distinctive Southwestern Indian
architectural creation” the 16th century Spaniard's called Pueblos…the Anasazi of the Colorado Plateau…the
ancient ones…Patayan along the Colorado… parts of southwestern Arizona, western Sonora and the Baja peninsula,
though unlike the majority of the Slope, the majority of rain falls here during the monsoon months of the
summer…"masses of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico collide with hot, dry air rising from the desert
mountain ranges"...lightning and thunderstorms…" Winter storms that push in from the Pacific usually weaken.
Colin G Calloway, One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark, 2003; James
Jefferson Reid and Stephanie Michelle Whittlesey, The Archaeology of Ancient Arizona, 1997, 70-73; Patricia L
Crown and W. James Judge, Chaco and Hohokam: Prehistoric Regional Systems in the American Southwest, 1991,
196; L Brito-Castillo et al., “Reconstruction of Long-Term Winter Streamflow in the Gulf of California Continental
Watershed,” Journal of Hydrology 278, no. 1, 2003, 39–50; Lynn Gamble and Michael Wilken-Robertson,
“Kumeyaay Cultural Landscapes of Baja California’s Tijuana River Watershed,” Journal of California and Great
Basin Anthropology 28, 2008, 127–52; Verónica Castillo-Muñoz, The Other California: Land, Identity and Politics
on the Mexican Borderlands, 2016; William T Vollmann, Imperial, 2009.
43
The Great Basin is the last region. The Basin is an unusual case. In the deep past, the Basin
drained to the Pacific by way of the Colorado river, but today this is no longer the case. The
barricade created by the Cascade and Sierra Mountain ranges block most of the Pacific’s storms,
making the Basin arid. Still the backsides of the Sierra still get rain and snow, and the Carson, and
Virgin Rivers can grow dangerous. Pacific storms still make their way into the western Rockies
and drain into the Great Salt Lake and the upper Colorado River.
Figure 6: The Great Basin of the Pacific Slope. The southern Mojave Desert drained into the Colorado River in wetter times. Map
by author and ArcGIS.
To sum up, the greater Slope is all the watersheds west of the Continental Divide. The three
broad regions of Coastal Slope include the watersheds wets of the Cascade, Sierra Nevada, and
San Gabriel/San Jacinto Mountains. The three broad regions of the Interior Slope include the
Columbia Plateau, the Great Basin, and the Lower Colorado/Sea of Cortez. Except for the Great
Basin, though it once did, each of the hydroregions drains into the Pacific.
44
Figure 7: Watersheds of the Pacific Slope. Five major hydroregions of the Pacific Slope, left. On right, Slope broken down by
watersheds/stream basins. Maps by author and ArcGIS.
Ocean and Atmosphere
Stretching from Antarctica to the Arctic, the Pacific Ocean is twice as large as any other
ocean on the planet and covers one-third of the Earth's surface. It connects five continents and
covers more of the globe than all of Earth's landmasses combined. The Pacific is anything but, as
it hosts most of the volcanic hotspots and some of the most ferocious storms on the planet.
44
The
Pacific is a critical force in the North American West's weather and watering and acts as a "global
thermostatically controlled heat source, moderating temperature extremes.”
45
The Pacific also
mothers the El Niño Southern Oscillation—the cycle of warming and cooling sea surface
44 Hess et al., 249-250.
45 Hess et al., 89.
45
temperatures and shifting air surface pressure in the eastern Pacific alternates roughly every 5
years. These oceanic and atmospheric changes can dramatically affect the quantity and potency of
storms in each season. Along the Pacific Slope, particularly the drier south, the warmer El Niño
brings warmer, wetter conditions, while the colder La Niña signals dryer and cooler conditions.
46
Still, significant storms cans occur during La Niña conditions.
Terrans we may be, but we are as much organisms of the atmosphere as we are animals of
the earth. The way crustaceans walk on the seafloor is a denizen of the ocean, a human living at
the bottom of the sea of air is a resident of the atmosphere.
47
The ocean and atmosphere are part
of one great fluidic system, where water and air work as one nearly continuous body of moisture
moving from its densest at the Mariana Trench's deepest depths to its thinnest, where it evaporates
into space. Visualize the surface of the Earth, just this thin layer, pressed between two vast oceans
of fluid, one of air and one of water, acting upon each other, whipped up by the planet’s rotation,
slackened by Earth's rocky surface, and all of it warmed by the sun’s energy.
The sparks of all that friction are the weather. Atmospheric temperature, moisture content,
barometric pressure, and wind speed—interact and combine to create weather to generate storms.
48
Storms transport water between these realms, and precipitation has been finding pathways
downslope to the sea for as long as there have been continents to collect it. Mountains rise in their
paths only for the waters to carve their way over, around, and through, always finding paths of
least resistance to the lowest possible level. The time that water spends in river channels is
46 It is more nuanced than this, there is a north/south divide in the Pacific West—La Niña may bring drought
conditions to the south west, the north west might receive more rain. The same goes for El Niño—wet years in the
southwest and drier seasons in the north. This is one reason that we cannot just assume the 1861-62 storms were El
Niño conditions because of the amount of precipitation. Basically, an El Niño event in the southwest would imply a
comparatively dry year for the northwest.
47 “Man thinks of the crab as a water animal; illogically and curiously, he calls himself a creature of the land.” George
R. Stewart, Storm, 1941, 19. Hess et al, 57.
48 http://urbanearth.gps.caltech.edu/winter-storm-2/; “Multi-Hazard West Coast Winter Storm Project”; Accessed
2012/10/28
46
relatively short and but one station on the hydraulic cycle that knits together earth, ocean, and sky.
The movement of water from ocean, to sky, to land, and so forth is an instrumental process
in the North American West's history. The flow of water back to the sea defines the boundaries of
the Pacific Slope. The flow of water and the lack thereof have profoundly influenced the region’s
inhabitants' lifeways for hundreds of thousands of years. Atmospheric rivers are one of the
fundamental mechanisms in this circulation of water. There is another type of river, as significant
and as elemental as any tributary on the planet. Though some claim they can smell them as they
zoom just a mile above our heads, these great waterways are mostly invisible.
A timeline of weather and water extremes
Like the landscape, the chronicle of extreme flooding on the Slope is ancient. Most of the
Slope has distinct wet and dry parts to each season and occasional extended periods of drought or
wetness that can extend over several months, years, decades, or even several centuries.
49
The ebbs
and flows of these interlocking water systems have a history. As the climate has changed over the
past several thousand years, so too have the flows of water across the Slope. That record reveals
that extremes in precipitation and discharge are not abnormal. The months of December, January
49 "Climatic variations of the last few millennia can reveal patterns of variability beyond that recorded by the
instrumental record… pollen, sediments, and hydrogen isotopes from leaf wax to generate a 3000-year record of
vegetation and climate along the Southern California coast." Several tree ring reconstructions with records from the
period indicate increased temperature in the Sierra Nevada Range, Graumlich, 1993; Scuderi, 1993; Dingemans et
al., “3000 Years”; Matthew E. Kirby et al., “A 9170-Year Record of Decadal-to-Multi-Centennial Scale Pluvial
Episodes from the Coastal Southwest United States: A Role for Atmospheric Rivers?,” Quaternary Science Reviews
46, 2012, 57–65; M. E. Kirby et al., “A Holocene Record of Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)-Related Hydrologic
Variability in Southern California (Lake Elsinore, CA),” Journal of Paleolimnology 44, no. 3, 2010, 819–39; Scott
A. Mensing et al., “The Late Holocene Dry Period: Multiproxy Evidence for an Extended Drought between 2800
and 1850 Cal Yr BP across the Central Great Basin, USA,” Quaternary Science Reviews 78, 2013, 266–82; Nicklas
G. Pisias, “Paleoceanography of the Santa Barbara Basin During the Last 8000 Years,” Quaternary Research 10, no.
3, 1978, 366–84; J. A. Kleppe et al., “Duration and Severity of Medieval Drought in the Lake Tahoe Basin,”
Quaternary Science Reviews 30, no. 23, 2011, 3269–79; Christopher Morgan and Monique M. Pomerleau, “New
Evidence for Extreme and Persistent Terminal Medieval Drought in California’s Sierra Nevada,” Journal of
Paleolimnology 47, no. 4, 2012, 707–13.
47
and February are often the year's wettest and snowmelt, along with heavy or sustained rains, fill
channels, flood valleys, and coastal plains. The wandering channels, debris flows, and landslides
are common to varying degrees across the Pacific Slope. And the massive ones leave traces of
their marks on the landscape.
Evidence archived in the landscape—markers like the advancement and regression of
lakes, tree rings, submerged stumps, as well as biological material for identification and
radiocarbon dating of pollen, charcoal, bone fragments, or cultural artifacts like flint and obsidian
tools or even cans and other refuse that help date the sedimentary layers, and other
geomorphological features show distinct climatic shifts and extended periods of wetness or
dryness over the last several thousand years. One such marker, the underwater stratigraphic
sedimentary layers that streams deposit in lakes and coastal sea floors, records a near-perfect
timeline of more and less wet seasons. The most massive floods since Mazama—Mazama is used
as a baseline because its eruption 7800 years ago deposited a layer of tephra, airborne pyroclastic
debris that forms a reasonably consistent ash layer in the stratigraphic record across a vast
geography—show up in the depositional record at multiple locations across the Slope.
From three thousand to two thousand years ago, most of the Slope's climate appears broadly
dry. This is the Late Holocene Dry Period. Lakes in the southwest show low amounts of sediment
inflow and, therefore, likely low stream flows. Between roughly 750 BCE to 50 BCE, the West
grew especially thirsty. Captured pollen, tree rings, submerged stumps, and other evidence from
several sites from across the Great Basin and Southern California provide evidence of extended
periods of aridity —the late Holocene dry period. Lakebed sedimentary layers from Lake Elsinore
show low sand input during that period, demonstrating muted stream flows and runoff, and overall
drier conditions. Other markers reveal deep droughts across California's Southern half and the
48
Great Basin's central and southern parts. Radiolarian assemblages—tiny, mineralized protozoa
skeletons—off California's coastline offer evidence that between 2600 and 2000 years ago was
also a period of efflorescence in plant species that thrive in colder waters. Cooler oceans generally
point to a shift in drier climates.
50
There were periods of heavy precipitation, streamflow, and runoff. Sediment layers in San
Francisco Bay and off Santa Barbara's coast reveal high runoff and likely megastorm seasons in
212, 440, 603.
51
Between 850 and 1400 CE, the climate grew warmer, with trees growing higher
up on the Sierra Nevada than today's tree line. The Medieval Climate Anomaly was marked with
a pair of deep droughts from 970 to 1200 years CE and then again between 1300 and 1400 CE, as
shown by tree stumps in Sierra Nevada lakes and rivers, though little evidence in dramatic changes
in forest compositions. Tree ring studies from the Sierra show increased temperatures there. High
concentrations of the algae Pediastrum boryanum var. boryanum found in Zaca Lake's floor
samples show that between 950 and 1100 and then again between 1300 and 1370 correspond with
those extended dry periods. The presence of the algae Pediastrum indicates an increase in
temperature, though not necessarily drought.
52
Simultaneously, in the greater southwest, the agricultural civilizations of the Lower
Colorado and Gila Rivers, like the Hohokam, sustained massive floods on their irrigation
complexes in 888 and 899. These disasters contributed to the dispersal of the Hohokam and others
throughout the Southwestern Slope. Additional floods and other challenges brought by deep
50 This period also “stands out in marine records from SBB. In particular, several records see a substantial shift in
conditions at 2000 cal yr BP. Radiolarian assemblages off the west coast of California indicate that the period
between 2600–2000 cal yr BP represented a period of increased cool water species, which are interpreted as a shift
to drier climate,” Kirby et al., 2012, Kirby et al., 2010, Mensing et al., 2013, Pisias, 1978.
51 Michael D. Dettinger and B. Lynn Ingram, “The Coming Megafloods,” Scientific American 308, no. 1, 2013, 64–
71; B. Lynn Ingram and Frances Malamud-Roam, The West without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other
Climatic Clues Tell Us about Tomorrow, 2013.
52 Stine, 1994, Kleppe et al., 2011, Morgan and Pomerleau, 2012, Jankovska and Komarek, 2000, Graumlich, 1993,
Scuderi, 1993, Millar et al., 2006.
49
droughts between 1200 and 1358 finally eroded the great hydraulic civilization's extensive and
ancient canal system (likely the largest in North America).
53
By around the year 1450, the climate turned cooler and wetter, marking the Little Ice Age.
This era was much wetter than in the previous centuries. Like big cone spruce, trees grew bigger,
faster, and streams moved more sediment, like at Lake Elsinore. From five hundred to two hundred
and fifty years ago, abundant Salix pollen in the stratigraphic layer signals the presence of high
water levels, as shown by tree rings from big-cone spruce on the Transverse Ranges. High
percentages of willow pollen and other riparian trees like sycamores and low levels of daisy pollen
imply more and taller trees, indicating higher rainfall and stream flows during this period. Between
1500 and 1800 had very high lake levels and likely consistent streamflow, implying ample
precipitation. The pollen record from Wawona Meadow in Yosemite National Park also shows
extreme moisture during this period. High concentrations of pine and oak pollen also suggest heavy
tree cover in what was the wettest period in the last 3000 years.
54
Seafloor sediment layers off
central California reveal that massive outflows of water and debris occurred again in 1029, 1418,
and 1605 CE.
55
By the late Little Ice Age, an extensive network of waterways that flooded seasonally
53 Colin G Calloway, One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark, 2003; James
Jefferson Reid and Stephanie Michelle Whittlesey, The Archaeology of Ancient Arizona, 1997, 70-73; Patricia L
Crown and W. James Judge, Chaco and Hohokam: Prehistoric Regional Systems in the American Southwest, 1991,
196; L Brito-Castillo et al., “Reconstruction of Long-Term Winter Streamflow in the Gulf of California Continental
Watershed,” Journal of Hydrology 278, no. 1, 2003, 39–50; Lynn Gamble and Michael Wilken-Robertson,
“Kumeyaay Cultural Landscapes of Baja California’s Tijuana River Watershed,” Journal of California and Great
Basin Anthropology 28, 2008, 127–52.
54 “There is a wide, gently sloping alluvial bench extending several 100 m from the east shore only a few meters
above modern lake level, and rising lake levels may have created saturated soils ideal for Salix colonization.
Additionally, high percentages of Platanus, a riparian species, and high total pollen concentration with well-
preserved pollen support the argument for higher lake levels. Above average levels of Pinus and Quercus pollen,
and low levels of pollen from herbaceous species such as Asteraceae suggest that tree cover was higher than during
any other period before the last 100 years.” Haston and Michaelsen, 1994, Kirby et al., 2012, Anderson and Stillick,
2013.
55 Dettinger and Ingram, “The Coming Megafloods,” 2013; Ingram and Malamud-Roam, The West without Water,
2013.
50
covered much of the waterscapes of the Pacific Coast's coastal plains, river deltas, and river
valleys—a patchwork of seasonal and permanent lakes and wetlands interlaced by wandering
streams. The era was one of the wettest in the previous three millennia, with evidence of megaflood
in 1605.
56
Lake levels were high, stream flows consistent, soils were saturated, and tree cover, as
evident by high concentrations of oak and pine pollen in lake floor soil samples and riverine plant
concentrations in the soil record, was higher than during any other period before the last century.
Wetlands expanded coastwide from north of Puget Sound down through the Modoc Plateau
and the Klamath River Basin to the Imperial and Coachella valleys and the Colorado River Delta
in the Bay of the Californias in the south. Riparian forests of broad-leafed deciduous trees filled
the river bottoms and lined stream banks as they wandered down and through canyons or
surrounded extensive freshwater marshes clumped with tules, cattails, and other aquatic plants.
Along the coasts stretched brackish marshes, shallow bays, and coastal salt marshes interlocked
with estuaries, coastal lagoons, and mudflats. Extensive systems of marshlands and salt flats,
webbed with meandering streams, up and down the Slope's coastal plains.
Native villages, trading locations, and work locations often occupied key geographic
positions with these landforms, like rivers' juncture. Like the Hudson's Bay Company, European
corporations founded their trading posts and forts at these critical locations, like at Champoeg on
the Willamette, for example, which had long been cited of Indigenous gathering and exchange.
These confluences would again attract Euro-American colonists to build communities along rivers.
The Pacific Slope—the Californias and the Pacific Northwest in particular—were at the
edges of Mesoamerican and Mississippian domains long before they were on the fringes of global
empires maneuvering for position on the far Pacific coast through the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries. The
56 Dingemans et al., “Zaca Lake,” 2014. McClurg, 5-6. Dettinger and Ingram, “The Coming Megafloods,” 2013;
Ingram and Malamud-Roam, The West without Water, 2013.
51
market revolution kicked off in the 16
th
century enticed waves of newcomers to the Slope chasing
the furs that grew the capital that East Coast firms used to finance imported goods from the Asia-
Pacific world. And as it did across the planet, that market revolution unleashed a series of
ecological transformations that would dramatically change the land- and waterscapes of the Pacific
Slope.
By the time the Spanish made their way overland up the Slope during the winter of 1769-
1770, Southern California's basins had shown signs of the ancient systems of wet and dry heavy
flooding in the recent past. This relatively wet period began in 1769, which overlapped with the
Catholic Monarchy's initial conquest of the Pacific West. California Mission records offer clues to
the distinct wet and dry times between San Francisco de Solano's and San Diego during the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries. Yields of corn, wheat, and barley were large. Riverways showed signs of recent
floods or were so engorged that overflowing San Miguel—now San Gabriel—River that ruined
the first crop at the old San Gabriel mission during the winter of 1771-72 or made the rivers
impassable like the Santa Ana in 1774 In January of 1776 "not so much because of its depth" but
because of the pace of the current unsettled the horses and mules. From 1769-1781, the winters of
1770-71, '71- '72, and '73-'74 were all very wet years with floods, across the southern half of the
Slope, with brimming rivers in 1775-76 and '79- '80. Mission San Diego Annual Report of 1780
that "heavy rainfall" "filled the riverbed and the lowlands where the wheat and barley had been
planted." The Neophytes worked "hard to remedy the trouble for the present and to prevent similar
disasters in the future."
This wet period ended in 1781, beginning two-three decades of deep and destructive
drought. Some areas of the Slope received almost zero rainfall, and in 1794 that many times that
year the flow of water stopped "a quarter of a league from the mission," limiting the growth and
52
harvest and "wasting seed." The drought worsened to the point that San Gabriel's padre sent half
of the Indians at the Mission into the mountains to gather food. Simultaneously, the mission
“maintained” those that remained on “half rations, and a little milk, until the time of the wheat
harvest,” something that was typically forbidden and a punishable offense at other times. That
Mission authorities opted to let Indians do the same work in the very places the Franciscans had
tried so hard to remove them from reflecting the deprivation brought on by the ongoing drought
disrupted with only sporadic rain, like in 1798 when floodwaters swamped the planting fields and
church of Mission Santa Cruz, and the Indians held there deserted.
57
Native Peoples of the Mokelumne recall a flood in the “early 1800s” that filled the valley
from “bluff to bluff” and thoroughly “washing away the plains below.”
58
In 1810, after a twenty-
year dry spell, an eleven-year wet period began in the southern half of the Pacific Coast. All the
California rivers overflowed as rains fell "frequent and heavy" during the winter of 1810-11. From
north of Santa Barbara south to San Diego, the South Coast's rivers flooded the valleys and plains
during 1812-13 and again in 1814-15 when the L.A. River carved a new passage to the west.
59
The
57 Mission records offer clues to the wet and dry times from San Francisco de Solano to San Diego during the 18th
and 19th centuries. Using records of crop returns from 11 missions between the years 1774 and 1834, observations
in diaries, letters, reports, histories, and periodicals of rains, crops, droughts, high water, and floods from 1769 on,
tell of periods of large crops coinciding with more flooding and “periods of scanty crops” corresponding with few
reports of floods. For tables with specific statistics see Henry Baker Lynch and Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California, Rainfall and Stream Run-off in Southern California since 1769, 1931; Arvi O Waananen et al.,
Magnitude and Frequency of Floods in California, Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey, 1977;
Mission records, including records of wheat, barley, and corn yields offers some data on periods of heavy rain
beginning in San Diego in 1769 (extensive irrigation may obscure actual rainfall totals), San Gabriel in 1774 and
Santa Barbara until 1834; from San Diego to San Francisco de Solano 30 miles north of the Bay; recorded by Father
Engelhardt; Father Juan Crespí noted evidence of recent heavy flooding on January 7, 1770; In January of 1776,
ample rains made the Santa Ana river impassable for Juan Bautista de Anza from Herbert Eugene Bolton et al.,
Anza’s California Expeditions, 1930, Diaries 1774, 1776; Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe
Bancroft California Pastoral, 1769-1848; Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft: History of
California, Multiple Volumes; Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft California Inter
Pocula, 1980; Zephyrin Engelhardt, San Diego Mission, San Francisco: James H. Barry, 1920; from Fr.
Engelhardt’s San Diego Mission”, 109; Fathers Tapia and Miguel from Engelhardt’s “Santa Barbara Mission”, 64;
Engelhardt “San Gabriel Mission,” 69.
58 Francis Evelyn Bishop, “The Winter of the Flood 1861-1862,” Calaveras Archive
59 Quake and floods destroyed La Purisima in 1812
53
winter of 1816-17 was rainy yet again heavy downpours and high waters and floods over all of
California. all "inundated due to the rise in the rivers from the melting of the snow" and that the
rivers were "much swollen and is flooded on both sides." Travel slowed "fourteen leagues in three
or four hours because of the great force of the current." extreme rainfall and massive flooding
across the Pacific Northwest in 1818. But the weather again turned dry after that, especially across
the southern half of the in March of 1820, lamenting that year had been "poor in water." "there
was a shortage of water because not even half of the needed rain had fallen," killing many sheep
and cattle. Storms pushed Southern California's rivers to high water for one season in 1820-21, but
wide-scale flooding was minimal, and the dry times would return the following year.
60
Particularly in the southern half of the Slope, there are extensive dry periods of several
decades, punctuated with short periods of extreme precipitation. Another decade of severe drought
from 1822 to 1832 followed, the deepest in hundreds of years. This span shows "tiny crops almost
without exceptions, and only one interruption in an otherwise unbroken period of dry years and
insufficient crops. Not as long as other extended droughts, it was perhaps the most severe on
record. January 22, 1829, asked, "in this year of drought, when there is no pasturage for the sheep,
where shall they be placed?" This period of little rain was interrupted by large floods in 1825 when
the rivers of California grew so "swollen that their beds, their banks, and the adjoining lands were
60 The river shifted “along the edge of the mesa on the western side of the valley…It left its old channel at the point of
the hills and flowed down the valley very nearly on what is now the line of San Fernando and Alameda Streets… It
subsequently returned to its old channel of the eastern side of its valley…. For many years after…below where the
Beaudry waterworks were formally located, there were springs formed by the percolation of water through the old
river channel,” from Friars Zalvidia and Nuez of San Gabriel Mission wrote to Governor Sola in March of 1820; A
letter from Friar Jayme Escude of San Luis Rey Mission to Governor Sola that same month explained; Guinn, A
History of California, 337; Duran explored the Sacramento River on May 19th, 1817 and recorded this in his diary;
Mission “crops in the Los Angeles area for the entire period averaged 35% above normal” and that the “season of
1819-20 gave a foretaste of what was to come,” drought. Engelhardt’s Mission San Gabriel, 115; Letter from Friar
Jayme Escude of San Luis Rey Mission to Governor Sola, March 23, 1820, Archbishops Archives 1018, 1073, and
from Engelhardt’s San Luis Rey Mission, 36; Fariss & Smith, Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra
Counties, with California from 1513 to 1850.
54
greatly changed." In 1825 and 1826, significant floods buried crops in gravel in some places and
tore wide gulches across the plains in others. The Los Angeles River again changed its pathway
during this wet season. Widespread flooding during a winter spent trapping in California in 1826-
27. Floodwaters in the Sacramento Valley rose so high that Trapper, trader, and cartographer
Jedediah Smith recorded Smith sought refuge at the Marysville—now Sutter Buttes—long a sacred
sanctuary for the Maiduan and Wintaun speaking peoples. The Buttes were packed with antelope,
elk, and bear who also sought safety from the flooded valley. Drought conditions returned the
following years. January 2, 1831, that Mission San Gabriel could no longer support its Neophytes
for two straight years.
61
The sustained droughts of those decades strained the colonial endeavor, and Mexico's
Secularization Act—the state confiscation and redistribution of the Franciscan estates was not put
into effect until 1846 but eventually broke Mission power over the landscape and the Indigenous
workforce. Not long after for the Mission system and Spanish Monarchy would retreated from the
Pacific Slope. This inaugurated a mini land rush on Mission lands formerly promised to
California's Indigenous peoples. But more people and more settlements meant more disaster. From
1832 to 1842, major flooding occurred in California in 1833-34, 1839-40, 1841-42. Nevertheless,
this decade was a time of relatively average, perhaps even sub-normal rainfall for the late Little
Ice Age, with short interims of very heavy rain and floods, illustrating the problem with using
averages to try and describe or encapsulate the climate and weather of California and the greater
Pacific West.
61 Friar Fernando Martin of Mission San Diego to Governor Echeandia on January 22, 1829; Father Ybarra at Mission
San Fernando; The dearth was so bad that Commandante Santiago Arguello wrote to Governor Echeandia on
January 2, 1831, Engelhardt, Mission San Diego, 226; “The Mission (San Gabriel) in sterile years can scarcely
support the neophytes, as has happened in the last two years,” from Engelhardt, Mission San Gabriel, 161; J.J.
Warner described “the rivers of this country were so swollen that their beds, their banks, and the adjoining lands
were greatly changed.” Warner, “A Historical Sketch of Los Angeles County; Fariss & Smith, Plumas, Lassen &
Sierra Counties.
55
During one wet year in 1832, John Work, a fur trapper and trader for Hudson's Bay
Company led a party down the Pit River into California where he found the valley's rivers wreaking
havoc. Work's trapping party of one hundred men, women, and children found their venture south
into the Central Valley blocked "along the slopes of the Sierra foothills by torrential rains and high
water" on the Sacramento, Feather, and Yuba Rivers. They camped atop the Buttes as the rains
poured for eleven straight days and so much water filled the Valley, encircling the Buttes forming
a little table of unflooded ground above the waterline, its surface so soft that the horses bogged
down in it.
62
William Heath Davis survived several big winters on the Slope. He remembered the
winter of 1833-34 a "very rainy one."
63
But the "winter of 1839-40 was a severe one" across
California when an incredible series of storms brought prolonged rains that splashed down. San
Francisco witnessed "an immense quantity of rain falling" that continue to dump down for "forty
days and nights, but with little cessation." The “forty days” of rain becomes a common trope. The
floods stranded East Bay Ranchero Domingo Peralta and his family of twelve in Yerba Buena.
They had previously crossed the bay by boat to restock but had to stay in town at "Spear's house"
for weeks waiting out the dangerously high waters. While Sutter had built his house upon a hill
above the rivers, Sacramento City's founding colonists continued building towards the American
and Sacramento rivers' confluence and in the bed of a seasonal lake that tended to flood during
rainy times. The lingering storms flooded the whole countryside. Sutter himself disappeared for
62 Saturday the 29th of December, Work wrote in his diary; Fariss & Smith, Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties;
Work, John, 1792-1861. Also, Maloney, Alice Bay, and John Work. "Fur Brigade to the Bonaventura: John Work's
California Expedition of 1832-33 for the Hudson's Bay Company." California Historical Society Quarterly 22, no.
3, 1943), 193-222.
63 White Americans on the Slope called him “Kanaka” referencing his Kanaka Maoli grandmother Mahi
Kalanihooulumokuikekai, the merchant William Heath Davis wrote on much of his experiences across the 19th
century Slope and eastern Pacific World, , 25; William Heath Davis, Seventy-Five Years in California: A History of
Events and Life in California, Personal, Political and Military, under the Mexican Regime, during the Quasi-
Military Government of the Territory by the United States, and after the Admission of the State to the Union, 1929,
11s.
56
more than a month until he sent word by boat that he was alive, and that the country was "one vast
expanse of water." Deer, elk, and other animals huddled on every prominence, peeking out from
above the waters to guard against waters slurping them away.
64
More settler-colonials continued migrating to the Pacific West in the 1840s, Europeans and
Euro-Americans. Following the madness of the rush for gold, peoples arrived from nearly every
comer of the globe. This period stands out –a dry span of ten to twelve years interrupted with rare
but historical storms.
65
This period of alternating dryness and deluge undoubtedly colored the ways
newcomers saw the Pacific West's waterscapes and how they envisioned their futures within it.
Some traveled to Oregon to get away from the climate, the endless flooding, malaria, and other
water-borne illnesses that plagued those who immigrated from the Ohio and Mississippi
watersheds of the old New West. They set up along the Willamette Valley's waterways, at
Scappoose Plains, and at French Prairie and throughout the San Francisco Bay floodplains and the
Sacramento-Joaquin Delta. Little did they know what was to come.
In 1840 and 1841, no rain fell for eighteen months. Livestock wasted away, thin, and
sparse. Crop yields, especially wheat, were so poor across California, merchants sent ships to San
Blas and Guaymas looking for flour.
66
That year-and-a-half dry spell ended with an explosion of
precipitation over the winter of 1841-42 as "one of several and great inundations of California's
64 Davis, Seventy-Five Years, 11.
65 Josiah Belden described the early years “from 1841 on for perhaps ten or twelve years the seasons were less
favorable for cultivation than they have been since. There was more drought…the proportion of the dry season to the
wet one was greater from 1841 to ’51 or ’52 than it has ever been since.” From "Touring Topics", August 1930, 64.
Military Governor of California, Colonel Mason “The crops in this country have been very fine this season and at
present wheat is plentiful.” Season of 1846-47; letter, October 7, 1847, in Serial 573, 349 ; “The previous season
(1846-47) had been very short and light for several years, and the country had suffered from the consequent
drought.” From “Geographical Memoirs”, 40; Season of 1846-47; letter, October 7, 1847, in Serial 573, 349.
66 General Bidwell wrote that “there had been no rain for eighteen months,” from C.C. Royce’s “John Bidwell,” 45;
Duflot de Mofras, Exploration du Territoire de L’Oregon, des Californis, Vol. I, 501; Fremont, from “Report of
Expedition of 1842,” San Joaquin Valley, March 8, 1844; Josiah Belden wrote in “Pastoral California,” and
“Touring Tropics” July 1930, 44.
57
Central Valley.
67
John C. Fremont notes that the Californios were “busily engaged in constantly
watering the gardens which the unfavorable dryness of the season rendered necessary.” Also,
major floods overwhelmed Los Angeles.
68
In February 1843, storms poured across Oregon and
northern California. The Willamette River rose to levels beyond any had seen in over three
decades, robbing farms of their fences and barns and destroying much of the stored grain.
Floodwaters moved into the valleys engulfing herds of horses, cattle, hogs, and sheep.
69
The 1845-
46 rainy season was stormy with floods across California. The highwaters rose above the Native
Mounds in Sacramento Valley. The waters climbed so high they came within feet of Sutter's Fort.
Experience likely led Sutter to choose to build on the high ground between the Sacramento and
the American. The Sacramento of City of 1878 would have had water at least four or five feet
above the high grade."
70
The winter of 1848 was also severe. Heavy rains again caused widespread
overflows across California, and “many valley settlements” were entirely underwater.
71
None had yet been as wet as the winter storms of 1849-1850, which were disastrous across
the Pacific Slope. Floodwaters swamped both the Willamette Valley and California's Central
Valley, destroying or damaging every mill in Oregon Territory.
72
On January 9, 1850, after days
of rain, the Sacramento River flooded the city of its name. With no levee system in place, the river
ran through its streets, sprawling for miles in from the river's usual edge, four-fifths of the city was
67 Bidwell remembered the winter of his arrival to the Sacramento Valley in 1841-42 as “one of numerous and great
inundations.” Hunsaker and Curran quote a currently lost letter from Bidwell to James A. Barwick, Signal Service,
Sacramento CA dated January 21, 1884, in which Bidwell describes the seasonal weather from his arrival in 1841 to
the winter of 1850.
68 Guinn, A History of California.
69 Bunting, 74; Gustavus Hines, Life on the Plains of the Pacific: Oregon, 1851; Oregon Spectator, January 10, 1850,
p. 2, c. 3. From Hines, Life on the Plains of the Pacific.
70 Bidwell called the 1845-46 rainy season “very wet” with “floods and inundations.” Lost letter from Bidwell to
James A. Barwick, Signal Service, Sacramento CA dated January 21, 1884. J. W. Marshall, “What a Pioneer Has
Seen,” Sacramento Union, February 26, 1878, 3, col. 1.
71 Francis Evelyn Bishop, “The Winter of the Flood 1861-1862,” 1, Calaveras Archive
72 Oregon Spectator, January 1850: “nearly all the mills in the Territory have been swept away or seriously injured.”
…Cranfields And again in 1861; Isaac and Margaret Smith on the Willamette “rose ten feet higher than ever known
by white men.” McClurg, 47.
58
underwater and the streets of Sacramento a wild west Venice. People navigated the flooded streets
in dough troughs, wagon boxes, "India-rubber" beds, crockery crates, and in rafts buoyed by
whiskey barrels. Whiskey in "hogsheads, whisky in barrels, and whisky in kegs" bobbled along on
the impromptu canals, the "gay gondoliers" finding encouragement for a song from the "bunghole
of his gondola."
73
Amidst the "boisterous revelry of men in boats who find all they want to drink
floating free about them, Other sounds echo through the wooden canyons, the howling of an
abandoned dog, and the yells of those confined on some roof, or hugging on to some wreck. But
there was no sounding of gongs or clanging of dinner bells, and by dark, only a light or two
flickered with life in California's "second city."
74
San Francisco's irregular and uneven streets were ungraded, unplanked, unpaved and were
overall an "unsightly waste of sand and mud churned by the continual grinding of heavy wagons
and trucks and the tugging and floundering of horse, mules, and oxen" and clogged by timber and
belongings, "alternate humps and holes, the actual dumping places of the town, handy receptacles
for the general sweepings and rubbish and indescribable offal and filth, the refuse of the
indiscriminate population 'pigging' together in shanties and tents." On the sand hills to the north
beyond the city, people camped amid the chaparral. The flooded roads shrouded "holes and traps
fit to smother horse and man." like the "two horses mired down in the mud of Montgomery street
left to die of starvation" or the three "drunken men" that "suffocated between Washington and
Jackson streets." Some tried to wade through the sloughs and were "lucky when they sank no
deeper than their waists." They used piles of brushwood and branches of trees to make momentary
walkways and islands across the swamped landscape and "the inmates of tents and houses" made
73 Guinn, A History of California.
74 Sutter “built his fort on high ground away from both the Sacramento and the American rivers, but the 49ers’ rush to
settle the city caused it to grow out from the fort toward the rivers, which afforded easy transpiration.” McClurg, 47.
59
crossings with whatever was on hand--brads, boxes, barrels—whatever. A hotchpotch of "flour
sacks, cooking stoves, and tobacco boxes" bridged seventy-five yards between Simmons,
Hutchinson & Co.'s store to the Adams Express office. Here a piano plugged a large hole, and a
sack of Chilean flour made up the first leg. The bridge connected to the long narrow row of cooking
stoves connected to two rows of tobacco boxes laid side-by-side.
75
That Spring, Harden Bigelow,
and others rallied the city to build a levee three feet tall and twelve feet wide at its foot, and Bigelow
was elected mayor.
76
By the middle decades of the nineteenth century, waves of colonists and their various
machinations dramatically changed the Pacific West's landscapes. Indigenous fire-farming may
have contributed to more significant flows in specific watersheds in specific seasons. Still, the
removal of California Indians and their land management practices contributed to forest and
grassland composition changes. Indigenous landscaping practices lessened substantially, almost
entirely. What effect may that have had on watershed ability to absorb precipitation? The Spanish
introduced cattle, goats, sheep, and other livestock that had repeatedly grazed over thousands of
acres for over a hundred years, perhaps and the native groundcover had dramatically changed,
possibly leading to less ability for the lands to absorb moisture. They also introduced dozens of
invasive grass species more susceptible to fire.
The Gold Rush inaugurated an explosion of immigration to the Pacific Coast. From the
epicenter of the fever near Coloma on the American River, miners dispersed across the Feather,
Yuba, Cosumnes, Bear, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Calaveras, Merced, and on and on to any tributary
they could chase gold. They built settlements at Sonora, Grass Valley, Auburn, Columbia, Nevada
75 Hittell’s History of California, Vol. III; Guinn, A History of California, 1915.
76 J. M Guinn and George H Tinkham, History of the State of California and Biographical Record of San Joaquin
County, Historic Record Co., 1909; McClurg, 47.
60
City, Georgetown, and Hangtown.
77
They stripped thousands of trees from foothills and valley
bottoms to build missions, forts, houses, bridges, dams, particularly the sluices and long toms,
wooden flumes, and miles of ditches been dug to reroute water for mining. By the 1850s, hydraulic
mining techniques dumped tens of thousands of tons of tailings into the American, Sacramento,
Yuba, Feather and Merced rivers ran red and yellow watersheds raising river bottoms and
suffocating salmon spawning beds. By 1859 they left the Mother Lode a "wasteland of caved in
hillsides, heaped up debris, and tree stumps." Gold seekers came to California as a “destroyer."
78
In the early and mid-19
th
century, that Delta still a vast intertidal wetland, scattered with
islands protected by sediment deposits that operated like natural levees. It was "abundant with
beaver, and their islets," "thick clouds of mosquitos," and lagoons interconnected by fields of tall
tules that spread south towards the horizon. Wind-powered ships could take longer than a week to
travel between San Francisco and Sacramento, where steamers could do it in less than twelve
hours. The winter of 1851-1852 was even wetter and again flooded the Central Valley. Stockton
received 45.38 inches of rain that season. The San Joaquin and Sacramento Basins were again a
“huge muddy quagmire,” and the only means of travel was by boat. Some foolish enough to travel
overland were stranded for days, waiting for the rivers to subside.
79
77 Population statistics from the 1860 Census: CA – 379,985; OR – 52,465; WA – 11,594 (terr.); NV – 6,857
(territory); UT – 40,273 (terr.); NM – 93,516 (terr.). For contrast, the states of NY – 3.9 million; PA – 2.9 million;
OH – 2.3 million; 1860 census info: 8th federal census, First to include Washington Territory (esb 1853), 40th of 42
out of states/territories (followed by Nevada and Dakota Territories), 1850 count had estimated pop north of
Columbia. The Territory covered approx. 240,000 square miles (66,544 sq mi after Idaho Terr esb. 1863), Clarke
2,384, Thurston 1,507, Walla-Walla 1,318, Pierce 1,115, Spokane 996 were most populous of 19 counties totaling
11,594; 11,138 whites; 426 Indians; 30 “free coloreds.” Asked the following: “Name; age; sex; race; value of real
estate; value of personal estate; occupation; birthplace; whether married within the year; school attendance; literacy;
whether deaf and dumb; blind, insane, idiotic pauper, or convict; number of slave houses. Supplemental schedules
for slaves and persons who died during the year,” Population Census Items 1790-2000,
http://www.historylink.org/File/9463.
78 Kevin Starr, American and the California Dream, 1850-1915, 1986.
79 Bishop, “The Winter of the Flood 1861-1862,” 1, Calaveras Archive
61
Though he had yet to move to the region, Bret Harte wrote about the winter of 1851.
80
That
winter will "long be remembered," he wrote though he hadn’t seen it himself, the "snow lay deep
in the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river, and every river a lake. Each gorge and
gulch were transformed into a tumultuous watercourse that descended the hillsides, tearing down
giant trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog had been twice underwater,
and Roaring Camp had been forewarned. "Water put the gold in them gulches," said Stumpy. "It's
been here once and will be here again!" And that night, the North Fork suddenly leaped over its
banks and swept up the triangular valley of Roaring Camp.
81
Continuous rains and heavy snow fell across the Slope's central and southern parts from
mid-November of 1852 till 1853 in yet another wet winter. The ground was quickly and thoroughly
soaked, and the "gulches, ravines, creeks, and rivers full to overflowing." Flooding river valleys
again wreaked havoc across California, bringing hardship, massive livestock losses, damaging
cities, mining machinery, mills, bridges, and roads throughout the state. Business slowed.
Communications almost entirely severed. The towns of Shasta and Tehama flooded out,
scrambling ranchers to chase down their herds. One lost eighty-one cattle immediately to the
slough, the rest of his five hundred doomed to the rising waters. Supplies here ran short, and roads
were flooded or washed out or blocked by debris or wagon wrecks or entire teams "stuck fast in
the mud."
High snowpack trapped camps of miners on the upper Feather River. Drifts in some places
were twelve feet deep, and at Frenchman's and Buck's Ranch, the snow was "bottomless." In some
areas, warm rains followed, melting the snowpack and "every mountain creek became a river, and
80 Must have been based on miner oral histories and his own experiences of floods form the 50s, and 60s as Harte
came to California in 1853.
81 Harte, The Luck…
62
every river became a lake," and all the wing dams and coffer dams "swept away, and floated off
toward China." Rainfall totals at old Fort Miller at the San Joaquin's head were forty-six inches
during January and February alone. The Sacramento Valley was again one "vast sea of water."
Travel in and out of some areas was blocked entirely, like in Plumas county, where floodwaters
destroyed the mountain trails and people nearly starved. The roads to Weaverville were also
impassable, as no mule trains could push through, and people were left with their dwindling stocks
of beef, a "few potatoes," and "no flour, nor meal, nor beans."
82
Sacramento City was still recovering from disastrous fires the previous year that cost the
city $575,000 in debt and the storms of' 49-'50. The water on the outside the levee Harden Bigelow
had fought so hard to erect after the floods of '49 rose four feet higher than on the inside.
83
It
eventually failed in the overflows of winter 1852-3.
84
Markets ran low on provisions, many towns
like Sonora were out of flour.
85
The San Joaquin ran at an "unprecedented height" and stretched
across the valley "one vast sheet of water," a great lake that stretched more than twenty miles from
82 William B Secrest and William B Secrest, California Disasters, 1812-1899: Firsthand Accounts of Fires,
Shipwrecks, Floods, Epidemics, Earthquakes and Other California Tragedies, 2006.
83 The Union, January 1, 1853.
84 Sacramento Daily Union, January 1, 1853; For more accounts of the winter of 1853, see: Franklin Agustus Buck
and Katherine A White, A Yankee Trader in the Gold Rush: The Letters of Franklin A. Buck, 1930; John Doble and
Charles Lewis Camp, John Doble’s Journal and Letters from the Mines: Mokelumne Hill, Jackson, Volcano and San
Francisco, 1851-1865, 1962; John F Morse, The First History of Sacramento City: Written in 1853, 1945; United
States et al., Reports of Explorations and Surveys to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a
Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, 1856; Sacramento Daily Union, January 1-5, 10-11, and
14, 1853; San Francisco Daily Alta California, January 8-9, 17, 1853; San Francisco Herald, January 3, 1853; San
Joaquin Republican (Stockton), January 12 and 19, 1853; Guinn, A History of California. From El Dorado County
on January 3, 1853 “For a week past the rain has fallen almost incessantly. Since the middle of November [of 1852],
with but few intervals, it has rained or snowed quoting the Sacramento Daily Union, January 3, 1853; The river at
this place, rose to an alarming height, but without doing any serious injury. Fears were entertained for the safety of
the bridge, but it firmly resisted the rise and stands almost uninjured. much higher than last spring, and a few inches
higher than in '49. The roads between this place and Sacramento are almost impassable. And in
consequence…provisions are extraordinarily high. At present, the stock on hand is extremely light, and holders are
not disposed to part with it so long as the weather continues so unsettled.
85 “The loss in drowning of stock has been immense, and the damage to perishable property almost incalculable. The
greatest pecuniary loss, however, will result from the almost entire suspension of business of every kind for so long
a time—country communication having been almost entirely cut off during the past month.” Marysville Herald,
January 10, 1853. From Secrest, 45.
63
the river, driving survivors to the highlands. Woodville was "ten feet below the surface." The town
of Four Creeks—where Visalia currently stands, was completely underwater. Near Graysonville,
the last to evacuate left a large herd of cattle stranded on the opposite shore up to their sides in
floodwaters, no hope for rescue. Jesse Hill managed a ferry near the Merced's mouth at its
confluence with the San Joaquin river, and his family took up residence in his ferry boats. Other
rancheros along the river "adopted the same precaution."
86
According to a fur trapper who had
lived in California for several decades, he had “frequently ridden over the site of Sacramento in a
boat…in 1846, the water was seven feet deep for sixty days . . .the city was flooded in 1849, in
1850, in 1851, and twice in the winters of 1852 and '53.
87
The flooding was severe along the South
Coast as well.
88
From 1842 to 1883 would be one of the harshest and longest stretches of drought in the
last several hundred years.
89
Few past shortages were dryer, and none as long-lasting as the one
spanning the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries.
90
Mission rainfall and crop records show forty-one years of
"subnormal rainfall" from San Francisco to San Diego. These dry years were not as harsh as those
between 1781 and 1809. As the significant wet years noted above show, they were punctuated by
periods of extreme precipitation. By 1859, Lake Elsinore again almost completely dried up after
86 Secrest, 46; from Stockton Journal, January 7, 1853. Funny story of a man disappearing into a flooded street and
rescued by a black man.
87 John Carr, "Pioneer days in California," Times publishing company 1891, 291–295, 397.
88 Secrest, 45; Guinn.
89 Rainfall records were kept at least as early as 1847. The U.S. Army records (from 1850-1892), Central Pacific
Railroad began taking rainfall totals in 1870 (between 1880 and 1890 some 200 railroad records; Also lighthouse
rainfall records recorded until 1909; “in the early years of rainfall measurements nearly all of the records of this state
were kept near San Francisco Bay and the region east; “In 1891 the Weather Bureau (the “best records from the
standpoint of…observation and…recording…[especially those] taken at one location over period of years”…also
astronomical observatories) was organized to take over the meteorological work of the Signal Service of the U.S
Army…rainfall characteristics of the Bay…can be given for the years…1850-1875 with a detail…not possible for
the remainder of the state…Records…also kept for these years by the United States Army at San Diego.”
90 Historical accounts suggest that “most of California's oak woodlands were not substantially affected until the
American period beginning around 1850 AD (100 cal yr BP).” Mensing, 2006, Mensing, 1998, Feakins et al., 2014,
Gat, 1996, Friedman et al., 2002.
64
several years of low inflow. Even still, heavy storms seasons and severe flooding punctuated this
four-decade dry period. Some were local events, like in 1858 when a category one hurricane hit
San Diego. Others scored the entire slope, like in 1861 and '62.
The storms of that Big Winter and the Pacific Slope's stream systems left their marks on
the landscape’s ledger. The floods of 1861-1862 were some of the largest in the last 5000 years in
eastern Oregon. Their deposits covered vast swaths of land, they encouraged rivers to change
course and eroded channels on stream systems across the Slope, like at Crooked River on the
Deschutes where it cut through surfaces that had not seen floodwaters in the last 2000 to 5000
years.
91
Dendrochronological evidence shows the floods damaged trees.
92
Two large late-
Holocene floods stand out, one around 700 CE and the other in the mid 19
th
century, undoubtedly
the winter of 1861-1862.
93
At one site on the Deschutes, measurements of five flood beds varying
from five to forty centimeters thick, left by the enormous flows of the last century map with the
extreme flows of January 1923, February 1961, December 1964, and in December 1996—one of
the twentieth century's wettest seasons. The layer left by the 1861 floods at the same site was one
meter thick—a discharge of roughly 2000 cubic meters per second.
94
The exceptional rains and
snowmelts of that season filled Lake Elsinore in Southern California from near desiccation to a
91 At this Crooked River site.
92 “Strong evidence that the 1861 flood was the largest of the last 5000 year on the tributary Crooked River makes it
unlikely that there were any floods from 4600 to 3300 cal yr BP with discharges as large as the two large 2000 cubic
meter per second discharges of the last 1300 cal yr BP.” Crooked River, Levish and Ostenaa, 1996.
93 Samples of volcanic tephra and the “stratigraphic record from Axford, Dant, Caretaker Flat, and Harris Island
preserve evidence of over twenty floods during the last ~6200 cal yr BP. The “only apparent gap in the stratigraphic
record is between 4400 and 3300 cal yr BP, for which there are no dated flood deposits.” From Kurt J. Hosman, Lisa
L. Ely, and Jim E. O’Connor, “Holocene Paleoflood Hydrology of the Lower Deschutes River, Oregon,” in A
Peculiar River, American Geophysical Union (AGU), 2013, 121–46; “a huge flood occurred on the Deschutes River
in December 1861 and was reported to be “higher than was ever known to white man or aboriginal.” Salem
Statesman, Dec 23, 1961.
94 The “stratigraphy at Dant records at least fifteen floods. These floods likely include the large Outhouse flood of
about 4600 cal yr BP, up to five floods before 2060 cal yr BP, two floods ca. 2060-1880 cal yr BP, a flood dating to
1330-1260 cal yr BP, the exceptional historical flow of A.D. 1861, and five post-1861 historical flows…including
1964 and 1996. The Outhouse flood and the floods ca. 1300BP and AD 1861 all had maximum stages surpassing the
food of February 1996.” Hosman, Ely, and O’Connor, "Holocene Paleoflood,” 2003.
65
substantial overflow.
95
Storm overwash removed coastal barriers and sandbars, allowing the ocean
to venture inland, creating temporary inlets at many places along the coast. The invading sea
deposited beach sand up to fifty centimeters thick over four hundred meters inland in estuaries
near Carpinteria.
96
Sedimentary layers from beneath the waters off the Santa Barbara coast show
signs of heavy pulsations of sediments, indicating floods and landslides every two hundred and
four hundred years.
97
Most striking, the floods of 1862 left four millimeters of sediment off the
California coast. Floods in 1270 and 1530 left seafloor deposits ten times as thick.
98
In the years
and decades that followed the Big Winter, more storms came, and with each successive generation
more newcomers settled in those hydroscapes, either unaware or unimpressed with the Slope’s
waterways.
The 1860s were also important legislatively. California's legislature authorized the
formation of levees and reclamation districts in 1860, and in 1861 the state passed its version of
the swampland reclamation law. The 1862 Homestead Act increased the number of settler-
colonials to come to California to stake claims to land and water.
Farmers and ranchers continued to spread out from the Delta along the Sacramento and
San Joaquin Rivers where they confronted a labyrinth of wetlands, lakes, riparian forests, and the
95 Lake Elsinore "lies in a shallow, impervious basin, having a gentle slope toward the southeast” and “overflows
through a flat narrow valley of about five miles, into Temescal Canyon and thence into the Santa Ana River. By
1810, Elsinore was "little more than a swamp about a mile long." It overflowed in 1841 before dropping over 40
feet—though overflowing in 1862 and 1868—before evaporating the 30 feet down again in the following years. It
overflowed several times between 1884 and 1895 again, and 1916; McClurg, 44. Guinn, Extended History of Los
Angeles and Environs: Also Containing Biographies of Well-Known Citizens of the Past and Pret, 191.
96 Laura C. Reynolds et al., “Coastal Flooding and the 1861-2 California Storm Season,” Marine Geology 400, 2018,
49–59.
97 Kevin Schmidt, of the U.S. Geological Survey, evidence pulled from lake bottoms to what has been found on the
nearby seafloor, where large "pulses" of sediment suggest floods and landslides every 200 or so years.
98 Xiaojing Du, Ingrid Hendy, and Arndt Schimmelmann, “A 9000-Year Flood History for Southern California: A
Revised Stratigraphy of Varved Sediments in Santa Barbara Basin,” Marine Geology 397, 2018, 29–42. Dingemans,
Theodore, Scott A. Mensing, Sarah J. Feakins, Matthew E. Kirby, and Susan R. H. Zimmerman. “3000 Years of
Environmental Change at Zaca Lake, California, USA.” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 2, 2014; H. B. Lynch,
Rainfall and Stream Run-off in Southern California since 1769, 1931.
66
annual winter storms and spring snowmelt that "like a vast taking in of breath to flow out over
their banks onto the wide Valley floor."
99
They built waterfront commercial developments along
the Feather at Oroville and Marysville, and elsewhere, but the Delta was (and still is) a major hub
for shipping and travel in the Pacific World. In the early and mid-19
th
century, that Delta still a
vast intertidal wetland, scattered with islands protected by sediment deposits that operated like
natural levees. It was "abundant with beaver, and their islets," "thick clouds of mosquitos," and
lagoons interconnected by fields of tall tules that spread south towards the horizon. Wind-powered
ships could take longer than a week to travel between San Francisco and Sacramento, where
steamers could do it in less than twelve hours.
For decades to follow, agricultural and urban business and development interests struggled
to impound the Pacific West's water systems. Here, after countless "fumbles" and generations of
sobering trials and errors, newcomers rapidly if unevenly, remade the waterways of California's
Central Valley, like Puget Sound, and the Willamette Valley, and California's South Coast, into
more "disciplined" and "rational" systems. Admittedly, the Pacific Coast's, like the "major flood
works, in the Central Valley, along with the north coast and in southern California," have protected
"untold lives and billions in property"
100
One of the worst floods in the state's history destroyed lumber mills and buried agricultural
fields across the basin in 1867. The dam on the LA River was again swept away, leaving the city
without water. The flood of 1867-68 left a lasting influence on the county's landscape by creating
of an additional channel for the San Gabriel River. Several thousand acres were washed away by
99 David Igler, Industrial Cowboys: Miller & Lux and the Transformation of the Far West, 1850-1920, 2005; Robert
Lloyd Kelley, Battling the Inland Sea: American Political Culture, Public Policy, and the Sacramento Valley 1850-
1986, 1989.
100 McClurg, 44, 48; Kelley, Battling the Inland Sea.
67
the river cutting its new channel to the sea.
101
The season of 1871-72, like the winter of 61-62, delivered "rain and squalls and pounding
windstorms" that wrought "remarkable turmoil and ruin" across the entire Pacific coast.
102
With
the Pacific Ocean groaning like the sounds of "heavy ordinance," a parade of storms brought raging
rivers that washed out roads and bridges, ships washed adrift, acres of farmland destroyed, entire
towns flooded, and people drowned and froze to death. Ships in San Francisco bay crashed into
each other or smashed against the wharves. The ferries were unable to run. Roads and railways
were damaged or inaccessible as most of the countryside was immersed, paralyzing travel
throughout the region. The winds blew out the windows in the Grace Church and the Hibernia
Bank and Loan headquarters.
A reporter for the Sacramento Record described seeing nothing but water for 12 miles in
every direction from the capitol dome. Yolo County was an inland sea. The San Lorenzo River
nearly destroyed Santa Cruz, filling the town's lower half. Mission Bridge washed away and travel
around the interior was impossible during the following month. Half of Stockton was underwater.
From the San Joaquin Republican on the 20 of December 1871: On the morning of December 20
th,
1871, the people awoke to "lakes and young seas where last light was dry land." One eyewitness
observed that the amount of water from the storms was not particularly great, but that the
waterways were so clogged with “gradings and filings that the water is diverted and thrown out
over the level surface." Near Arcata, the central wharf submerged before a second storm flushed
most of it away. The tide in Humboldt Bay was the highest it had been since 1862. In Nevada City,
101
“The flood of 1867-68 left a lasting impress on the physical contour of the county by the creation of a new river, or
rather an additional channel for the San Gabriel river. Several thousand acres of valuable land were washed away by
the San Gabriel cutting a new channel to the sea, but the damage was more than offset by the increased facilities for
irrigation afforded by having two rivers instead of one”; Guinn, A History of California and an Extended History of
Los Angeles and Environs : Also Containing Biographies of Well-Known Citizens of the Past and Present, 1915,
429.
102
The “most powerful felt in years.”
68
over fifty-seven inches of rain fell, and the roads were flooded out cutting off Yreka and
Weaverville. Towards the end of December, the body of Butler Ives was found drowned in the
Delta.
Legislation encouraged more wetland reclamation along with the development of the
steam-powered clamshell dredge advanced levee-building efforts. By 1880, 100,000 acres of Delta
wetlands were transformed into farms.
103
The 1880s were also extremely wet years with one event
conjuring fifty-foot-deep flash flood waters and destroying rail lines. 1880 was also the year state
engineer William Hammond Hall developed the first flood control plan for Sacramento Valley.
These soggy years though were interspersed with years of severe drought. The storms of January
and February 1881 were so devastating that "scarcely a bridge of any importance in the county
was left standing, and the bridge bill of the county for the past year, to repair the damage caused
by those two weeks of storms amounts to a fortune."
104
A familiar pattern emerges.
In 1883 began ten years of "above normal rainfall" with two very wet winters with heavy
floods. Ever the promoter, J. M. Guinn boasted in 1883 that "like everything else," California
"cannot be measured by the standards of other countries" and is "exceptional even in the matter of
floods." Guinn continues: While floods in other lands are wholly evil in their effects, ours, although
causing temporary damage, are beneficial to the country. They fill up the springs and mountain
lakes and reservoirs that feed our creeks and rivers and supply water for irrigation during the long
dry season. A flood year is always followed by a fruitful year."
105
The 1884 storms and floods damage the lower portions of Los Angeles. It washed off fifty
103 McClurg, 38-39.
104
San Francisco Fariss & Smith, Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties, with California from 1513
to 1850, 144.
105 Not entirely inaccurate; But fruitful years do not always follow—the floods of 1861-62 were followed up by
consecutive years of some of the worst drought in the regions past. Earp, “Alluvial Fan Task Force (AFTF) Study,”
2; Guinn’s “Exceptional Years.”
69
houses and swept off numerous vineyards and orchards. A milkman who attempted to cross the
flooded Arroyo Seco drowned. The flood of February 1886 was comparable to those of the
February of 1884 as the same parts of L.A. flooded. Between Alameda street and the river, several
houses were washed away and two people died. In 1889-90, a flooded Los Angeles River cut a
new channel through the Laguna rancho and emptied miles above its old outlet into the San
Gabriel.
106
Yet another epic system of storms slammed the Pacific Slope in the winter of 1889-90.
Again, floodwaters destroyed roads, bridges, hundreds of ranches, and thousands of livestock. The
rains of December '89 were heavy and the ground "still soggy" and unable to absorb January's
downpours. Charley Abbott, a rancher on Greenhorn Creek outside of Yreka, described a twice
the quantity of water on the Greenhorn than “'61 or any other year.'"
107
In January of 1890, heavy
rains poured across Southern California. Seventy-one inches of rain fell in the Tehachapi. The
storms destroyed roads and blocked trains in and out of Los Angeles. Heavy rains fell across the
San Joaquin Valley, with eleven inches in Merced. Further north, heavy snows rains and snows hit
in Napa, Ukiah, and the northern coastal counties. Snow amassed on the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Howland Flat, in Sierra County received sixteen feet of snow. There were massive mudslides and
flash floods in Southern California, blizzards blanketed the northern half of the Slope with snow.
At Oak Bar, the snowfall was over three and a half feet. The men shoveled all day to clear the
roofs of the houses and barns to keep them from collapsing from the weight. Forest City the town
was buried in an avalanche. The slide had toppled chimneys and smokestacks and there was so
106
Guinn, A History of California.
107 Downieville Mountain Messenger, January 11, 1890; Sacramento Sunday Union, January 5, 1890; San Francisco
Chronicle, February 14, 1890; San Francisco Daily Alta California, February 14 and 20, 1890; Yreka Weekly
Journal, February 12, 19, and 26, 1890.W.A. Huestis, “Story of the China Slide,” Trinity County Historical Society
Yearbook, 1956.
70
much snow that one would never know there were buildings there and the boys “rode their
snowshoes over tops of buildings.” When the snows let up, a week of heavy rain followed which
melted the snow and flooded the riverways. Bridges, railroad tracks and grades were all washed
away. Every mountain road was washed out. At Dixon’s Bar above the Trinity River, "a whole
mountain tumbled” into the river, destroyed property, and buried two Chinese Californians. The
slide blocked the river causing high water 14 miles upstream.
108
In 1891, William McGee lamented that "as population has increased, men have not only
failed to devise means for suppressing or escaping those evil," but instead have, with "singular
short-sightedness, rushed into its chosen path." The Los Angeles flood of February 22, 1891,
commenced with was a "mountain storm that expended its fury among the higher ranges at the
head" of the San Gabriel Mountains. In Azusa, a family of three drowned in the San Gabriel River.
In 1893 began one of the harshest droughts on record for the region, lasting until 1903. By then,
farmers had reclaimed 235,000 acres of wetlands. 1895 was also the first year regular rainfall
records were regularly taken. The 1907 and 1909 floods drowned the reclaimed islands in the Delta
islands. State policies that encouraged land and economic development also encouraged farmers
to reclaim and plow over swamplands. They enabled cities to fill wetlands and build on
floodplains. At one time, less than five percent of the state's original marshlands remained.
109
Both
choices would prove consequential.
Floods grew to be expected in the agricultural valleys of Central California. John Steinbeck
described the cycle in the Salinas Valley, a cycle that could describe any of the valleys of the
108 Yreka Weekly Journal, February 19, 1890 and Trinity Journal, from Secrest, 187-8, 191.
109
The San Gabriel was the “only one that was greatly enlarged.” Playa del Rey/Will Tell's was a “popular seaside
resort thirty years ago, where sportsmen went for duck shooting on the lagoon. The southeasters of the great flood
year of 1884 destroyed its hunting grounds, and for two decades it was deserted. With the great boom of ocean
frontage that began in 1902 the capabilities of the place for a seaside resort were brought to the front and extensive
improvements begun,” Guinn, A History of California.
71
Pacific Slope:
"In the winter of wet years the streams ran full-freshet, and they swelled the river until
sometimes it raged and boiled, bank-full, and then it was a destroyer…. The Salinas was
only a part time river. The summer sun drove it underground. But there were dry years too,
and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be
five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of
rain, and the land would shout with grass. And then the dry years would come, and
sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain…The land cracked and the
springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the
ranchers would be filled with disgust for the valley. People would have to haul water in
barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and
move away. And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the
rich.”
110
Steinbeck’s descriptions come from lived experience in these landscapes, and this passage
encapsulates the whiplash nature of water and weather for much of the Pacific Slope. He mentions
both the seasonal swings in wet and dry periods and shifts that lasted years at a time. But most
importantly he notes the deep forgetfulness of settlers new and old.
The Christmas floods of 1955 were the biggest in Sacramento Valley in nearly a century.
Thousands evacuated their homes across the valley when "a series of warm storms" deluged
California. The levee on the Feather River failed and the river filled Yuba City, engulfing houses
to their roofs. Thousands of acres of farmland were underwater. Sixty-four people were killed in
California and the disaster influenced the drive for the State Water Project. The rainy season of
1982-83 also an El Niño year. Heavy rain and snow and extremely high winds hit across California.
The wettest season in the last 122 belongs to the year 1982-83 that recorded 34.38 inches. At least
thirty-six died in that season.
The New Year's storms of January 1997 brought the most widespread flooding in forty
years to California. A series of atmospheric river storms hit California from late 1996 through
early 1997. This “Pineapple Express” arrived around December 26 and lasted until January 6.
110 John Steinbeck, East of Eden, 2002, 5-6.
72
Following eleven days of rain across the state, reservoirs made record releases that caused rivers
throughout California to overflow.
111
The Yuba, Feather, San Joaquin, Bear, Cosumnes and others
ripped through levees and the Central Valley's great lakes returned. The rivers spilled "muddy,
debris-ridden waters across farm fields, roads, driveways and into living rooms."
112
In Southern
California, the storms caused flash floods and massive mudslides. By February, forty-eight of the
fifty-eight counties in California were declared disaster areas. Statewide the storms and floods
damaged 23,000 houses, swamped 300 square miles of farmland, killed nine, and caused at least
two billion dollars in damages.
113
. The storms of December 2012 were notably rainy.
114
The
incredible 2016-2017 wet season, which totaled 30.75 inches, is still only the second wettest year
in the last one hundred and twenty years. Thirty-four point thirty-eight inches were tallied in 1982-
83, the single wettest year in California over the previous twelve decades. Still, no season matches
the geographic breadth, the sustained storminess, or the amount of precipitation in the Pacific
Slope since the Big Winter of 1861-1862, though 1996-97 comes the closest.
Attempting to contextualize individual floods spurred the creation of the term '100-year
flood' in the 1960s. The recurrence interval terminology framing became, and continues to be,
confusing and misleading for the public and pundits alike. The USGS instead encourages the use
of AEP—the annual exceedance probability, which the United States Government began using for
the Federal Flood Insurance Program. The USGS states that the 1%AEP reoccurs every 100 years
and can be "often referred to as the '100-year flood.' But this measure continues to confuse the
probability of 100-year floods. The USGS tells us that "The 100-year flood is an "estimate of the
111 McClurg, 48, 52.
112
When the levee along the Sutter Bypass ruptured it endangered the town of Meridian. While it was saved, other
communities were not.
113 McClurg, 46-47.
114
Marty Ralph
73
long-term average recurrence interval, which does not mean that we have 100 years between each
flood of greater or equal magnitude." It is the likelihood of a "1-percent AEP flood" instead of the
"100-year flood." In other words, the 1-percent AEP flood has a 1 in 100 probability of being
equaled or exceeded in any single year.
115
should communicate the likelihood of a "1-percent AEP
flood" instead of the "100-year flood."
116
If we had the past one thousand years of streamflow data for the Slope, we might expect
ten floods of equal magnitude or greater than the 100-year flood. But we don't see floods occurring
at 100-year intervals. Over ten centuries, there have been "fifteen or fewer years between 100-year
floods," whereas, in other parts, it could be one hundred and fifty or more years between 100-year
floods.
117
Due to the growing awareness about climate change, melting ice caps, and rising sea
levels, not to mention the bevy of recent coastal flooding disasters of unprecedented nature
awareness of larger floods such as the 500-year, and 1000-year floods, have grown in turn.
115 The U.S. Government believed the 1-percent AEP food to be a reasonable compromise between safeguarding the
public and hamstringing land development.
116 Also, the "1 percent AEP flood has a 1-percent chance of occurring in any given year: however, during the span of
a 30-year mortgage, a home in the 1-percent AEP (100-year) floodplain has a 26-percent chance of being flooded at
least once during those 30 years! The value of 26 percent is based on probability theory that accounts for each of the
30 years having a 1-percent chance of flooding." “Robert R. Holmes, Jr. and Karen Dinicola, “100-Year Flood--It’s
all about chance,” USGS, General Information Product 106 April 2010.
117 To establish these chances, all the annual peak streamflow values measured at a stream gauge—locations on a
stream where the water's height and the magnitude of its flow are recorded—are calculated. The U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS) manages upwards of 7,500 stream gages across the nation stockpiling data, particularly annual peak
streamflow data, in the hopes of better evaluating flood probability and risk.
74
Figure 8: The floods of the Big Winter impacted the same flood-prone regions depicted here, though they were far larger. 100-
and 500-year flood hazards on the Pacific Slope. Data from FEMA. Map by author and ArcGIS.
75
By looking at vast swaths of time, we get a sense of the phases of abundance and absence
of precipitation, though never constant in occurrence, extent, or degree, and the frequency and
severity of tremendously wet seasons. Every so often, roughly around every 200 years, a rapid and
prolonged succession of massive Pacific storms smash into western North America. These massive
storms and their effects are recorded in the Slope itself, in the channels of rivers, in core samples
of lake and sea floors, in pollen embedded in soil layers, in the rings of trees. And they are
embedded in the histories of the Indigenous peoples that still live across these watersheds and have
for thousands and thousands of years. Sediment layers in San Francisco Bay and off the coast of
Santa Barbara recorded the years 212, 440, 603, 1029, 1418, 1605, and 1862 as some of the wettest
seasons in the last two thousand years. Several of these years, among others, show evidence of
atmospheric river storms.
The Pacific Slope has an interlocked collection of histories across an ancient and
overlapping set of geologic structures and ecological systems, a framework of mountain ranges,
stream networks, weather phenomena, and organisms—that work in consort and contest to shape
the land through time. The Pacific Slope and its peoples are a product of these parts and processes,
all combined a tapestry of terrains and times.
118
118 “Pacific Mountain System | Mountains, North America,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed October 6, 2018;
Cortney, “How the West Was Made,” 2015.
76
“But Chinook-Wind returned in the form of rain.”
–Lil’Wat Nation, “Glacier and Chinook Wind”
1
Chapter 2: Superstorms, atmospheric rivers, and Indigenous memory
When multiple Mississippis become the measure of magnitude, you know we are talking about a
lot of water.
2
The same forces and processes that recharge rivers and reservoirs and water the
West's crops, lawns and bodies of the American West also power the Pacific Slope's most
dangerous storms. Atmospheric rivers are the greatest conduits of freshwater on the planet. The
average atmospheric river moves twice as much water as the Amazon and can run from twelve
hundred to over six thousand miles in length.
3
The scary ones easily bring more than twenty times
the flow of water at the mouth of the Big Muddy and can drop over a foot of rain in just a few
days.
4
Flowing above the surface of the earth, atmospheric rivers are key to the excesses as well
1 From “Glacier and Chinook Wind,” Lil’wat oral history, Lil’wat Nation of British Columbia. A special thank you to
the Lil’wat Nation of British Columbia for sharing their oral histories of Chinook-Wind, Lauren Muscatine and
Larry Schick for sharing their meteorological expertise, and Enid Baxter Ryce for inviting us together.
2 “25 Mississippi’s worth of water in form of vapor instead of liquid,” Jonathan J. Rutz, W. James Steenburgh, and F.
Martin Ralph, “Climatological Characteristics of Atmospheric Rivers and Their Inland Penetration over the Western
United States,” Monthly Weather Review 142, no. 2, 2013, 905–21.
3 Zhu, Y., and R. E. Newell, “A proposed algorithm for moisture fluxes from atmospheric rivers.” Mon. Wea. Rev.,
126, 1998, 725–735. Cordeira, J. M., F. M. Ralph, and B. J. Moore, “The development and evolution of two
atmospheric rivers in proximity to western North Pacific tropical cyclones in October 2010,” Mon. Wea. Rev., 141,
2013, 4234–4255; Guan, B., and D. E. Waliser, “Detection of atmospheric rivers: Evaluation and application of an
algorithm for global studies,” J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 2015, 120, 12 514–12 535; Neiman, P. J., F. M. Ralph, G. A.
Wick, J. D. Lundquist, and M. D. Dettinger,“Meteorological characteristics and overland precipitation impacts of
atmospheric rivers affecting the West Coast of North America based on eight years of SSM/I satellite observations,”
J. Hydrometeor., 9, 2008, 22–47; Ralph, F. M., P. J. Neiman, and G. A. Wick, “Satellite and CALJET aircraft
observations of atmospheric rivers over the eastern North Pacific Ocean during the winter of 1997/98,” Mon. Wea.
Rev., 132, 2004, 1721–1745.
4 Lorrie Pottinger, Interview with Mike Dettinger, “California Depends on Rivers—in the Air,” Public Policy Institute
of California, December 8, 2015; Times staff, “Atmospheric Rivers Pound California with Season’s ‘Biggest
Storm,’” latimes.com, accessed June 11, 2019; Rong-Gong Lin II, “Why All This Rain? Blame a Strong
‘Atmospheric River’ Known as the ‘Pineapple Express,’” latimes.com, accessed June 11, 2019.
77
as the absences of precipitation in the North American West.
5
There, the great fear is the great
thirst. We know, or at least think we know, the dangers of too little water. But what about those
times, of excess, of far too much water? The "discovery" of atmospheric rivers and their
importance to the West’s water cycles has been centuries in the making. While atmospheric rivers
were not named as such until the turn of the twenty-first century, Indigenous, settler-colonial, and
space-age scientists have observed, recorded, explained, and even predicted these meteorological
wonders along with the weather hazards they can generate. The significance and function of
atmospheric rivers in the water cycle and weather on the West Coast grows more evident. They
cause the heaviest rains, are the major source of California reservoir filling and water supply, they
bring cycles of wet and dry years, they end drought, cause floods, sustain wetlands, floodplains
and fisheries, and stress flood control systems.
6
What seems a novel finding was not new. This chapter explores the history of atmospheric
rivers. Technologies and tools from multiple cultures and cosmologies spanning thousands of years
have shaped our contemporary—and still developing—understanding of atmospheric rivers and
the flood, blizzard, drought, and wildfire events they bring to the Pacific Slope. What follows also
recounts a fraction of the oldest histories of West Coast winter storms and reflects on Indigenous
oral history as a technology for retaining and conveying observations and descriptions of specific
weather phenomenon and key historic environmental events.
These traditions are more than legends of landscapes. They are also environmental histories
that show ways of knowing and learning that bring natural history together with human history.
5 They end 75% of droughts in Washington, 45% of droughts in Northern California, 35% of droughts in Southern
California. ARs cause 80-100% of major floods along Central California’s rivers and 81% of levee breaks have
occurred during landfalling ARs. Lorrie Pottinger, and Dettinger, “California Depends on Rivers.”
6 ARs account for 30-50% of Sierra Nevada annual precipitation and stream flow. They account for 85% of the year-
to-year precipitation variance over Northern California. ARs “initiates 77% of ecologically significant floods of
Yolo Bypass, Central Valley and they Sustain wetlands, floodplains, and fisheries.
78
These histories are location specific, culturally embedded, and communicate in-depth knowledge
and understanding of the mosaic of hydroscapes that make up the Pacific Slope. They offer further
clues that the major atmospheric river events were not only as tremendous as described by 19
th
century observers, but they are also part of a deeper history.
Oral traditions from cultures across the West Slope, from the Quechan, Mojave, and
Chumash peoples in Southern California, to the Yokuts and Maidu in the Central Valley, and
Chinookan and Salishan speaking peoples in the Northwest coast tell of powerful warm Pacific
Winds, massive storms, and historic floods. These histories are imbedded with close readings of
the waterscapes, particularly weather and climate as familiarity with these meant life or death in
ways that seem obscure in the digital age. They also provide cultural and ecological contexts for
rivers in the sky, and the power of oral tradition to memorialize this knowledge.
Rivers in the sky
Atmospheric rivers are meteorological marvels that strike west coasts worldwide.
Atmospheric rivers are channels for airborne water vapor, a kind of superhighway for fast-moving,
dense, vaporized water. From the tropical rain band along the equator, these rivers in the sky rush
along in elongated, narrow ribbons across thousands of miles of ocean, funneling vast amounts of
water vast distances where they can deliver sustained and heavy rain and snow when they make
landfall. Most of the water vapor in the atmosphere in the midlatitudes is concentrated in less than
a half-dozen of these streams and they tend to evolve as they traverse the ocean.
7
Atmospheric
rivers can cause the strongest storms and heaviest rains where in the they can deliver a third to a
7 At least ninety percent of the all the “poleward atmospheric water vapor transport through the middle latitudes is
concentrated in four to five narrow regions that total less than 10% of the circumference of the Earth at that
latitude,” Zhu & Newell, 1998; Stohl et al., 2008; Ralph et al. 2011.
79
half of a year’s precipitation in a handful of storms.
8
They are relatively warm, usually dump more
rain than snow, but can still bring a ton of snow, and can therefore dramatically increase associated
hazards. Even so, these airborne aqueducts cycle ninety-five percent of water vapor between the
equator and the poles, are a crucial source of precipitation, and are critical to the reproduction of
fresh water.
Atmospheric rivers were first systematically studied and defined on the Pacific Slope of
North America. The Slope interfaces with the planet's largest and most potent ocean. These storms
can hit over an expansive landscape with several heavily populated areas, generally making
landfall in the mid to lower latitude coasts of North America but have landed from Fairbanks,
Alaska to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Chile and Peru are the most studied region after the U.S. West.
Still, atmospheric rivers can develop over Europe—England and France have recorded them—but
these tend to be less potent due to the differences in size between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
and the specific topography of western Europe compared to the great Cordillera of the Americas.
9
8 In California, 92% of the heaviest 3-day rain events are cause by ARs, Zhu & Newell, 1998; Stohl et al., 2008; Ralph
et al. 2011.
9 Yong Zhu and Reginald E. Newell, “A Proposed Algorithm for Moisture Fluxes from Atmospheric Rivers,” Monthly
Weather Review 126, no. 3, 1998, 725–35; Michael Dettinger, “Climate Change, Atmospheric Rivers, and Floods in
California – A Multimodel Analysis of Storm Frequency and Magnitude Changes,” JAWRA Journal of the American
Water Resources Association 47, 2011, 514–23; Michael D. Dettinger et al., “Atmospheric Rivers, Floods and the
Water Resources of California,” Water 3, no. 2, June 2011, 445–78; Bin Guan et al., “Extreme Snowfall Events
Linked to Atmospheric Rivers and Surface Air Temperature via Satellite Measurements,” Geophysical Research
Letters 37, no. 20, 2010; Yang Gao et al., “Dynamical and Thermodynamical Modulations on Future Changes of
Landfalling Atmospheric Rivers over Western North America: Projections of Atmospheric River Changes,”
Geophysical Research Letters, 2015; P.J. Neiman et al., “Meteorological Characteristics and Overland Precipitation
Impacts of Atmospheric Rivers Affecting the West Coast of North America Based on Eight Years of SSM/I Satellite
Observations,” Journal of Hydrometeorology 9, no. 1, 2008, 26; F. Martin Ralph, Paul J. Neiman, and Richard
Rotunno, “Dropsonde Observations in Low-Level Jets over the Northeastern Pacific Ocean from CALJET-1998 and
PACJET-2001: Mean Vertical-Profile and Atmospheric-River Characteristics,” Monthly Weather Review 133, no. 4,
2005, 889–910; David A. Lavers and Gabriele Villarini, “The Nexus between Atmospheric Rivers and Extreme
Precipitation across Europe,” Geophysical Research Letters 40, no. 12, 2013, 3259–64; Fred Ralph et al., “Flooding
on California’s Russian River – Role of Atmospheric Rivers,” Geophysical Research Letters 33, 2006; Fred Ralph
et al., “A Multiscale Observational Case Study of a Pacific Atmospheric River Exhibiting Tropical-Extratropical
Connections and a Mesoscale Frontal Wave,” Monthly Weather Review 139, 2011, 1169–89; Barrett L. Smith et al.,
“Water Vapor Fluxes and Orographic Precipitation over Northern California Associated with a Landfalling
Atmospheric River,” Monthly Weather Review 138, 2010, 74–100; Andreas Stohl, Caroline Forster, and Harald
Sodemann, “Remote Sources of Water Vapor Forming Precipitation on the Norwegian West Coast at 60°N - A Tale
80
Atmospheric rivers have even made appearances at the South Pole, bringing heavy snowfall over
a short period on the Antarctic coast where there is generally no precipitation for months.
10
Atmospheric scientists Yong Zhu and Reginald Newell helped to introduce the term
"atmospheric river" in the 1990s. To them, the volume of water vapor reminded them of the
movement of earthbound streams plus the elongated, snaking, flowing figures atmospheric rivers
cut through the air evoke terrestrial streams. Like their terrestrial counterparts, atmospheric rivers
play a crucial role in conducting the planetary cycling of freshwater.
11
In 2018 the American
Meteorological Association officially defined an atmospheric river as a "long, narrow, and
transient corridor of strong horizontal water vapor transport that is typically associated with a low-
level jet stream ahead of the cold front of an extratropical cyclone"—low pressure areas that propel
much of the weather on earth. The warm equatorial waters of the western Pacific, or other tropical
and extratropical moisture sources, supply the incredible amount of water vapor atmospheric rivers
transmit. Atmospheric rivers "frequently lead to heavy precipitation where they are forced upward
by mountains. Horizontal water vapor transport in the midlatitudes occurs primarily in atmospheric
rivers and is focused in the troposphere,” the lowest and densest layer of the atmosphere.
12
Atmospheric rivers hit most frequently along the northwest coast of the Slope and decline
in incidence moving southward toward Baja California. Most will meet their ends smashing into
of Hurricanes and an Atmospheric River,” Journal of Geophysical Research 113, 2008, 1–13; Duane Waliser and
Bin Guan, “Extreme Winds and Precipitation during Landfall of Atmospheric Rivers,” Nature Geoscience 10, no. 3,
2017, 179–83.
10 Cordeira, J. M., F. M. Ralph, and B. J. Moore, “The development and evolution of two atmospheric rivers in
proximity to western North Pacific tropical cyclones in October 2010,” Mon. Wea. Rev., 141, 2013, 4234–4255;
Guan, B., and D. E. Waliser, “Detection of atmospheric rivers: Evaluation and application of an algorithm for global
studies,” J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 2015, 120, 514–12, 535.
11 Zhu and Newell, 1998; Stohl et al., 2008; Ralph et al. 2011.
12 Neiman, P. J., F. M. Ralph, G. A. Wick, J. D. Lundquist, and M. D. Dettinger, “Meteorological characteristics and
overland precipitation impacts of atmospheric rivers affecting the West Coast of North America based on eight years
of SSM/I satellite observations,” J. Hydrometeor., 9, 2008, 22–47. Ralph, F. M., P. J. Neiman, and G. A. Wick,
2004: Satellite and CALJET aircraft observations of atmospheric rivers over the eastern North Pacific Ocean during
the winter of 1997/98,” Mon. Wea. Rev., 132, 1721–1745; Zhu, Y., and R. E. Newell, 1998, 725–735.
81
the mountain ranges of the Pacific coast. The Pacific states of British Columbia, Washington,
Oregon, and the Californias then drink the brunt of the precipitation packed into these tributaries
of flying humid air. When an atmospheric river eventually hits the coast, the Slope's wall of
mountains forces the aerial stream upward, sometimes pressing them to lose their aqueous cargo,
sometimes not, as even the strongest atmospheric rivers do not always bring heavy rains or
flooding. Most are weak and last only a few days, maybe dropping a little rain or snow before
moving on.
Sometimes though, atmospheric rivers usher in a conveyer belt of storms that can linger
for weeks at a time as the corridor of hurricane-force winds pushes that abundance of warm wet
air like a firehose into vulnerable watersheds, lurching slowly up or down the coast. Under certain
circumstances, they can bring awesome precipitation—dumping feet of snow at high elevations,
weeks-long spells of continuous rain, and dangers of highwater and flooding. At the same time,
they are crucial to precipitation, flooding, and the water supply for the Pacific West.
As atmospheric rivers push overland, they begin to lose their capacity to hold water vapor
and their trajectory and potency start to decay as they grind across the coast ranges. Some
atmospheric rivers still survive to infiltrate the Slope's interior—particularly those with large
amounts of low-level moisture and midlevel wind speeds.
13
Whether atmospheric rivers can push
further inland depends significantly on a combination of variable characteristics—the intensity,
duration, and direction of a given atmospheric river, for example. The amount of water vapor
reduction—as rain and snowfall—is similar for all atmospheric river trajectories across the North
13 Jonathan J. Rutz, W. James Steenburgh, and F. Martin Ralph, “The Inland Penetration of Atmospheric Rivers over
Western North America: A Lagrangian Analysis,” Monthly Weather Review 143, no. 5, February 16, 2015, 1924–
44. I based my AR Trajectories Map off the original Rutz schematic showing “primary pathways for the penetration
of 950-hPa AR-related trajectories into the interior of western North America…regions associated with frequent AR
decay are shaped in red…highlights common regimes and pathways, individual trajectories follow many different
paths.”
82
American West. Fluctuations occur because of the orientation of mountain ranges, escarpments,
and other topographical features of the Slope. As atmospheric rivers push overland, they begin to
lose their capacity to hold vaporized water and start to decay as they grind into the coast.
14
Those that survive the Pacific ranges and continue to push inland, usually decline in
potency as they bleed out their precipitation. Sometimes, the loss in water vapor is compensated
by increases in wind speed, which preserves the atmospheric river’s water vapor as it snakes into
the interior. This happens especially with atmospheric rivers in the U.S. Southwest.
15
Still, inland
penetrating atmospheric rivers are more common in the Northwest and sometimes make it as far
into the interior as the Great Salt Lake, though through geographic corridors, they can reach
western parts of Alberta, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. They can extend as far inland as west Montana
as they did during the 1996 winter season, one of the wettest in the last 100 years, and similar in
some ways to the Big Winter of 1861-62. Atmospheric rivers have even reached the Gulf of
Mexico and pushed into the U.S. South East. Atmospheric river driven storms caused floods in
Nashville, Tennessee in May of 2010, and again in the Carolinas in October of that same year.
16
Atmospheric rivers therefore, are transient. In the northern hemisphere, these tentacles can
draw water from the far western Pacific and can focus these tight corridors of fast-moving, humid
air towards any point from Alaska to Baja California. Atmospheric rivers make landfall within
three broad regimes on the Pacific Slope of North America. Most atmospheric rivers, roughly
sixty-eight percent, that reach the Slope hit north of Cape Mendocino, California.
17
Most deliver
moderate rainfall across the Pacific Coast ranges before bending clockwise as they push into the
14 Rutz et al, “Climatological Characteristics of Atmospheric Rivers,” 905-21.
15 Rutz, 2015, 1939.
16 Rutz, 2015, 1930.
17 One of the rainiest places is Newport, Oregon that gets over 400 inches of year every year. Jonathan J. Rutz, W.
James Steenburgh, and F. Martin Ralph, “Climatological Characteristics of Atmospheric Rivers and Their Inland
Penetration over the Western United States,” Monthly Weather Review 142, no. 2, October 10, 2013, 905–21.
83
interior of the Slope. Atmospheric rivers that survive even further inland usually snake north of
the Canadian Coast Mountains, across the Columbia Plateau and onto the western faces of the
Rocky Mountains. Atmospheric rivers hit this geography frequently, with high durations, and high
proportions of rain and snow.
18
These atmospheric rivers can be enormous, move frequently and
dramatically, and the temperature variance is broader and far more noticeable. So much rain falls
in the Pacific Northwest during the wet season that atmospheric rivers stand out as unique. Because
the ambient temperature is cooler on the northern half of the Slope than on its southern reaches,
when the warm atmospheric river air hits during the moderately cold winter months, the air feels
denser, muggier, warmer. Even the smell of the air is notable in comparison to “normal” winter
rains. During the historic winter of 1916, for example, the overnight temperatures jumped from 35
degrees into the 60s when an atmospheric river touched down over the Pacific Northwest that
December. This temperature jump is a strong indication of an incoming atmospheric river.
The second most affected geography stretches south from Cape Mendocino to the
Coronado Islands, which receives around a quarter of landfalling atmospheric rivers. Atmospheric
rivers hit this region with decreasing frequency moving north to south, and with reducing duration
moving from the coast inland. Here atmospheric rivers similarly curl clockwise as they cross over
the Cascade and northern Sierra Nevada ranges above Tahoe. The towering high Sierra barricades
most atmospheric rivers from flowing into the interior, which rarely survive to poke into the
western Great Basin. Atmospheric rivers that land to the south, though, take a cyclonic path curling
back counterclockwise as they spill around the southern slopes of the Sierra. Atmospheric rivers
that hit from Southern California to Northern Baja take a north-northeastward trajectory and
display weak cyclonic curvature though those in the southern half of the peninsula bend the
18 Rutz et al, “Climatological Characteristics of Atmospheric Rivers,” 905–21.
84
opposite way in soft anticyclonic curves. Those that drive inland swing poleward as they head
towards the Colorado Plateau and western side of the Rockies.
The final geography encompasses the Baja Peninsula inland. Atmospheric rivers hit across
this geography with the least frequency—perhaps less than ten percent of all landfalling
atmospheric rivers land here—but half of these will survive to push into the interior of the
continent. These atmospheric rivers move northeastward into the U.S. Southwest, sometimes in a
weak cyclonic arc to the northwest or at times in a right-handed turn towards the southeast. While
these atmospheric rivers can dump their cargo of water vapor moisture as they cross the Peninsular
Ranges, they pick up more over the Gulf of California, before moving over the lower Colorado
river basin and into the Mogollon Rim beyond.
Atmospheric rivers are vital to understanding the environmental history of the American
West. Their timing and power create the conditions for floods, their absence cause droughts, and
they have a strong relationship with wildfires as heavy rains mean more fuel, and the timing of
rains can begin or end fire season. They also recharge the watersheds of the West. Still, it is
important to remember that most atmospheric rivers do not bring weather extremes. A single
atmospheric river—especially in California—while potentially responsible for one-tenth of the
precipitation of a given season, will not necessarily cause high-water or other hazards. Specific
environmental conditions, timing, and geographical contingencies matter. A major danger though
can occur when atmospheric rivers hit back-to-back to back in rapid succession with high intensity
and little time for watersheds to absorb or purge the excess water as they did during the historic
winter of 1861-1862. And like everything, atmospheric rivers also have a history, even if a decade
ago most people didn't know what they are. So, let us bend like an atmospheric river as it makes
landfall, curving and almost hooking back, even as it barrels ahead, and look at Indigenous memory
85
and history and the power of these deep local oral traditions to convey ecological and historical
information.
Indigenous histories of superstorms and great floods
For at least sixteen thousand years—the Lil’wat of British Columbia say since time
immemorial—human beings have lived across Pacific Slope. They lived by the old ways. Lifeways
bound them to the rivers and mountains, to the plants and the animals, and each other through time.
Native peoples learned these lessons over many generations, often in demanding ways, and the
lands and waters reminded them of these hard-earned lessons. So they embedded these teachings
into orally transmissible histories. Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, a white rancher and ethnographer
who lived among the Yakama, Nez Perce, and others, explained that “land is their religion, and
their religion is their land.”
19
These traditions are filled with detailed observations and technical descriptions of, among
many things, history and Earth systems science. These traditions are far more than legends of
landscapes. Indigenous oral history and traditional ecological knowledge are living archives. They
document geologic and historical events and contain technical information on biology, chemistry,
astronomy, meteorology, and climatology. Oral traditions also provide instructions about making
boats, snares, traps, snowshoes, when/where and how to burn, when to plant or harvest certain
floras, when to hunt particular animals, which fish oil to use to keep from slipping on the ice, or
19
Document 520A, McWhorter Collection, Washington State University Archives cited in Clifford E. Trafzer,
Grandmother, Grandfather, and Old Wolf: Tamánwit Ku Súkat and Traditional Native American Narratives from
the Columbia Plateau, 1998; River Song: Naxiyamtáma (Snake River-Palouse) Oral Traditions from Mary Jim,
Andrew George, Gordon Fisher, and Emily Peone, 2015; Death Stalks the Yakama: Epidemiological Transitions
and Mortality on the Yakama Indian Reservation, 1888-1964, 1997, 23. Donald Collier et al., "Archaeology of the
Upper Columbia Region,” 1942. Steven Ross Evans, Voice of the Old Wolf: Lucullus Virgil McWhorter and the Nez
Perce Indians, 2017.
86
when to move to high ground.
20
Indigenous oral traditions are a tool that is carried in the memory
instead of the hand.
21
First Peoples code and communicate these lessons in tradition and practice
instead of on paper or with some gadget. They have the conceptual power to employ spoken
language to reconstruct settings and circumstances for someone who has yet to experience them
and ways to meditate for those who have.
Communities still share histories that anthropologists recorded at the turn of the twentieth
century, and structural aspects of the accounts endure even when specific dimensions vary between
tellers. Oral traditions are persistent and deeply conservative but simultaneously and perhaps
paradoxically flexible and adaptive. Oral histories often show individual variation as well as
consistency. Single storytellers may tell unique versions of a story, but those accounts remain
constant, with exact words and phrasings, across multiple retellings through time—both adaptive
and enduring. Across the planet, traditional ecological knowledge explains complex systems, seeks
to make sense of the world, and produces practical solutions verified through extensive
observation, experimentation, and knowledge accumulation.
22
Moreover, Native knowledge
20Robert Boyd, “Strategies of Indian Burning in the Willamette Valley,” Indians, Fire and the Land in the Pacific
Northwest, 1999, 94–138; Fikret Berkes, Sacred Ecology: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Resource
Management, 1999; David Dinwoodie and Paul Nadasdy, “Hunters and Bureaucrats: Power, Knowledge, and
Aboriginal-State Relations in the Southwest Yukon,” The Western Historical Quarterly 36, 2005, 229; Heidi
Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark, “Marked by Fire: Anishinaabe Articulations of Nationhood in Treaty Making with the
United States and Canada,” American Indian Quarterly 36, no. 2, 2012, 119–49; Ann Fienup-Riordan and Alice
Rearden, Ellavut, Our Yup’ik World & Weather: Continuity and Change on the Bering Sea Coast, Calista Elders
Council, 2012; Kat Anderson, Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s
Natural Resources, 2013; Joy B. Zedler and Michelle L. Stevens, “Western and Traditional Ecological Knowledge
in Ecocultural Restoration,” San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science 16, no. 3, 2018.
21 Julie Cruikshank, “Legend and Landscape: Convergence of Oral and Scientific Traditions in the Yukon Territory,”
Arctic Anthropology, Vol. 18, No. 2, 1981, 67-93.
22 The division between western and Indigenous or Eastern modes of thought are deficient and reproduce subjective
Western classification schemes that portray western cosmologies as the only logical, orderly, and accurate modes of
knowledge production, retention, and dissemination. The partitioning of cultures or cosmologies into modern and
primitive, civilized or savage, open or closed, may begin as a way of ordering and making sense of different ways of
imaging and refashioning the world in a messy and chaotic universe. But often that created order is misleading, the
significance superficial, and the categorizations ultimately subjective and ethnocentric, Jack Goody, 1977, 36.
Doyce Nunis, “Oral History and the History of Technology,” Technology and Culture 4, no. 2, 1963, 149–54. Nico
Roymans et al., “Landscape Biography as Research Strategy: The Case of the South Netherlands Project,”
Landscape Research 34, no 3, June 1, 2009, 337–59. Richard B. Applegate, “Chumash Place names,” The Journal
87
practices are distinctive, sophisticated, ongoing practices and not antecedents nor appendages to
settler science.
23
Indigenous oral tradition is a critical adaptive strategy that worked in response to
environmental and social change and catastrophe over thousands of years.
24
First Peoples of the
coastal Slope are also ocean-going societies, deeply embedded in a wide-ranging and ancient
linkage connecting the Pacific peoples with those of the interior Slope. With the Slope’s position
on the ring of fire, an infinity of nations from Vancouver Island to the Islas Coronado have histories
of California Anthropology 1, no. 2, 1974, 187-205; Cruikshank, "Legend and Landscape,” 67-93; Colin G
Calloway, One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark, 2003; Steven Hoelscher and
Derek H. Alderman, “Memory and Place: Geographies of a Critical Relationship,” Social & Cultural Geography 5,
no. 3, 2004; Ora A Lovejoy, “A Study of Southern California Place Names.,” Publications, v. 11. 24, 1918; Douglas
Deur, “A Most Sacred Place: The Significance of Crater Lake among the Indians of Southern Oregon,” Oregon
Historical Quarterly. Oregon Historical Society 103, 2002; 18–49; Lynn Gamble and Michael Wilken-Robertson,
“Kumeyaay Cultural Landscapes of Baja California’s Tijuana River Watershed,” Journal of California and Great
Basin Anthropology 28, 2008, 127–52.
23 Translating knowledge between cosmologies and cultures is challenging. Problems come with determining how
much human time has passed within and between stories, which aspects of a story refer to specific events in the past
as oral histories often contain both elements of the legendary past, deep time, and more recent historical events like
the coming of Europeans. Researchers from the Western tradition seldom embedded in cultural contexts and have
too often misread and misinterpreted. “Appropriation of native knowledge at the expense of native communities;
another instance in the too long history of plunder by settler-colonial interests for settler-colonial interests.” Is it
possible for "someone trained in a western rationalist framework" to make assertions to "understanding cognition
which considers time, space, causality, materiality" in different ways? Heuscher, 1979, 244-45. On ethics of TEK
and the appropriation of traditional knowledge at the expense of Native communities, Paul Nadasdy, “The Politics
of TEK: Power and the ‘Integration’ of Knowledge,” Arctic Anthropology 36, 1999, 1–18; George W. Wenzel,
“Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Inuit: Reflections on TEK Research and Ethics,” Arctic 52, no. 2, 1999,
113–24; Stephen C. Ellis, “Meaningful Consideration? A Review of Traditional Knowledge in Environmental
Decision Making,” Arctic 58, no. 1, 2005, 66–77; Nicolas Houde, “The Six Faces of Traditional Ecological
Knowledge: Challenges and Opportunities for Canadian Co-Management Arrangements,” Ecology and Society 12,
no. 2, 2007. Linda Lorraine Nash, Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge,
2006; Susan Sleeper-Smith, Contesting Knowledge: Museums and Indigenous Perspectives, 2009.
24 Systematic data collection and analysis is a powerful tool of the western scientific tradition. Still, on the Pacific
Slope, as across the Americas, these studies often draw from small sample sizes and short temporal windows
compared to 16,000-plus years of Indigenous observations, experiences, and practices. Traditional ecological
knowledge fuses details of phenomenon gathered and vetted across generations during all seasons and seasonal
variations. Western anthropologists, scientists, and other researchers are limited to short stints often over summer
months—not ideal conditions for absorbing bits of knowledge, some of which take a lifetime of practice and
patience to learn. Still, in conjunction, these sets of customs provide thicker descriptions of place and specific
ecological systems and geologic events, especially if Indigenous narratives and linguistic categories of plants,
animals, geologic and hydrologic processes and landscape features are present. Cruikshank, “Legend and
Landscape,” 67-93.
88
of extreme flood events.
25
Ohlone histories tell of a time when Mt. Diablo stood above the floods that ushered in the
current world. In Northeastern California, Indigenous histories tell of a terrible flood in the
Sacramento Valley that drowned thousands of Indians and washed hundreds of villages from the
rivers’ banks. Colorado River peoples share many stories of great floods and the recreation of
entire worlds. Havasupai histories tell of the spirit Hokomata summoning a giant rainstorm that
flooded all the land and gashed out the Grand Canyon as it rushed to the sea. Another deity,
Pukeheh, saved his daughter by stashing her inside a giant floating log, and after the floodwaters
waned, she became the mother of all human beings.
A Challam elder told 19
th
-century missionaries in Washington Territory that his
grandfather had known a survivor of a great flood that covered the land. These histories read like
eyewitness accounts because they are. Indigenous societies along the West Coast are well
acquainted with the shifts between wet and dry, whether seasonally or long term. Historically,
people relocated, moving in cycles with the seasons and the circumstances between high and low
ground. Knowledge embedded in song, story, and ritual guided people to reliable water during
extended droughts and knew the best elevations to escape even the most extensive floods.
26
25 Michael J Witgen, An Infinity of Nations: How the Native New World Shaped Early North America, 2011; Natale A
Zappia, Traders and Raiders: The Indigenous World of the Colorado Basin, 1540-1859, 2014; Andrew Lipman, The
Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast, 2015. From Montgomery: “the last major
subduction zone earthquake occurred on January 26, 1700…Japanese temple records tell of a mysterious tsunami
arriving without any ground shaking. The wave generated on the west coast of North America traveled all the way to
Japan,” The Rocks Don’t Lie, 216; Ruth S. Ludwin et al., “Folklore and Earthquakes: Native American Oral
Traditions from Cascadia Compared with Written Traditions from Japan,” Geological Society, London, Special
Publications 273, no. 1, 2007, 67–94.
26 Tsunamis flooded settlements along the “British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon coasts and abandoned after
the 1700 earthquake. After the ground shook violently for more than three minutes, a thirty-foot wave smashed into
the coast,” from Montgomery, The Rocks Don’t Lie, 212. Further, the Missoula Floods created "the water scoured
cliff of a now dry waterfall hundreds of feet high in the middle of the desert," and "giant potholes where no river
flows today," as well as "granite boulders parked in a basalt canyon. J Harlan Bretz's "Spokane Flood" "deposited an
enormous delta around Portland, Oregon," that backed up the "flow into the Willamette Valley," water flowing at
"over sixty-six cubic feet per second. Only "the sudden failure of a glacial dam could have released Lake
Missoula"—an ice-dammed glacial lake. The geography reveals "evidence of many floods" as the "ice dam had
89
The Santiam Kalapuya of the southern Willamette recall when the Missoula Floods—
periodic but massive flood events spurred by the melting of ice dams and glacial lake outburst
floods—engulfed the valley some fifteen thousand years ago, forcing all to flee to foothills above
what is currently Corvallis.
27
The Klamath remember the destruction of the volcanic Mount
Mazama—now more commonly known as Crater Lake—that exploded nearly eight thousand years
ago. These were among the most massive floods in the history of the continent. Coastal peoples
like the Makah of Neah Bay recall tsunamis that flooded all but the tallest peaks. WSÁNEC
histories remember a time more than ten-thousand years ago when the tides rose above the trees,
and the people tied their canoes to a giant Pacific Madrone atop mount ȽÁU,WELṈEW ̱ with
braided cedar ropes to survive the highwaters until they resided.
28
On or around January 26
th
, 1700,
failed over and over" like a "flood machine." Ice dam failures and gigantic floods were common in ancient North
America. See Montgomery, The Rocks, 23. For more on Indigenous cosmologies and histories, maybe start with
Lowell John Bean, The Ohlone Past and Present: Native Americans of the San Francisco Bay Region, 1994, 143;
Fariss & Smith, San Francisco. Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties, with California from 1513
to 1850; Bunting, 5; Meriwether Lewis et al., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 6:9, 22-23, 208, 210;
James Gilchrist Swan, The Northwest Coast, 29, 92-95.
27 Further, the Missoula Floods created "the water scoured cliff of a now dry waterfall hundreds of feet high in the
middle of the desert," and "giant potholes where no river flows today," as well as "granite boulders parked in a
basalt canyon. J Harlan Bretz's "Spokane Flood" "deposited an enormous delta around Portland, Oregon," that
backed up the "flow into the Willamette Valley," water flowing at "over sixty-six cubic feet per second. Only "the
sudden failure of a glacial dam could have released Lake Missoula"—an ice-dammed glacial lake. The geography
reveals "evidence of many floods" as the "ice dam had failed over and over" like a "flood machine." Ice dam failures
and gigantic floods were common in ancient North America. See Montgomery, The Rocks, 23.
28 Means “place of refuge” in the Sencoten Language, part of the Salish language group. Some might refer to this as
Mount Newton. Salishan speakers are fighting to reinstate its name official officially. Saanich Peoples, “The Legend
of ȽÁU,WELṈEW ̱ ,” https://wsanecschoolboard.ca/about-the-school/the-legand-of-lauwelnew, accessed December
29, 2018. James Swan recorded that “Billy also related an interesting tradition…water flowed from Neah Bay
through the Waatch prairie, and Cape Flattery was an Island…the water receded and left Neah Bay dry for four days
and became very warm. It then rose again without any swell or waves and submerged the whole of the cape and the
whole country except the mountains back of Clyoquot. As the water rose those, who had canoes put their effects into
them and floated off with the current which set strong to the north. Some drifted one way and some another, and
when the waters again resumed their accustomed level, a portion of the tribe found themselves beyond Noothu
where their descendants now reside and are known by the same name as the Makah or Quinaitchechat. Many canoes
came down in the trees to their destruction, and numerous lives were lost. The same thing happened at Quillehuyte,
and a portion of that tribe went off either in canoes or by land and found the Chimahcum tribe at Port Townsend.
There is no doubt in my mind of the truth of this tradition. The Waatch prairie shows conclusively that the waters of
the ocean once flowed through it. And as this whole country shows marked evidence of volcanic influences, there is
every reason to believe that there was a gradual depressing and subsequent upheaval of the earth's crust which made
the waters to rise and recede as the Indian stated. The tradition respecting the Chimatcums and Quillehuyte I have
often heard before from both these tribes” from the Diary of James Swan, 12, January 1864; from James Gilchrist
Swan Papers, Collection # 1703 Suzallo Library, University of Washington.
90
“Japanese temple records” log a mysterious tsunami that arrived without an earthquake. A quake
originating from the Pacific Slope generated the wave that traversed the Pacific to Japan.
Archeological digs have revealed that villages along the northwest coast were swamped by
tsunamis and then abandoned. According to a Challam elder, after more than three minutes of
violent shaking, a “thirty-foot wave smashed into the coast.” His grandfather had known a survivor
of that great flood.
29
Like many peoples across the planet, Native peoples of the Pacific West share common
histories of gigantic floods. The Ashochimi of California’s Pit River tell of a giant flood that killed
nearly everything except Coyote and Elder Brother, who remade humanity out of feathers and wet
earth. The Tolowa of Del Norte California tell of a “great rain” that lasted a long time and
submerged every valley, forcing every nation to flee to the mountains. The flood “put out every
fire in the world.” It drowned almost everyone.
30
The Maidu recall seeking refuge atop the Histum
Yani, the Sutter Buttes, during several great inundations. Kodoyapen, the Earth Maker, once
brought “much rain, rain, and snow everywhere,” and the waters rose “even to the mountains.”
The Maidu tell of another time when the “swift sound of rushing waters “appeared suddenly,” and
the Valley became “like Big Waters, which no man can measure.” Some fled, but many “slept
beneath the waves.” After many trials, a great leader convinced Kodoyapen to part the mountains
and drain the waters into the sea, creating the Sacramento River.
31
The Ohlone of the California
29 Ruth S. Ludwin et al., “Folklore and Earthquakes: Native American Oral Traditions from Cascadia Compared with
Written Traditions from Japan,” Geological Society, London, Special Publications 273, no. 1, 2007, 67–94; Jay
Miller. "Startup: Richard “Doc” Daugherty’s 1947 Archaeological Survey Of The Washington Coast." Journal of
Northwest Anthropology: Volume 44 Number 2, 44, no. 2, 2010, 257-265. Montgomery, Rocks, 212.
30 Katherine Berry Judson, Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest, 1912; Isabelle Meadows’ oral
histories in David Kaufman, “Rumsen Ohlone Folklore: Two Tales,” Journal of Folklore Research 45, no. 3, 2008,
383–91.
31 Louise Butts Hendrix, Sutter Buttes: Land of Histum Yani, 1980, 24-35; Roland Dixon, Maidu Texts, American
Ethnological Society, 1912; Cora Clark, Pomo Indian Myths and Some of Their Sacred Meanings, 1954, 37-48.
91
coast tell of a time when Mt. Diablo stood above the floods that ushered in the current world.
32
The Chumash of the Southern California coast tell that in the beginning, all men lived on
Santa Cruz Island in the presence of Xoy. A great flood forced the people to relocate to the
mainland by crossing a rainbow bridge. The flood separated humans from Xoy, though the rainbow
reminds them of their connection to islands and the creators.
33
Now every winter, Sun, Eagle of
the Sky, Morning Star, and Coyote of the Sky play a consequential game of peon. When Coyote
of the Sky wins, the rains will be substantial. The Akimel O-odham of the Colorado River tells of
several great floods that shaped Earth and the world’s animals. In one, survivors of the deluge find
refuge on Crooked Mountain in southern Arizona.
The Havasupai have histories about a giant flood along the Colorado, when Hokomata
“unleashed a tremendous rainstorm” that at once carved the Grand Canyon.
34
A Yaqui history
recounts that it rained for fourteen consecutive days during February of the year 614, and
floodwaters covered the land as far as one could see.
35
The lower Colorado River’s Quechan tell
of how Kwikumat brought four great floods to the Earth over a sequence of ages.
36
Once when his
people’s faith wavered, he brought four days of heavy rain flooding the Earth. Another time his
inventions displeased him, he spoke to the four corners to conjure a great flood. After a “blinding”
dust storm, rain fell for thirty days, and many of the wicked drowned.
37
Waves of a great deluge
32 Lowell Bean. The Ohlone Past and Present: Native Americans of the San Francisco Bay Region, 1994.143.
33 Discussion with James Adams, Chumash Healer, and USC pharmacologist. Thomas C Blackburn, December’s
Child: A Book of Chumash Oral Narratives, 1975.
34 Pukeheh though, “put his daughter in a hollowed-out log to save her from the monstrous current rushing down to
sea.” After the Colorado’s floodwaters pulled back, she became the mother of all humanity.” Montgomery, Rocks,
23.
35 Harry Behn, editor, Yaqui myths and legends, 1959, 106-9.
36 The Quechan spell it “Kwikumat” and commonly call him Kumat, though Kukwiimáatt is also used. Kumat’s son,
Kumastamaho, also brought the first corn, which fell from the sky like rain. Correspondence with Cliff Trafzer.
Clifford E. Trafzer, Chemehuevi Song: the Resilience of a Southern Paiute Tribe, 2018.
37 This storm though, disappeared "over the ocean…Far in the west." Also, in this tradition, when the floods subsided,
they fell so low that little water remained in the ocean. JP Harrington, Joe Homer’s “A Yuma Account of Origins,”
Journal of American Folklore 21.82, 1908, 324-348. Jack Forbes, Warriors of the Colorado: The Yuma of the
Quechan Nation and Their Neighbors, 1965. JP Harrington et al., The Papers of John Peabody Harrington in the
92
“made the mountains and the high places as they are now.” Quechan elder Joe Homer explained
how Kwikumat’s son, the creator Kumastamxó, made it rain for forty days during the last deluge.
During the inundation, he carried one man and one woman from each kind of people on his
shoulders while the rest sought refuge atop the Avihaatác Mountains.
Kumastamxó turned them
into rocks.
38
Kumastamxó also defeats ‘Amáy’ Aavé, the multi-headed Sky Snake, who was “in
the ocean, and the sky.” He turned the serpent’s body into a bulwark “along the shore about the
whole world, and above it, the water shall not rise.” against the next great flood, “encircled the
earth” “like a belt” and that area became warm” Kumastamxo, promised that there “will never be
another” flood. However, “if you kill my bird Kuko,” the woodpecker, “I will make the water rise
and drown you all,” he warned.
39
"There is the work of Warm Wind"
First Peoples of the Northern Slope also have histories that specifically describe warm
winter ocean winds and narratives in which clashing winds create massive storms. These accounts
sound remarkably like descriptions of landfalling atmospheric rivers. They also express the kinship
relationships between meteorological and geological forces and the reciprocal interactions that
Smithsonian Institution, 1907-1957 and Northern and Central California, National Anthropological Archives,
Smithsonian Institution; Jane MacLaren Walsh, John Peabody Harrington: The Man and His California Indian
Fieldnotes, California Indian Library Collections, 1994, 23-55; Franklin Fenenga et al., “A Weather Shaman’s Rain-
Making Bundle from the Tübatulabal and Its Relationship to the History of Weather Control in South-Central
California,” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 32, no. 2, 2012, 109–25.
38 Harrington, “A Yuma Account,” 324-348.
39 Joe Homer shared multiple versions of this provocative story with Harrington. In another telling “they are in the
water, they are in the sky…He is called ‘Amáy ‘Aavé (Sky Snake), He is the one who is up in the sky; he seems to
be flying, they say…” In another, The Rattlesnake Kumaiaveta “remained in the ocean, he feared to come on
shore…he grew to such an enormous size that he could encircle the earth....when he returned to land he grew angry
and when he “shook his tail, making noise like thunder, Enveloped in storm-dust and lightening…” When
Kumastamxo kills Kumaiaveta the snake “urinated freely. The ocean is his urine. That is why it is salty, has foam
on, is not good to drink.” His four severed heads Kumastamxo pounded into gravel beds. He then made the
Colorado river flow by stabbing a spear into the earth, and carving its channels to the sea.” Harrington, “A Yuma
Account.” George Bryant and Amy Miller, Xiipúktan (First of All): Three Views of the Origins of the Quechan
People, 2013.
93
produce storms. These histories were only shared during the winter months, intertwining sacred
and secular knowledge with specific times and places, and ensuring the lessons remained
experiential and practical.
40
In 1917, during a particularly active atmospheric river season, Anawhoa of the Black Bear
Wasco, a Chinookan-speaking people from near the Dalles, shared the "Battle of Cold Wind and
Chinook-Wind."
41
Anawhoa told of when five brothers and their sister Tahmattoxlee lived at the
place called Tamantowllat along the nChewana—the Columbia—river.
42
They came from the
eastern mountains to challenge all comers to a wrestling match. Cold Wind called from "sunrise
to sundown" and "called to anybody" to come and fight. The rules dictated that Coyote decapitate
anyone who fell to the ground. The brothers defeated many opponents. Their sister Tahmattoxlee
threw ice on the ground, and her brothers' opponents slipped and fell. Coyote swung his blade, and
before long, "Piles! Great piles of dead lay where Cold Wind had conquered. None could stand
before him."
Across Native North America, Coyote is an old and powerful being. Both creator and
destroyer. Sometimes superhuman. Other times, only too human. In one Yakama account, Coyote
outwits the Five Tah-Tah Kleah monsters who blockaded the Columbia River's mouth, leading the
salmon upstream to all the inland peoples.
43
In another, Coyote shoots arrows into the sky to form
a ladder to the stars, by which Beaver climbs to steal fire from powerful beings from another
40 David Kaufman, “Rumsen Ohlone Folklore: Two Tales,” Journal of Folklore Research 45, no. 3, 2008, 383–91.
41 The Yakama eventually adopted McWhorter. Trafzer, Grandmother.
42 In some versions of this legend, even in the same group, as with the Klickitat, the enslaved woman held by the
Atteyiyi was Wenowyyi, is a sister to Wenowyyi, young Chinook-Wind and perhaps echoes the Lil’Wat story of the
marriage arranged between Chinook-Wind and Glacier.
43 From Trafzer, Death Stalks the Yakama, “Coyote scolded two of the Tah Tah Kleah monsters for eating too many
animal people, and in a journey from Yakama country south toward the Columbia River, two of the sisters died,
leaving their remains on the face of the earth. This site is a sacred place to Yakama who go to this place to pray,
sing, and make offerings;" Andrew George to Clifford Trafzer, 29 May 1987, author's collection. See chapter 2,
footnote 4 for more.
94
world.
44
Coyote could influence the weather in some traditions, like when he threatened the
Huckleberry Sisters with winds, rain, and hail. And when great winds clashed, of course, Speel-yi
was there too.
45
Chinook-Wind "was five brothers" and lived there with Eagle's family. Eagle's son long
resisted the call to wrestle but finally joined in, but he fell like all those before. Cold Wind "boasted
the more." Chinook-Wind, "the five brothers," went out to avenge their friend, but Cold Wind
defeated them all. As before, Tahmattoxlee covered the ground in ice, and when they fell, Coyote
took their heads. The Cold Winds boasted more than before, and their sister Tahmattoxlee dumped
cold water on Eagle's lodge, killing everyone but Eagle and his wife. She laughed at them as the
Cold Winds blew crueler every day. The wife of Eagle's son, though, had fled to her home near
the sea, where she gave birth to a son, who though not yet grown, set out upriver to face the Cold
Winds. On his way, Young Chinook pulled up pine trees and threw them across the nChe-wana.
46
He picked up boulders and threw them as far as he could. He dashed and leaped, and over his five
days of travel, he grew bigger and stronger each day.
When Young Chinook reached the earth-lodge, old Eagle and his wife had nearly frozen
to death from the icy rains that Cold Winds' sister poured down. Young Chinook stripped down
and dove deep into the nChe-wana and caught a giant sturgeon. He dragged it out onto the shore
where the spying Cold Wind brothers could see. The youth held up the massive fish with one
extended arm to show his strength and then dragged it towards his grandparent's lodge. The
44 Trafzer, Grandmother, Grandfather, and Old Wolf, 77.
45 From footnote 3 Coyote “controlled the weather. This was one of his many powers. In the various versions of this
story, Coyote threatened his Huckleberry Sisters with rain, hail, and wind that destroy them.” The ancient stories of
the Slope's First Peoples describe Earth in transition. According to Andrew George, a Palouse holy man who lived
on Yakama Reservation, "at the creation, Coyote was present, the symbol of power—teacher of balance, the creator
of confusion." During this era, the plant people and the animal people "held sway,” Trafzer, Grandmother,
Grandfather, and Old Wolf,” 77.
46 ARs blow hard 60 plus miles per hour; heavy winds and rains have been known to move boulders and pull giant
trees out of the ground and carry them miles downstream.
95
sturgeon's giant tail carved a deep channel in the earth that still marks the surface today at Taman-
towl-lat, the place cut in the ground. Grandmother Eagle prepared the oil by the fire while the Cold
Wind taunted Young Chinook out to fight.
47
With the help of his grandmother, the youth
challenged the Cold Wind brothers trouncing the first two. The third and fourth brothers came.
They stood firm but likewise fell to Young Chinook. Coyote presented their heads to the old man
in the canoe. The fifth and youngest Cold Wind brother asked the boy, now fully-grown Chinook-
Wind, to spare his life. Chinook-Wind replied, "No! You killed all my people. You cannot live,"
and he threw the youngest Cold Wind brother to the ground, and Coyote sliced off his head and
carried it to the canoe as he had the four older brothers and taken back across the nChe-wana.
Tahmattoxlee, the sister of the Cold Winds, ran away crying. Coyote followed her, laughing all
the way. She promised only to bring cold for a few days, and then Chinook-Wind can come.
48
Other peoples of the Columbia Plateau, including the Klickitat, Watlala, and Wishom,
maintain multiple traditions that describe a clash between powerful atmospheric forces—the cold
east winds of the five Walla Walla brothers from the "near the meeting of the waters" and the five
Chinook brothers' warm west winds resided where the Columbia meets the Pacific. In the battle
between Atteyiyi and Toqeet, Atteyiyi embodies the cold northeast wind, the deadliest of all, and
often teams with the Lalawish, the five brother wolves, representatives of the frozen north, "the
icy, the strong" before "whom none could stand." Through deception, they defeat and kill Chinook-
Wind, and freezing conditions reign. And like in Anawhoa’s version, Chinook-Wind has a
surviving son. Wenowyii is the young Chinook-Wind and is a "powerful, warm wind from a
47 "The oils of the dog salmon and the eel possess the properties of non-slipping on the ice. Either of these oils applied
to the sole of the moccasin ensures the wearer a secure footing on the smoothest of ice. The dog-salmon is the
Qeenut or royal chinook salmon at a certain period." From Trafzer, Grandmother, Grandfather, and Old Wolf , 77.
48 Coyote told her to stay where she was and that he would stay there to watch her. They are still there, as big rocks
and can be seen above histomah—the place of mussels. Trafzer, Grandmother, 88.
96
distance."
49
As he moves inland from the coast, Chinook-Wind pulls up trees and moves boulders
"dashing," "leaping," and growing stronger by the day. The winds finally clash. The opposing
winds "wrestle." Sometimes the cold winds prevail, and all is frozen. Sometimes the warm winds
prevail, and the cold breaks, and snow is swept away. But in each account, eventually young
Chinook Wind grows to full strength and, with the heal of his great-grandfather’s oil, defeats the
Walla Walla brothers, the Cold Winds of the east.
50
Coyote pardoned the youngest Walla Walla brother, but he proclaimed a new law that the
cold winds from the east "shall blow only lightly" and can never again "blow so hard and so cold"
as to "freeze people to death every time" he breaths. To Chinook-Wind, Coyote commanded that
the warm west winds shall "blow hard only at night," coming "first on the mountain ridges to warn
the people that you are coming" before moving down the valleys to "take the snow off quickly."
Since then, the cold winds blow "lightly in the winter," and the warm Chinook-Wind blows "early
in the Spring," when it "carries off the snow in a rush."
51
49 In these histories, Qeenut—the salmon—is the embodiment of Wenowyii. He is a young warrior, warm wind, and
chinook salmon, son of the king of all fishes all in one. “Battle of the Atteyiyi and Toqeenut, (Klickitat, Cascade,
Wishom, Wasco), July 1918, Trafzer, Grandmother.
50 From “Sppel-yi and the Five Sisters of the nChe-wana,” as told by An-nee-shiat (Klickitat) in May 1918: “The Nez
Perce version of this legend has it that the Cold Wind people powdered the snow, and in the battle this snow was
used on the ground for making it too slippery for Warm Wind or Chinook Wind to stand. In the big snowstorms, you
see a bare place on the mountain where the snow is melted. There is the work of Warm Wind…. The young Chinook
Wind, in his practicing and exercising, pulled up great trees, carried them on his shoulders to his mother's tepee, or
lodge, and cast them on the ground with such force as to shatter them into firewood…. Taman-towl-lat, "dragging,"
is near the mouth of the Yakima River. The scar in the earth from the sturgeon's tail dragging is to be seen just above
the mouth of the Yakima…. All of Cold Wind's five brothers were killed but the youngest. He begged to be left
alive, promising that when he was lonely, he would make it could only five years. Chinook would not agree. The
period was shortened to three years, two years, one year, five nights, and finally to one moon. This is the generally
prevailing condition now ruling. Formerly it was cold ALL the time."
51 “The Chinook Wind,” Clark, Indian Legends, 169-71. “The Chinook Wind,” Indian Legends of the Pacific
Northwest, California, 1958, 169-171. For other histories related to weather see “The Maiden Sacrificed to Winter,”
201-203. During a winter “colder and harder than any before came to the land of the Chinook people. Snow lay on
the level as deep as half a man’s height. The time of the spring came, but the snow did not melt. Ice floated down the
river in huge masses, grinding and crashing. Every night more snow fell, filling up places the wind had swept clean.
Snowbirds were everywhere.” A warm wind comes and in “a few days” the snow was gone. See also Iques
(Cottontail) and Twee-tash (Grizzly) Gamble for Control of the Weather as told by Simon Goudy of the Yakama-
Klickitat; Trafzer, Grandmother, Grandfather, and Old Wolf : Tamánwit Ku Súkat and Traditional Native American
Narratives from the Columbia Plateau, Michigan State, 1998, 77.
97
The Lil'wat Nation of British Columbia, also linguistically Salishan, tell a different history,
though one still interwoven with the complexities of kinship, reciprocity, and competing
atmospheric forces. The Lil'wat explain how Glacier from the north end of Lillooet Lake traveled
south towards the sea searching for a wife. Glacier "followed south along the seashore," where he
came upon the home of Chinook-Wind. Chinook-Wind offered to Glacier, his daughter in
marriage. This Lil'wat history describes a young female relative of Chinook-Wind, from the coastal
regions where the Columbia clashes with the Pacific, a place with much milder weather than near
Lillooet Lake where warm and wet winds come.
When her kin come to retrieve her—in the form of Chinook-Winds—they confront Glacier
and the ice and snow he throws at them. Eventually, the warm winds and rains overrun Glacier's
snowpack. Glacier retreats beyond Lillooet Lake, and the Chinook-Winds return downriver to their
homes by the sea. Her brother and "many friends" canoed upriver to bring her home. When they
came close to Glacier's home, Chinook-Wind's son and friends changed into snowflakes and
"danced around above" Glacier's house. Seeing the falling snow, the woman said to herself, "the
weather is milder. It is snowing. My brother has arrived." In response, Glacier caused "the cold to
come," frosting the trees and pushing Chinook-Wind back, but Chinook-Wind returned more
robust than even before. "Soft" snowflakes and sleet "danced around." Again, Glacier brought the
cold and covered the trees in ice. "But Chinook-Wind returned in the form of rain." The rains
began melting Glacier, who responded with a cold hail, but the Chinook-Winds rejoined with
winds "blowing steady and strong and warm." Glacier abandoned the daughter of Chinook-Wind
and "retreated" up into the mountains. Chinook-Wind then stated that "Henceforth in this country,
cold and ice shall have mastery for just a few months each year; then the Chinook-Wind will come
and drive away the cold, and melt the ice, as we have done." They would make the voyage each
98
year. The group set out again for their homes at the Pacific Ocean.
52
These accounts are only a selection of the Indigenous histories that document and interpret
warm ocean winds. There are challenges in translating knowledge between cosmologies, as they
incorporate cultural and historical resonance beyond what is expressed in these pages. These
enduring narratives of layered familial and spiritual relationships between animals, the earth, and
the weather convey essential knowledge about kinship, reciprocity, sacrifice, among other
principles. These narratives could be read as allegories for a changing climate—for the long freeze
of the last glaciation and the eventual warming world where the cold winds come only once a year
instead of lasting all the time. But they can also be understood as discourse on the warm wet Pacific
winds' semi-seasonal arrival to keep the cold winds of the north in check. They may be referring
to the annual struggle between these meteorological forces, and perhaps even their origins in the
deep past. Also, they may reflect the seasonal movements of people themselves. A common thread
among the histories discussed here is each of these peoples moved seasonally, likely to avoid some
of the worse hazards each geography can bring in seasonal cycles. The numerous traditions of
clashing winds, alternating cold and warm rains, and blizzards and floods are a stark indication of
deep ecological knowledge of place, weather, and history of the Pacific West's First Peoples.
Across these histories, some common elements emerge. They each explicitly describe
warm, powerful, Pacific winds arriving during the winter months. Atmospheric rivers blow in from
the ocean at speeds around sixty miles per hour. As they punch over the coast ranges and through
passes, they can cause landslides that move boulders and dislodge trees. This aligns with
descriptions of how Chinook-Wind would "blow hard over the country," "dash over camps," "blow
down trees," "pull up trees by the roots," "pluck giant fir like a camas bulb," and "tear up the earth."
52 From “Glacier and Chinook Wind,” Lil’wat oral history, Lil’wat Nation of British Columbia shared with Enid
Baxter Ryce in 2018 for Honest Engine Films War and the Weather, 2021.
99
Each tradition echoes the warring of winds, alternating cold and warm rains, and freezes.
The sequence of warm and cold storms that can occur during major atmospheric river events
mirrors the struggle between opposing winds in the oral histories. The Lil'wat oral account
explicitly describes the changes in precipitation during the clashing of winds. The narrative
explains how the wind contributes to the processes that make the rain. And the most suggestive
and significant passage, "but Chinook-Wind returned in the form of rain," unambiguously
describes how atmospheric rivers bring winter precipitation. When an atmospheric river first
arrives, it comes during the winter months, and its leading-edge is often a cold front that sometimes
drops a dusting of snow on the foothills but can bring heavy snowfall to higher elevations. As it
continued to blow through, it scrubs out the cold air and dumps heavy rain. Rain melts snow, and
the combined runoff forces rapid rises in stream levels. An atmospheric river storm can transform
the landscape from frosted in white to glowing in green in a few hours.
53
The warm atmospheric
river will push out the remaining cold air, and heavy rain prevails for the duration. If the conditions
are right, they can liquefy fallen snow in a rush, causing a rapid rise in terrestrial rivers. When the
atmospheric river moves on, cold air and freezing temps often return. But when a new atmospheric
river arrives, the cycle—the struggle between the humid Pacific winds and icy mountain winds—
begins anew.
Indigenous societies along the West Coast are well acquainted with the shifts between wet
and dry, whether seasonally or long term. Historically, people relocated, moving in cycles with the
seasons and the circumstances between high and low ground. Knowledge embedded in song, story,
and ritual guided people to reliable water during extended droughts and knew the best elevations
53 Not always a sign of an AR, but during the winter this is most likely.
100
to escape even the most extensive floods.
54
Across the traditions, the winds make clear their arrival. As the Klickitat tradition noted,
warm west winds shall "blow hard only at night," coming "first on the mountain ridges to warn the
people that you are coming." The oral histories and settler accounts imply that Indigenous Peoples
could sometimes forecast these events and knew of harbors above the highwater marks of past
megafloods. Native Peoples often knew when it was time to evacuate the lowlands.
55
The
atmospheric river weather patterns that generate most of the flooding west of the Cascade and the
northern Sierra Nevada mountains announce their arrival with perceptibly warmer winter
temperatures. First Peoples also knew where to find refuge during the big storms and floods. The
Santiam Kalapuya of the southern Willamette Valley have histories of times when the river valley
filled, and rising water levels pushed people up the foothills "west of Corvallis before the waters
receded again."
56
Missionaries among the upper Columbia peoples, the Yakama, and the Spokane
reported accounts of great floods and specific locations where survivors did—and presumably
could again—seek refuge from rising floodwaters.
Along with the seasonal parallel movements of water, salmon, and people, these histories
could read as general explanations for winter storm mechanics in the Pacific Northwest through
the landscape. These oral histories can also be read as discourses on the warm wet Pacific winds'
semi-seasonal arrival to keep the north's cold winds in check. Some could read them as allegories
for a changing climate—for the long freeze of the last glaciation and the eventual warming world
54 Montgomery, The Rocks Don’t Lie, 212. Lowell John Bean, The Ohlone Past and Present: Native Americans of the
San Francisco Bay Region, 1994, 143; Fariss & Smith, San Francisco. Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen &
Sierra Counties, with California from 1513 to 1850; Bunting, 5; Meriwether Lewis et al., The Journals of the Lewis
and Clark Expedition, 6:9, 22-23, 208, 210; James Gilchrist Swan, The Northwest Coast, 29, 92-95.
55 Settler-colonial accounts often mention Indians moving their camps in advance of large storms. Mark Twain, for
example, notes an evacuation before he gets marooned on the Carson River in Nevada Territory during the Big
Winter of 1862, Twain, Roughing It
56 Montgomery, Rocks, 212.
101
where the cold winds come only once a year instead of lasting all the time. But the ubiquity of the
traditions and the similarity of their descriptions indicate knowledge of the mereological
phenomenon we now call atmospheric rivers. Even more specifically, they lay out explicit
processes and conditions that occur when powerful atmospheric rivers clash with the polar
Jetstream and the Cascades.
Indigenous memory and environmental history are critical to better understanding
atmospheric rivers and their relationship to the water on North America's Pacific slope. These
histories are embedded with intimate and informative readings of weather, water, and land.
Through story, they elegantly express the bonds between changing climates, weather disasters, and
social relations. Through ecological and social upheavals, colonization, and genocide, the people
and their knowledge endures.
57
57 Keith Basśo, Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache, 2007; Michael Marker,
“The Social Life of Stories: Narrative and Knowledge in the Yukon Territory,” Anthropology & Education
Quarterly 30, 2008, 394–96; Gerald Vizenor, Manifest manners: narratives on postindian survivance, Nebraska,
2010; Frank Elliott, “Western Science Coming-to-Know Traditional Knowledge,” PhD Diss, 2008; Julie
Cruikshank, Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination, 2014. Benjamin
Madley, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873, 2016, 311.
Robert Heizer, The Destruction of California Indians, 1974; Brendan Lindsay, Murder State California’s Native
American Genocide, 1846-1873, 2012. Derrick Jensen, Listening to the Land: Conversations about Nature, Culture,
and Eros, 1995; Vine Deloria, Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact, 1997.
Deloria argues that Indigenous Peoples have occupied the Americas for a very very long time. The traditions of
Native North America contain immense knowledge about migrations, geologic, and climatic events from the deep
past. G. Di Baldassarre, et al., “Socio-hydrology: conceptualizing human-flood interactions,” Hydrol. Earth Syst.
Sci., 17, 3295–3303, 2013. Murugesu Sivapalan et al., “Socio-hydrology: A new science of people and water,”
Hydrological Processes 26, 1270-1276, 2012.
102
Figure 9: Composites of primary AR pathways in three regimes. Red regions represent areas of AR decay. Based on Rutz,
Steenburgh, and Ralph, “The Inland Penetration of Atmospheric Rivers…” Base map is from John Wesley Powell, Map of
linguistic stocks of American Indians, S.l, 1890. Image by author.
103
Moist Tongues, Pineapple Expresses, and the ARkStorm
When Euroamericans arrived on the Pacific Slope, they noticed these warm, wet, west
winds too.
58
Meriwether Lewis made multiple notes of "violent" and "warm" winds during
Clatsop's winter in 1806. He described how the "Winds from the Land" brought "cold, clear
weather while" the winds blowing "obliquely along either coast or off the Oceans bring us warm
damp, cloudy and rainy weather" with the strongest winds "always from the S.W."
59
Some
Hudson's Bay Company trappers associated the substantial plumes of moist ocean wind with the
Chinook Nation, who lived along the coast near the Columbia's mouth for thousands of years.
60
Meteorological registers from Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory in the mid-19
th
century
record weather data that shows heavy winter precipitation alongside abrupt jumps in temperature
from near freezing to the 60s. They noted Pacific winds accompanied by heavy rain.
61
In 1814, the U.S. Army developed its first climate network and employed surgeons as
observers at various Army Posts.
62
In 1847, the Smithsonian Institute launched its climate network
58 For early modern perceptions of the environment see Dynes, Russell Rowe, Daniel Yutzy, Ohio State University,
and Disaster Research Center, The Religious Interpretation of Disaster, 1965; Maxine Van De Wetering,
“Moralizing in Puritan Natural Science: Mysteriousness in Earthquake Sermons,” Journal of the History of Ideas 43,
no. 3, 1982, 417–38. David Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New
England, Harvard, 1990.
59 Meriwether Lewis on January 31, 1806 from Lewis, Meriwether, William Clark, and Reuben Gold Thwaites.
1904. Original journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806: printed from the original manuscripts in the
Library of the American Philosophical Society and by Direction of its committee on Historical Documents; together
with manuscript material of Lewis and Clark from other sources, including notebooks, letters, maps, etc., and the
Journals of Charles Floyd and Joseph Whitehouse; now for the first time published in full and exactly as written.
Dodd, 1905. Vol 6, 204.
60 Larry Schick email correspondence, May 8, 2018.
61 Reference to a warm wind which blew from over the Chinook camp to the trading post of the Hudson's Bay
Company at Astoria, Oregon. Clark, Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest, 1953.
62 Rainfall records were kept at least as early as 1847. The U.S. Army records (from 1850-1892), Central Pacific
Railroad began taking rainfall totals in 1870 (between 1880 and 1890 some 200 railroad records; Also lighthouse
rainfall records recorded until 1909; “in the early years of rainfall measurements nearly all of the records of this state
were kept near San Francisco Bay and the region east; “In 1891 the Weather Bureau (the “best records from the
standpoint of…observation and…recording…[especially those] taken at one location over period of years”…also
astronomical observatories) was organized to take over the meteorological work of the Signal Service of the U.S
Army…rainfall characteristics of the Bay…can be given for the years…1850-1875 with a detail…not possible for
the remainder of the state…Records…also kept for these years by the United States Army at San Diego. U.S. Army,
1855; Smart, 1894.
104
and recruited several observers already logging weather and climate observations to Professor
James Coffin at Pennsylvania's Lafayette College.
63
In general, Northern Europeans and Eastern
Angloamericans understood "normal" winters like New England/Old Northwest/Atlantic. Heavy
rains and floods were part of the Spring and Summer seasons. Easterners were likely perplexed by
the sporadic but powerful warm winter storms at a latitude roughly parallel to Minneapolis,
Ottawa, or Montreal.
64
In the years that followed, west coast meteorologists continued to collect data and record
observations, including data on atmospheric rivers. In his 1897 report for the US Army Corps of
Engineers, Major Captain Harry Taylor wrote that the "whole of the Pacific NW is subject to a
peculiar warm, moist wind blowing off the ocean, usually from the southwest, which is known as
the 'chinook.'”
65
Over the years, it seems the term acquired a different, even opposite, even if more
well-known meaning. The name “Chinook wind” became defined instead as a “warm west wind
of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. In January or February or March, it may overnight
melt the ice-locked streams and strip the lower lands and slopes of their snow. Meteorologists use
the term chinook wind to describe a different, though sometimes atmospheric river connected,
meteorological process—a warm but dry, downhill wind occurring on the east side of the Rockies
that raise temperatures and melt the snowpack. Like atmospheric rivers, these winter winds
63 Rives, 1997; Smithsonian Institution, 1848.
64 Larry Schick phone interview, May 4, 2018.
65 Taylor continues: "A chinook wind may occur at any time of the year and may be felt by a large or small extent of
the territory at the same time. A Chinook wind striking a snowfield cause snow to melt with abnormal rapidity. The
conditions surrounding the sources of the Skagit River are therefore such that a flood in the lower river is liable to
occur almost any day of the year. A chinook wind will usually cause a marked rise in the lower river about thirty-six
hours after it begins to blow, the amount of rise depending upon the intensity and warmth of the wind and the
amount of fresh snow upon the mountains.” Major Captain Harry Taylor, Annual Report, US Army Corps of
Engineers, Engineer Office, Seattle, WA Dec 11, 1897 “Major General Harry Taylor, is the first Chief Engineer for
the Seattle District, US Army Corps of Engineers. This is the same federal agency and office which currently
conducts major flood risk management dam operations during large AR rain events, for western Washington.” Larry
Schick email correspondence, May 8, 2018. Ella E Clark, Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest, University of
California Press, 1953; Clifford E Trafzer, Grandmother, Grandfather, and Old Wolf.
105
increase temperatures and sublimate fallen snow, but different atmospheric processes generate
these rainless if warming winds unlike the rivers in the sky. This dry version of the Chinook retains
some of the original concepts of warm winter “snow eater” wind.
Despite that gradually growing body of knowledge, the planetary mechanics of
atmospheric rivers remained enigmatic. Carl-Gustaf Rossby—the Swedish-America meteorologist
who helped identify the jet stream among other phenomena—noted the presence of "moist
tongues" in the 1930s, but until 1945 upper air analysis was limited weather balloons could gather.
Hence, surface air provided most of the data.
66
Advances in computing during the 1950s helped
build barotropic models that could successfully predict Rossby waves' large-scale movement--
atmospheric lows and highs in the midlatitudes. Since the late 1990s, data from global satellite
coverage spurred attention on atmospheric rivers how standard water vapor data had not. The most
hazardous ones became known as the pineapple express, coined by a Pacific Northwest forecaster
who remarked that the air “smells like fresh pineapple.” Some of these atmospheric rivers are
carrying Hawaiian air. By the 2010s, tools like dropsondes, weather buoys, and the satellite-based
Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS) records measurements of integrated water
vapor flying over the earth, have shown what they look like in striking detail.
Atmospheric scientists continue to study how atmospheric rivers work, how to measure
their intensity, and, hopefully, how to forecast them better.
67
Part of that continuing conversation
66 C. -G. Rossby et al., “Isentropic analysis,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 18, 201-209.
67 Zhu and Newell, “A Proposed Algorithm…,” 1998; Dettinger, “Climate Change, Atmospheric Rivers, and
Floods…,” 2011; Dettinger et al., “Atmospheric Rivers…,” 201; Guan et al., “Extreme Snowfall…,” 2010; Gao et
al., “Dynamical and Thermodynamical Modulations…,” 2015; Neiman et al., “Meteorological Characteristics…,”
2008; Ralph et al, “Dropsonde Observations…,” 2005; Lavers and Villarini, “The Nexus between Atmospheric
Rivers…,” 2013; F. Ralph et al., “Flooding on California’s Russian River…,” 2006; F. Ralph et al., “A Multiscale
Observational…,” 2011; B. Smith et al., “Water Vapor Fluxes…,” 2010; Stohl et al, “Remote Sources…,” 2008;
Waliser and Guan, “Extreme Winds and Precipitation…,” 2017; F. M. Ralph, Physical Sciences Division, Earth
Systems Research Laboratory, NOAA Boulder, Colorado, “Storms, Floods, and the Science of Atmospheric
Rivers,” EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, vol. 92 num. 32, 2011, 265-272
106
revolves around measuring, predicting, and ranking—like we do with hurricanes—the potency and
destructive potential of individual atmospheric rivers.
68
New systems for forecasting and ranking
system like the hurricane scale will help spread awareness of atmospheric rivers. The goal is to
forecast atmospheric rivers and their storms in time frames from "days to decades" and at scales
from as large as mountain ranges to as small as specific watersheds.
69
A team of experts from across several disciplines has authored the ARkStorm scenario to
recognize atmospheric rivers (AR) and the 1,000-year flood (k) while providing a scale for
comparing events across time. In California, storms have historically been named for the years
they happened, which is helpful for chronology but tells nothing of the intensity of the storms or
the entire event's magnitude. The “Great Shakeout,” the ARkStorm is a hypothetical but
“scientifically defensible storm scenario” that would overwhelm the flood protection systems
designed for 100 and 200-year floods in California and likely other Pacific Slope states. The
scenario predicts hundreds of landslides destroying roads, highways, rail systems, and homes. The
storms and their fallout would damage electricity, water, sewer, and other lifelines and take months
to repair. Evacuation measures in California’s Delta and alone would affect more than one and a
half million residents. Property damage would likely exceed three hundred billion dollars and
agricultural losses and the costs of repairs to drain the land, and repair damage to around four
hundred billion dollars. Maybe twenty-five billion of that could be recovered through insurance.
68 Zhu and Newell, “A Proposed Algorithm…,” 1998; Dettinger, “Climate Change, Atmospheric Rivers, and
Floods…,” 2011; Dettinger et al., “Atmospheric Rivers…,” 201; Guan et al., “Extreme Snowfall…,” 2010; Gao et
al., “Dynamical and Thermodynamical Modulations…,” 2015; Neiman et al., “Meteorological Characteristics…,”
2008; Ralph et al, “Dropsonde Observations…,” 2005; Lavers and Villarini, “The Nexus between Atmospheric
Rivers…,” 2013; F. Ralph et al., “Flooding on California’s Russian River…,” 2006; F. Ralph et al., “A Multiscale
Observational…,” 2011; B. Smith et al., “Water Vapor Fluxes…,” 2010; Stohl et al, “Remote Sources…,” 2008;
Waliser and Guan, “Extreme Winds and Precipitation…,” 2017.
69 F. M. Ralph, Physical Sciences Division, Earth Systems Research Laboratory, NOAA Boulder, Colorado, “Storms,
Floods, and the Science of Atmospheric Rivers,” EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, vol. 92 num. 32,
2011, 265-272.
107
In total, the ARkStorm could cost over $725 billion, three times the amount estimated by the “Big
One.”
70
The near tragedy of the Oroville Spillway was just a hint of what is to come.
Still, even with the technological innovations of aircraft, radar, satellites, computer models,
and big data crunching have allowed us to better understand the size and scope of the Big Winter
of 1862. It took these corpora of weather knowledge and waterscape observation: longstanding
bodies of Indigenous ecological knowledge, the meticulous record-keeping of 19th century
professional and guerilla meteorologists, and the advances of space and digital technology to give
us the fullest picture yet of what these forces of nature are, and how they have affected the
landscape and its peoples through time. Their works aid our emerging recognition of the existence
and power, and importance of atmospheric rivers to the supply of fresh water in the Pacific Slope
and the production of hazardous conditions, the likes of which have been seen in few places on the
planet.
Disaster, storytelling, and memory
The oral histories of the Pacific Slope’s First Peoples reflect a deep forgetfulness among
generations of settler-colonial societies in the North American West. Indigenous oral histories
retain the history of weather and disaster and convey knowledge of ecology where settler-colonial
methods have been forgotten, misused, and dismissed. These practices have kept big stories alive
for thousands of years. The Kalapuya remember the Missoula Floods that occurred over 10,000
70 Porter et al, (Keith, Wein, Anne, Alpers, Charles, Baez, Allan, Barnard, Patrick, Carter, James, Corsi, Alessandra,
Costner, James, Cox, Dale, Das, Tapash, Dettinger, Michael, Done, James, Eadie, Charles, Eymann, Marcia, Ferris,
Justin, Gunturi, Prasad, Hughes, Mimi, Jarrett, Robert, Johnson, Laurie, Dam Le-Griffin, Hanh, Mitchell, David,
Morman, Suzette, Neiman, Paul, Olsen, Anna, Perry, Suzanne, Plumlee, Geoffrey, Ralph, Martin, Reynolds, David,
Rose, Adam, Schaefer, Kathleen, Serakos, Julie, Siembieda, William, Stock, Jonathan, Strong, David, Sue Wing,
Ian, Tang, Alex, Thomas, Pete, Topping, Ken, and Wills, Chris; Jones, Lucile, Chief Scientist, Cox, Dale, Project
Manager, 2011), “Overview of the ARkStorm scenario: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2010-1312,” 183
p. and appendixes; Porter et al., Special Issue.
108
years ago. Californians have forgotten one of the worst flood seasons ever in less than two hundred
years.
This forgetfulness is also due in part to the transient settler culture in the West. Not only
were newcomers novel to the Slope and its distinct geographies and weather patterns, but they also
tended to relocate, sometimes just spending a few seasons in one location before moving on.
Subsequent generations continued to relocate within the Slope at the same time as thousands upon
thousands of new immigrants from around the world poured into the West Coast. Like the many
that brought their biases from the eastern half of the continent and could not imagine that winter
could be flood season. Newcomers lessen place-specific knowledge of landscapes over long
periods. Most today know less about their immediate environmental surroundings—how the
weather and waterways work and their place and role within those waterscapes than did past
peoples living in those very landscapes.
One factor in this eco-historical amnesia is that Westerners have in-part engineered weather
out of their lives. With central air and heat, water redistribution systems, flood management
schemes, paved roads, and concrete-encased metropolises, global food production and commerce
have combined to obscure the challenges weather and climate posed for past peoples. The absence
of seasonal flooding dramatically changed the landscapes and the ecologies reliant on them. Still,
their absence also contributes to the topography of memory of those who reside across the Slope.
Like the disaster, the formation of the memory is a social process that influences future
disasters.
71
If and how a people choose to remember disasters shapes how the next disaster unfolds
and guides those people through the recovery. Therein lies the significance and utility of
Indigenous oral tradition. These histories do more than just transmit information or corroborate
71 Scott Knowles, The Disaster Experts: Mastering Risk in Modern America, Pennsylvania, 2012.
109
geoscience records. They are narratives that link cosmologies to time and place. They explain how
a specific People fit within a particular place, with specific obligations tied to that place. They do
better job of telling big histories and linking deep time, the cosmos, and all of existence to actions
in the present and how these actions reverberate for generations to come.
72
If the West's central story, that "Great American Desert," is of the presence and absence of
water, then atmospheric rivers are the spigot.
73
Atmospheric rivers and the storms they can fuel
are an ancient and active force in shaping the Pacific Slope. It took centuries of observation and
record keeping to describe, discover, and rediscover atmospheric rivers in the present. It took
several bodies of weather observation and waterscape knowledge:18th-century explorers and 19th-
century settler-colonials noted what unusual winter weather for them was. Twentieth-century
meteorologists tried to make sense of chinook winds, moist tongues, and pineapple expresses.
Twenty-first-century technological advances in aircraft, radar, satellites, computer models, and big
data crunching have allowed us to realize better the size, scope, and significance of these great
rivers in the sky and the ARkStorms of the near future.
72 “Key moments of past change are brought to life to imagine different futures….capacities of stories to explore
links between place, well-being, and democracy; how to respond to things beyond your direct control yet also feel
what you do makes a difference in a complex world.” DeSilvey, Caitlin, Simon Naylor, and Colin Sackett.
Anticipatory History, Uniformbooks, 2011.
73 J. W. Powell , United States et al., Survey of the Colorado River of the West: Letter from the Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, Transmitting Report Preliminary for Continuing the Survey of the Colorado of the West and
Its Tributaries, 1872; Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second
Opening of the West, 1982; Philip L Fradkin, A River No More: The Colorado River and the West, 1984; Donald
Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West, 1992; Marc Reisner, Cadillac
Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, 1993; William D Rowley, Reclaiming the Arid West: The
Career of Francis G. Newlands, 1996; Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the
American West, 1999; John Wesley Powell and Wallace Earle Stegner, The Arid Lands, 2004; B. Lynn Ingram and
Frances Malamud-Roam, The West without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell Us
about Tomorrow, 2013; Mike Davis, “The Coming Desert,” New Left Review, II, no. 97, 2016, 23–43.
110
111
“It seemed as if the clouds had broken through, and the waters over the earth and waters under the earth were coming
into conjunction.”
—"The Rain,” in The Star, January 4, 1862
1
Chapter 3: “The Big Winter”
Rain was still mizzling down when George Anson Pease awoke on the second morning of
December 1861. Not unusual for the Raincoast. But by the time Pease departed from his home in
Canemah early that same afternoon, something was eerie. The river had grown fuller earlier that
year than any he could remember, and by the time Pease had steered the steamer Onward upriver,
and through Rock Island canyon south of Oregon City, the river’s crest rose higher than the pilot
had ever seen. Pease had run watercraft of all sorts up and down the Columbia and the Willamette
arteries from the time when he arrived in the Oregon Territory a decade past, and he had witnessed
before the watercourses overpower their channels. He had learned well the hazards they posed for
shoreline settlements.
2
But that is the river’s bargain.
Part 1: November-December
Rains fell across the northwest Slope in short spells across September and October of
1861.
3
For the southern half of the Slope, rainfall had been so sparse that the grass in the ranges
was “used up.” The fears, particularly in the southern parts, were that many cattle across the region
would not survive till Spring. The cattle between Stockton and Merced were in such “poor
condition as to make it appear impossible that they can stand the Winter until the springing up of
1 “The Rain,” from The Star, January 4, 1862.
2 Canemah was just above the falls south of Oregon City. George Anson Pease Papers, Mss 2146, Oregon Historical
Society Research Library; Robert Bunting, The Pacific Raincoast: Environment and Culture of an American Eden,
Kansas, 1996.
3 Fort Vancouver Meteorological Register, 1861-1862.
112
the grass.” They were “so poor” that they were “mere skin and bones” and “unable to raise their
heads” and sought “with avidity” the “dung of horses on the road.” Ranchers watched “in vain…for
the sure preliminary to a rain: cool weather and frost.” When the frost and ice came to the
Sacramento Valley, they hoped that the “rain would doubtless” follow.
4
Then the heavy winds.
“Such a tremendous gale” blew that “the dust raised” reminded of those “fearful simoons(?) of the
desert Sahara.” It wafted the roof from Mrs. Johnson’s house and dropped it on a neighbor’s house,
destroying its kitchen. In Red Bluff in California’s northern Central Valley, it was as if Æolus
opened “all the gates of his wind cavern” and its “windy contents gathering in its course all the
dust and depositing” it across town. They looked forward to any sign of relief from the drought,
and yet the clouds teased. In Marysville, cloudy skies threatened rain for two weeks daily.” Some
places felt a sprinkle. The Buttes “again and again put on their night-caps, yea, and even their
nightgowns, retiring into moist retreat, an unfailing sign of wet.” The “housewives say the tea-
kettles have given their note of warning on the subject” a touch of vernacular meteorology. How
long till the rains come, wondered some?
5
Rain fell across the northwest Slope in the last of October 1861. From October 6 to
December 18
th,
it rained nearly every day in the Pacific Northwest. To the south, the rains began
in November. Showers sprinkled up and down the coast while heavy volleys dashed through the
interior. As far down as San Diego, the air was thick with fog and heavy dew and scattered
showers. On November 5, it began to sprinkle in northern California. The “clerk of the weather”
“kindly changing his programme,” an “indication of his intentions for the coming winter months.”
6
4 California Farmer and Journal of Useful Science, Volume 16, Number 8, 8 November 1861 – State Summary;
California Digital Newspaper Collection, University of California, Riverside.
5 “special mention of this spell of weather, as being one of the most extraordinary made mention of in any of the
almanacs.” Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume VI, Number 110, 8 November 1861, “City and County.”
6 “We always welcome the rain as one of the most powerful auxiliaries in developing the riches and wealth of the
State. Rain is the earnest prayer of the miner, as from the first fall of rain, he expects to date a beginning of his
113
By 9:30 PM on the 10
th,
rain began to fall in San Francisco, and by the 11
th
, the rain was falling in
Sacramento City. “Welcome to the rain,” invited the Sacramento Daily Union. The thirsty earth
absorbed much of the precipitation of those early weeks.
It showered with slight pause for roughly four weeks, saturating watersheds across
Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. By mid-month, the snow began to alternate with
the rain, with high winds at night. Snow fell heavily in the upper elevations, covering the peaks of
the Cascade and the Sierra Nevada. The snow that carpeted eastern Washington Territory and
Oregon that Fall blocked the roads in and out of the interior—like the one connecting Deschutes
to the Dalles in Oregon.
Just to the South, snowfall piled atop the Cascade and Northern Sierra ranges and clad the
ranges’ backsides. In some places, snow stacked up to fifteen feet.
7
The roof of Hate & Hughes
saloon near Mono collapsed from the weight. More storms arrived in mid and late November over
Mono, Esmerelda, and Aurora, nearly reaching the valley and blocking the Northern Sierra and
Mendocino routes.
8
The storms pushed over the northern Sierra into Nevada Territory, bringing a
“heavy storm of wind, rain, and snow.” The great Pacific ranges stood silver with snow.
9
Near the end of the month, the winds shifted, and warm heavy rains sprayed in from the
fortune, and from the success of the miner follows the prosperity of all. Welcome to the rain.” Red Bluff Beacon,
Volume V, Number 35, 14 November 1861 – “The Weather” and “The Wind”
7 “Nevada Territorial Legislature—Heavy Storm,” Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 22, Number 3315, 12 November
1861; “Scottsburg, Oregon, Dec. 11, 1861” Oregon Sentinel. (Jacksonville, Or.) 1858-1888, December 28, 1861,
Image 3,” December 28, 1861.
8 Snowstorm at Mono, California, and Hate & Hughes incident 11/13/1861, from Mike Barkley; Indicates the rainfall
for the early part of the season in this section was far above average…a rare phenomenon…in Ventura County
during the month of November.” From “The Winter of 1861-1862” compiled by the Staff, Ventura County
Historical Society Quarterly, Vol IV No I, November 1958, 14-19.
9 “Little precipitation fell south of the Sierra? that fall, and Southern California was hot and dry as is relatively
“normal” for the final summer months into the Fall; The unseasonable melting of the snow pack set the stage for
down-stream disaster. Heavy rain caused damaging floods in Sacramento during December 1861 when nearly 10
inches of rain fell. However, a lot of the December rain in Northern California was stored in California’s greatest
reservoir, the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The depth was 10-15 feet.” Edward Lansing Wells, “Notes
on the Winter of 1861–2 in the Pacific Northwest,” Northwest Science 21, 1947, 76–83.
114
south and southwest. A “warm, humid state of air” blew across the Northwest Slope, with rain
falling in “copious showers almost without intermission” eclipsed November’s cold rains. A
reporter and citizen meteorologist for the Oregonian noted the phenomenon and “how it might
have been noticed, and doubtless will again.”
This warm storm blew into San Francisco at four in the afternoon on the 26
th,
bringing
showers to the Bay into the first week of December.
10
Until Sunday, the first of December, the Willamette showed little sign of rising. But two
days of warm rain melted the snowpack in the surrounding mountains. The runoff swept down the
Cascades in waves and funneled into the Willamette-Puget trough. The combined runoff filled
river systems across the northern Slope. The lower Columbia gorged, rising ten feet near the Dalles
and fourteen feet at the Cascades, and showed no signs of slowing. The torrents rolled out across
one hundred fifty miles of an already brimming Willamette River. Nearly an inch of rain fell the
first day of December, and about two and a half fell the next. The temperature rose to near 60
degrees from morning till nine o'clock at night. By December 2
nd,
the first great floods in the
Northwest Coast had begun.
11
Still, most settlers went about the day’s duties with little concern.
The rains came every season. Snow too in the mountains. Some years more, some years less. The
riverways rose. Floods were part of life. They knew floods, or so they thought. The steamers
commenced as usual. Like the Rival, some headed north, downriver from Oregon City towards
Portland. In contrast, others like George Pease’s Onward chugged south on its course to Salem
10 San Francisco Meteorological Register, 1861-1862.
11 Fort Vancouver Meteorological Register, 1861-1862. “The rain had been falling almost continuously . . . vast
amount of snow must have accumulated in the mountains . . . It might have been noticed, and doubtless will be again
if the phenomenon ever occurs hereafter, that November's long and rather cold rain was succeeded during the
closing days of the month by a warm, humid state of the air, rain falling in copious showers almost without
intermission; Today this is Cascade Locks; from the Oregonian of December 11th, 1862. “Scottsburg, OR., Dec. 11,
1861” Oregon Sentinel. (Jacksonville, Or.) 1858-1888, December 28, 1861, Image 3,” no. 1861/12/28 (December
28, 1861), “Walla Walla News,” News, Weekly Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), December 7, 1861, page 2. Lansing
Wells, “Notes,” 76–83; The Oregon City Argus, December 14, 1861.
115
and Corvallis, hurdling choppy currents and dodging forest debris.
The rivers continued to swell, and worry grew when the boats turned back or stopped where
they could no matter their itineraries. The Rival bogged down and lay over not far from its launch.
But the Onward, well, it pressed on. Pease continued south with his fares—forty men and a woman
with her two toddlers—pushing the Onward cautiously against that swift current.
12
The flatlands
near the Willamette Forks were completely flooded. Highwaters destroyed fences and killed stock,
but the houses withstood the force of the water.
13
The river continued to rise.
The mills of Oregon City had survived every rainy season since they were first built in
1844 and had yet to face any loss or damage from high water. But that streak was ending. Unaware
or undisturbed by the pandemonium outside, John Chapman and his wife kept the Island Mill in
Oregon City churning through the stormy night. Just before dawn, the bridge connecting the island
to the shoreline splintered with a cacophony that awakened the Chapmans to their peril. Along the
Willamette’s western bank across from Oregon City, a significant section of the rock-filled,
wooden breakwater above the Linn City Works failed under the colossal weight of the oncoming
water. The Linn City Works—built in 1852 and used to “transport freight from the boats on the
upper” across the falls to the lower river—still stood but was rendered useless. The “deadrise of
water” at the Works was fifty-five feet above its lowest stage and maybe the “greatest rise of any
point” on the Willamette that winter.
14
The river below the Falls “raised to such height as to almost
float the work” when the river flow above carried it off.
The Chapman’s were stranded. The water was rising rapidly all around the mill and well
12 Oregon City Argus, December 14, 1861; George Anson Pease Papers, Mss 2146, Oregon Historical Society
Research Library; Weekly Oregonian, 30 November 1861.
13 “The Great Flood of 1861,” The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 14, 1861, Image 2,”
December 14, 1861.
14 University of Oregon Library Knight, The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 21, 1861,
Image 2,” December 21, 1861.
116
above where the bridge had once stretched. At intervals, “great masses of timbers” tangled into a
“crib-work” before they “burst up” and brushed away in the torrent.”
15
Stacks upon stacks of logs
and timber fumbled into the swirling river. The force of the waters and their freeriding debris
smashed through the breakwaters that protected the city and hauled away the Milling and
Transportation Company, hoisting works, the foundry, and the Oregon Hotel. The river carried
away the Oregon City Mill and Island Mill, the Willamette Iron Works, and its machine shop.
Amidst the maelstrom, the Chapmans waited for several wet and anxious hours before rescue skiffs
could arrive.
The river rose beyond its rocky edges and into the settlements on the ledge. The Clackamas
bottom was submerged, and the houses slid off their foundations but stayed nearby due to the lesser
current. But the river carried away the mills and three thousand sacks of flour and sixty tons of
bran and shorts. Every major four-mill and with them, a vast amount of grain was lost. The
renegade river stole away with tons of produce from every landing point north of the falls.
Floodwaters carried away A. F. ‘Hedges Oregon House,’ Moore and Marshall’s, and sent the Iron
Works, built in 1858, spinning towards Astoria.
16
Barstow and Frazer lost their wharf and
warehouse, among other things. Every mill on Abernathy Island peeled off into the river, having
large drifts of timber long-accumulated upstream as the only defense.
Floodwaters flowed at least four feet deep along Oregon City’s Main Street, grinding over
the streets and sidewalks, damaging the Clackamas bridge. Most of the frame storehouses there
washed away as did many other buildings including most farm warehouses. By the afternoon,
15 From the Oregon Argus, Saturday December 14, 1861, W.L. Adams, Editor.
16 “Condensed News from California Papers.,” The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio,
January 20, 1862.
117
floodwaters “rushed down the chasm over which the bridge had stood,” spoiling any approach.
17
Families in Oregon City and Linn City who remained in their homes to ride out the siege found
they had erred grievously when the river continued to climb, and they could no longer escape when
the rapids plucked houses from their foundations and hurried them off. A neighborhood of Kanaka
Maoli lost most of its homes, fences, firewood, and hay.
18
17 Bancroft and Victor. History of Oregon...1848-1888, V.2 of History of OR; Vol. XXX, The Works of Hubert Howe
Bancroft, 1888, 483- 484.
18 University of Oregon Library Knight, The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 14, 1861,
Image 2,” December 14, 1861.
“The following is a list of the other losses as near as can be ascertained:
Charman, Warner & Co., mostly Wheat, flour, and apples, $7,000
Reuben Smith, building and damages to machinery, 2,000
Allan, Kinley & Co., damage to buildings, fences, &c. 1,000
Geo. Abernethy, brick building, five melodeons, &c., 3,000
O.C. Pratt, buildings, fences, &c., (at Linn City) 1,500
J.B. Price, buildings (Linn City) 2,000
R.S. Partlow, dwelling and other buildings damaged, 1,000
A.F. Hedges, building, the ‘Oregon House,’ 1,000
E. Milwain, iron platform, fences, &c., 500
W.F. Highfield, houses and fencing, 1,500
J.M. Moore, furniture (Linn City), 200
Thos. Jackson, furniture (Linn City), 750
H. Straight, damage to house, fences, 1,000
P.M. Rinearson (sp?) fences, orchard, and house damaged 800
A.L. Lovejoy, fences, fruit, &c., damaged, 1,000
S.W. Moss, fences, buildings, &c., 500
--Bradish, dwelling (Linn City) , 500
J.D. Miller, dwelling (Linn City), 500
Wm. Day, dwelling (Linn City), 1,000
R. Moore’s estate, dwellings, (Linn City), 500
Cris Taylor, fencing and fruit trees damaged, 300
Wm. Abernethy, fencing, buildings, cattle, and sheep, 2,000
R. Bridges, damage to dwelling, fences, &c., 100
P. Wilson, do do 100
Mrs. Williams, do do 300
A. Holland, do do 100
R. Delashmutt, dwelling, &c., 200
A. Carson, damage to the Clackamas bridge, 500
F.A. Collard, damage to dwelling, fences, &c., 200
J. Nachand, damage to dwelling, fences, &c., 300
Geo. Fisher, Fruit and cider, 1,000
Wm. Whitlock, dwelling, fences, &c., 250
D.D. Stephenson, dwelling, fences, &c., 250
W.C. Johnson, dwelling, fences, &c., 50
W.T. Matlock, dwelling, fences, &c., 50
M.E. Folsom, dwelling, fences, &c., 250
James Smith, wood, dwelling, fence, 1,000
118
The Willamette carried off nearly every building in Linn City, and all but two houses
nestled on the foothills, and the Warehouse and Works remained.
19
Nearby, the village of Canemah
was laid a total waste. Houses went twirling down the river. Amid the chaos, several in Oregon
City organized makeshift rescue parties and paddled boats off after the dislodged homes in the
hope of saving the “human freight.”
20
Waterways across the vale interlaced, bloating into an “insatiable monster creeping up inch
by inch, winding its swelling folds round the pillars and foundations” of every house in its path,
“crushing and grinding” in its great “maw of destruction,” before sweeping the splinters into a
“common vortex of ruin.”
21
Many lives were lost, and many were missing. The storms continued
to pour down.
22
Rumors of great ruin across the territory spread among the survivors. Still, all
communication between Oregon City and the outside world was cut off, and none yet knew the
extent of the destruction across the state or across the entire northwest Slope. But the river carried
clues. An enormous volume of drift pulsed through the waterways, some “ground so fine” and
rushed “out of sight so quickly” it was impossible to know what some of it was. And then, on the
The Kanakas, wood, dwellings, hay, fences, &c., 1,000
Wm. Dierdorff & Co., apples, building, &c., 3,000
Jacob Bœhm (Oregon House), furniture, provisions, &c., 2,000
Barstow and Frazer, wharf, warehouse, &c., 500
F.Barclay, damage to lot, fences, &c., 400
A.E. Wait (sp?), damage to lot, fences, &c., 100
Corporation of Oregon City, loss of bridges, sidewalks,
Damage to streets, &c., 4,000
Total $164,700
“This estimate does not include the loss sustained in removing goods, &c. The total loss in property lost, damaged,
&c., will probably reach $170,000.”
19 “Interesting from Oregon--Destructive Freshets,” The Sun (1837-1992); Baltimore, Md., December 25, 1861.
20 Corning, Willamette Landing; the Argus; Wells, 1947, 76–83; Bancroft, Bancroft’s Works: History of Oregon Vol.
2, 1888, 483-484.
21 Oregon City Argus, December 14, 1861.
22 “The Deschutes Bridge Gone”, Weekly Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), December 7, 1861, page 2.
119
fragments of a barn, rested a heap of grain and straw and riding along atop that huddled a gang of
chickens, “melancholy evidence” of the devastation to the farmsteads upriver.
23
Figure 10: Every town on the Willamette was overwhelmed. Many were washed entirely away. “Flood 1861, Oregon City,”
Oregon Historical Society.
Reports out of the Dalles told of rain and muddy conditions across eastern Oregon as well.
Like most of the inland northwest, Wasco county was drowned out with rain or buried in snow.
Overflow of all the waterways between the Dalles and Deschutes with highwater levels never seen
by white Americans. The Deschutes Bridge and hotel were washed away. The Columbia flowed
ten feet higher than usual at the Dalles and threatened to rise.
24
By the time the Onward reached the town of Champoeg, the Willamette there was fifteen
23 George Anson Pease Papers, Mss 2146, Oregon Historical Society Research Library Oregon City Argus, December
14, 1861; Willamette Valley and the high-water mark at Salem was the highest recorded in the region to date.
Corning, Willamette Landing; Wells, 76–83. Bancroft, Oregon Vol. 2, 483-484.
24 The numerous accounts of “warm,” heavy rains offer strong evidence that atmospheric rivers contributed to the
historic winter season. Also note Oregonians being unable to contact those “above”—likely the settlements
encircling Puget Sound. “Flood East of the Cascades,” from the Oregonian dated Dalles, Dec. 3d 1861; Weekly
Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), December 7, 1861, page 2.
120
feet above its bank and rising still. Champoeg had long been a Kalapuya meeting and exchange
site, and since the early nineteenth century, it was a critical Métis village predating the Pacific
Northwest’s white settlements. It was the site of the first provisional government of Oregon in
1843 and by the 1860s bustled with ferries, steamboat landings, a stagecoach station, a Hudson’s
Bay Company granary, and three general stores that supplied everything from foodstuffs to
hardware. But the rising river threatened to end the town’s development as it flowed through the
streets of Champoeg.
25
Further south, the river ran over four feet deep and a quarter-mile wide as it filled through
Salem's streets. Dirrell’s sawmill, the cider mill, Matheny’s warehouse, and every single house on
that bench of land was gone. The Santiam River overflowed into the prairies to the south of Knox’s
Butte, wrecking everything in its path. In the town of Independence, high waters moved the central
warehouse with its 15,000 bushels of wheat which soaked and spoiled the grain. The houses in the
villages of Santiam City and Jefferson, though escaped heavy damage.
26
In southwestern Oregon, at Scottsburg, the river fattened until it burst into Lower Town,
where the business houses and mills sat near the head of the Umpqua’s tidewater. Captain Hinsdale
had hired two men to chop and gather wood from the far bank of the river from Scottsburg to feed
his steamer’s engine, but the water rose quickly around them as it poured into the entire river
bottom. The men yelled for help, but none dared cross a river growing more furious by the second.
Finally, Hinsdale rowed his little yawl into the roar and spray, many thinking him throwing his life
away, but he returned with both men to the safety of the near shore. But the delight of the daring
25 “Monday morning the steamer Rival left this place for Portland while the Express came up on her usual trip but
finding navigation difficult and dangerous they concluded to leave the trip half done, each boat stopping at the
wrong end of her route.” Oregon City Argus, December 14, 1861; George Anson Pease Papers, Mss 2146, Oregon
Historical Society Research Library; Weekly Oregonian, 30 November 1861.
26 “The Great Flood of 1861,” The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 14, 1861, Image 2,”
December 14, 1861.
121
rescue was brief. The river continued to rise and smashed into Captain Scott’s sawmill, tearing its
flume away, scattering a raft of logs, threatened to pull down the mill itself. The overspill washed
away most buildings, demolished all the bridges, washed out the roads, or blocked them with heaps
of driftwood and standing water.
Rising floodwater surrounded the large Lord & Peters store, but the building survived, its
owners removing their goods in fear of a more significant rise from the warm rains. All day Sunday
and all Sunday night, the survivors passed the time with “greatest anxiety” as the river continued
to rise. The Kruse & Morey warehouse disappeared during that first night. Their wharf followed
along with the thirty tons of goods waiting to be shipped to Roseburg and Oakland still stacked on
them. But Morey was attending to graver matters. He had been searching for Grinwald’s three
young children, one a mere baby, and when he finally located them, he carried them up the
mountainside where they were they hunkered down as the cold, wet night and pieces of the mount's
face sledded down all around them.
27
Back downriver, after four hours of chugging against waves of the Willamette’s overflow,
Onward came to where the Yamhill River should have been. Instead, it was water as far as the eye
could see carpeted in debris and a blockade of jumbled giant trees. Running it was a fool’s errand
as night approached. To avoid the driftwood jam, Pease steered the boat two miles above the
Yamhill and lodged the steamer half its length into an islet of willow crowns where he and his
forty or so passengers battened down for the evening. That night the rain fell, and the river rose
another twenty feet.
The unending snarl of the voracious river back at Oregon City broadcast a terrifying
“elemental music” different from the typical drone of the river and its falls, the darkness of the
27 Argus, December 14, 1861; “Scottsburg, OR., Dec. 11, 1861” Oregon Sentinel. (Jacksonville, OR.) 1858-1888,
December 28, 1861.
122
night made evermore stark by the shimmer of torches and scurrying lights, an accompaniment of
yells spilled from second-story windows as the blackened waters surrounded houses all together
“conspired to render the hour one of intense and painful excitement.”
28
The flood covered the
highest water mark of the flood of January 1853 and continued to rise rapidly. Throughout the
night, survivors watched houses pitch over the Willamette Falls with lights still burning in them.
The river had climbed sixty feet.
29
Not far upstream at Champoeg, rescue parties took refugees to
the Newell house on the hill above where the town used to be. Houses, some “still with lights
burning in them,” slowly floated off downstream before disappearing into the darkness.
30
The
storms continued to hammer across Washington Territory. Near Olympia, south of Puget Sound,
floods on the Nisqually River washed away the Nisqually Bridge.
Wednesday morning’s light revealed the overnight damage. The breakwaters built to
defend the mills and upper end of Oregon City were gone. Where they stood swept a “foaming
current against which no building unprotected by a solid breakwater” could stand. The Oregon
City Mill and Island Mill were gone. Lower down, countless dwellings were nowhere to be seen,
while others barely stood “trembling on their foundations.” The newspaper workers at the Oregon
Argus had to evacuate their office when two feet of water filled its bottom floors. The Willamette
had risen to the highest it had been measured by settlers.
31
28 George Anson Pease Papers, Mss 2146, Oregon Historical Society Research Library; Mary Higley Hopkins,
Diaries and reminiscences collection, Mss 1509, Oregon Historical Society Research Library; Oregon City Argus,
December 14, 1861.
29 “Oregon city lost…in all estimated at $175,000. Linn City…Loss, $100,000. A million of dollars will not cover the
damage wrought by this flood.” Circa Champoeg, Thomas H. Pearne, “Letter from Oregon.: Disastrous Flood. ...
Frost. Religion And Politics. ...,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, March 20, 1862.
30 Robert Newell was the “chief promoter of the town of Champoeg. After the flood, he tried to restart the town on the
high land around his house, but the new town, called Newellsville, never succeeded. Newell later gave up a left for
Idaho. “The flood took nearly everything that he had, except the lives of his family and a bolt of ugly plaid wool
cloth. He spent the next eight years away from his family, supporting them by working in the gold mines of Idaho.”
Mary Higley, Mss 1509; from note 1.
31 Moving approximately 600,000 cfs.
123
When Pease awoke that same chilly morning, the logjam had disappeared but so too had
the channel and the current along with it. He scanned the horizon. The Willamette valley was a
vast inland lake. The water was stretching across the plain into the woods and out as far as he could
see. Pease pushed the Onward again towards Salem and the growing devastation above where the
river was busy carving a new course. When he arrived at Gervais Prairie, Pease looked upon a
Willamette sixty feet above its normal flow. It was then that a flicker of white caught the corner
of his eye, a sheet waving from a gabled window. Pease ran the Onward up against the house
where he found nine survivors—the Brat family and others and shuttled them through the second-
floor window to the steamer’s deck. Pease ran the Onward up against the house where he found
nine survivors--the Brat family and others and shuttled them from the second-floor window to the
steamer.
The river stretched from Gervais all the way to Wheatland. Pease stopped near Wheatland
was supposed to be. He tied the Onward off on the shade tree at Al Zeaber’s— a well-known river
man himself—and threw a beam across to the old steamer pilot’s front door.
32
Pease’s shipmates
quickly transferred his furniture before shuttled the boat over to Zeaber’s store, where they then
unloaded the mess. Watching from afar, a couple and their five children sat shivering, abandoned
on a barn submerged to its eaves. George Pease and John Kelley rowed their skiff nearly two miles
to them, saving them moments before the barn disembarked down the river and out of sight,
perhaps over the horizon, perhaps under the muddy tide. The men rowed across the pull of the
current. Soon the pair pulled down a narrow road through a coppice of furs and took the family to
higher ground where the father said to Pease, “Captain, I cant(sic) pay you for this for the 90$ I
had went off with my house last night,” but Pease told him that they were not in it for the money.
32 George Anson Pease Papers, Mss 2146, Oregon Historical Society Research Library, 11-18.
124
The father wept as Pease and Kelley rowed back towards the Onward. It took those two strong
backs three hours. Back at his steamboat, Pease helped fix up an old skiff and lent a set of oars to
gear up another two men in search of their folks near Jason Lee’s old Methodist mission landing
at Chemeketa. Pease never got those oars back, nor did he ever hear of the pair after that.
Pease charged the Onward south toward Salem, still against the ever-greater flow and that
devastation above where the river was busy carving a new course. When he arrived, Pease goggled
at the river grown so wide at Salem he knew he could have taken the Onward up to the courthouse's
steps if he had desired. The current ran four feet deep, and the river stretched for a quarter mile in
breadth, and the rain was still falling. It filled the streets of Salem. There, Jones & Reed
Company’s Sash and Blind Factory and Joseph Watt’s Cabinet Manufactory—at least $20,000
between the two—joined the crush.
In the town of Albany, floods wrecked every sawmill and damaged Crawford’s flouring
mill. Here too, the waters rose around the grain storehouses, ruining 30,000 bushels of wheat.
33
Corvallis, sitting up above the river, still suffered damage, though less than that swept through the
rest of the Valley. Nevertheless, an old warehouse there was washed away, along with some
personal property. The flood tides pulled Nicholson’s warehouse from its foundations. Smith
Stewart lost “9 horses, 22 cattle, 12 sheep, 75 hogs, and 300 bushels of wheat, 350 bushels of oats,
200 dozen sheaf oats,” along with all his fencing, barn, stables, and orchard to the river. Six
drowned at Corvallis, four of which, the young children of Mr. Abel George who lived on the
island there.
The town of Orleans, just across the Willamette from Corvallis, was “washed away
33 The Democrat gives the following list of produce damaged more or less materially by the water, at Albany.
Crawford Bros., 100 sks. Flour, 500 bushels wheat; D. Beach & Co., 2,800 boxes apples, 9,000 bushels wheat;
Foster & Co. 1,800 boxes of apples, 12,000 bushels wheat; Conner & Co. 200 boxes apples, 1,200 bushels wheat;
Altree, 2,000 bushels wheat. Total loss estimated not far from $30,000. “The Great Flood of 1861,” The Oregon
Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 14, 1861, Image 2,” December 14, 1861.
125
entirely.”
34
High water measurements leaped well past those of the great floods of January 1853—the
largest the white Oregonians could remember in their short occupancy—and showed no signs of
slowing. The flooding hit Eugene, Salem, Oregon City, Milwaukie, Portland, and so on down the
river—every house, hamlet, and village in the valley—under water higher than any time in
hundreds of years. Further south, overflows on every stream devastated settlements to the south
and hit Coquille and Port Orford on the southwest coast of Oregon and all along the Rogue River
just north of the California state line. Back on the Umpqua, a group of workers from the now
destroyed Scott’s mill joined together to search for Morey and Grinwald Children that next
morning. They were “cold, soaking, and hungry, but alive.” The party carried them back “in a
boat overland.”
35
Like those in Oregon and Washington Territory, Northwestern California's waterways rose
for weeks from the prolonged November rains, blocking roads and halting stages, and other
overland transportation. Settler Californians failed to regard it much, for they looked forward to
the showers and mountain snowfall to charge the rivers that powered their ranching, mining,
logging, farming, and city-building projects. Rains and heavy snow continued to fall.
The storms and their effects were devastating to Indigenous Peoples across the west slope.
The Peoples at Grand Ronde--Kalapuyas, Takelmas, and Umpquas—and Siletz—Tualatin and
Kalapuyas—and at Fort Umpqua and the Coast Reservation all suffered severely during the Big
34 At Orleans, opposite Corvallis in Linn County, the losses are stated as follows F. Lewis $600, W. Splaun $150,
R.T. Baldwin $600, Sage $200, Philip Phile $1,000, Gearhart $400, Wm. Lewis $200, Mr. Moore $3,000; “The
Great Flood of 1861,” The Oregon Argus., Oregon City, OR, 1855-1863, December 14, 1861, Image 2,” December
14, 1861, from Oregon City, the Argus reported the losses attributed to the storms on December 21, 1861;
University of Oregon Library Knight, The Oregon Argus., 1855-1863, December 21, 1861, Image 2,” December 21,
1861.
35 Argus, December 14, 1861; “Scottsburg, OR., Dec. 11, 1861” Oregon Sentinel., Jacksonville, OR., 1858-1888,
December 28, 1861.
126
Winter.
36
For most Native peoples of Northern California and Southern Oregon, the winter and
early Spring months were the wet season. So they separated into small bands and stayed in winter
villages stockpiled with harvested fruits and vegetables and smoked meat and fish. Moving about
during the winter months was dangerous, especially during inclement weather, and was generally
poor resource management. It was already a post-apocalyptic world for Indigenous on the eve of
the winter of 1861. The Peoples of this region had suffered through epidemic diseases, settler-
colonial violence, colonial militias, and campaigns of genocide, forced removal, relocation, and
confinement.
In the absence of actual food for the reservations, agents gave out “passes,” allowing
Indians to hunt, fish, and take work outside the reservation boundaries. Many still left without the
passes, and “roundups” still occurred. In the early years of reservation confinement, relations
among the different Peoples were often tense. Sickness and disease were widespread. Deaths
caused more tensions. As the winter wore on, the multiple nations interned there suffered through
the elements, diseases, and famine.
37
As the storms continued to move south, the Klamath River swamped Fort Ter-Waw on the
northwest coast of California, forcing the troops positioned there to quit for Camp Lincoln on the
Smith River closer to the Oregon border. The Klamath River swept off seventeen of the Ter-Waw’s
twenty buildings and would flood the site at least four times that winter.
38
The Klamath also
destroyed the agency at Wau-Kell. The rivers ruined buildings, storehouses, and fences. At least
36 Klamath forced onto reservation 1864.
37 “Flood East of the Cascades,” from the Oregonian dated Dalles, Dec. 3d 1861; Weekly Oregonian (Portland,
Oregon), December 7, 1861, page 2; “The Flood” News, Weekly Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), December 7, 1861,
page 2. “The Deschutes Bridge Gone”, News, Weekly Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), December 7, 1861, page 2. A
letter from Port Orford, published in the Oregonian of January 11.
38 Named for a Yurok phrase meaning “beautiful place,” George Crook had the fort built in 1857 to protect white
American miners. Robert B. Roberts, Encyclopedia of Historic Forts: The Military, Pioneer, and Trading Posts of
the united States, 1988, 96. “Del Norte,” California Historic Landmarks, Office of Historic Preservation; Herbert M.
Hart, Tour Guide to Old Western Forts, 1980, 36.
127
2,000 Indians interned there were left without food or shelter as the winter grew worse.
39
The Trinity River had risen all day and into the night where men stood sentinels on the
bridge jabbing at rambling logs with long poles to keep them from striking the piers. In the predawn
dark, a hulking spruce came rifling down the river “roots, branches and all.” The sentinels ran.
Jerry Whitmore pounded on steamboat pilot John Carr’s door, hollering that the “bridge was
gone—not a stick left” and the river will “soon be up to the house.” Carr got up and got ready, and
as the sun was still stirring, he journeyed out to the crossing where not a plank of that bridge
lingered and the rain yet pouring down and the snow almost wholly washed away.
40
High water on the North Fork of the Trinity destroyed Durkee’s sawmill. Two men, George
R. Hill and Jack Fox, drowned on the Pit River on their way from Yreka to Red Bluff when their
canoe capsized trying to cross the strong current Their bodies couldn’t be recovered.
41
The Trinity
flowed right through the hamlet of Lewistown, where James Dougherty and another man drowned.
South of Lewistown, the Trinity killed twenty Chinese men. The river routed the bridge over Swift
Creek and flooded the town of Trinity Center (now under Trinity Lake Reservoir) along the Yuba
Road. There the river took out Fitch’s Bridge and flooded Fitch’s house. Fitch escaped with his
family, including his oldest child's body, surviving the flood for two days atop a haystack.
42
The
rain and snow continued.
Back amid the drizzle in Portland, the parade of wrecked buildings floated past grotesque.
The Milwaukie sawmill was along for the ride. The Willamette rose twenty-two and one-half feet
at Portland, where the river spread wide and its banks low and making a broad sweep toward the
39 Correspondence, Hanon to Wright, Dec. 31, 1861, Hanson to Dole, Jan. 5, 1862, National Archive, RG 75, 01a,
Letters Received, California Superintendent.
40 John Carr, "Pioneer days in California," Times publishing company 1891, 291–295, 397.
41 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 131, 4 December 1861—“Two men Drowned.”
42 “Condensed News from California Papers.,” The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio,
January 20, 1862.
128
Columbia. Where the main channel was narrower, like near Oregon City and the Falls, the river
rose fifty-five feet.
43
Portland’s Standard Mills threatened to tip.
44
Amid the severe weather,
miners headed off for the Salmon River diggings every day in the face of “great risk of life.”
45
In Washington Territory, the snow continued to fall at higher elevations and further inland,
like at Walla Walla, where snow made the roads in and out impassable.
46
Just east of the Cascade,
heavy snow and rains lifted every stream between the Dalles and Deschutes and beyond rose higher
than any settlers there had yet experienced.
The Onward continued along its route, chugging over another five miles of flooded river
valley over fields, and orchards, and farmhouses on its way to South Prairie where about a half-
mile inland from the river channel, Pease saw in the distance a man waving a sheet from the roof
of a drowning cabin along with his wife and five young children. Pease again dared not try to run
the steamer through the trees and brush and instead tied off to a massive cottonwood and jumped
back in the skiff and rowed out to the imperiled family. When he got to the house, the man begged
Pease to first head over to his neighbor's house that was in a far fiercer current than his, so Pease
did. But before he was even one hundred strokes in that direction, the man howled, his cabin shifted
43 Thomas H. Pearne, “Letter from Oregon.: Disastrous Flood. ... Frost. Religion And Politics. ...,” Christian Advocate
and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, March 20, 1862: “Oregon city lost…in all estimated at $175,000. Linn
City…Loss, $100,000. A million of dollars will not cover the damage wrought by this flood.”
44 “The Deschutes Bridge Gone”, News, Weekly Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), December 7, 1861, page 2.
45 Miners left “daily for the Salmon river diggings; but it was considered that the recent storms must render it
impossible for them to get into or out of those diggings without great risk of life. It was believed that persons going
to Salmon river would consult their own interest by remaining in comfortable quarters until the last of February or
first of April before leaving for those mines.” Even while the paper cautioned miners to wait until Spring to attack
the mines, the paper undercuts its own message reminding readers that “a man by the name of Wiser, from Berton
county, took out $5,000 in two days, in Baboon Gulch, Salmon river diggings.” Five thousand dollars is a lot of
money for two days work TODAY, let alone in 1861. Even if prices for provisions had begun to rise.
46 “From that same day’s paper also came reports from the Mountaineer corroborating the Editor’s news that the
Deschutes Bridge was gone after “heavy fall of snow and rain has raised the streams to an unusual height east of the
mountains….on Monday the bridge over the Deschutes, with the keeper’s dwelling house, stable and outhouses, we
all carried away” as a loss of $10,000.” “The Flood” News, Weekly Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), December 7,
1861, page 2; “Walla Walla News,” News, Weekly Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), December 7, 1861, page 2; Flood
East of the Cascades,” from the Oregonian dated Dalles, Dec. 3d 1861; Weekly Oregonian (Portland, Oregon),
December 7, 1861, page 2.
129
and began to slide with the current, and so Pease turned back and loaded the family onto the boat
just as the cabin swaggered away.
He continued to the neighbor’s house. Pease rowed almost another mile from his boat and
what was once the channel, where he found a woman clinging to a small raft along with her two
little boys, maybe five and seven years, and there too was their father up to his waist in water and
kicking desperately at the clapboards in the hope that his efforts would keep the house from pulling
away. Pease told the first man he rescued to get off the skiff. It was overloaded, and Pease decided
to take the two women and seven children back first, but the man’s wife began to cry and begged
Pease not to leave her husband. “Captain, take my Boys, and I will stay here,” she pleaded. Pease
refused.
47
Though the waters were up to the gunwales, Pease chatted cheerfully and gave out a great
laugh in hopes of soothing some nerves, even if just his own. Just beneath them here and there
lurked the top ends of tree stumps that could easily tip the boat and doom all aboard, but with the
help of the women who knew the submerged landscape, they slipped through intact, Pease pulling
harder than any time in his fifty-five years of working the waters. Behind him, he saw the rollers
tumbling “as if over a fall,” and while he knew that to drop back behind the house meant ruination
for all, he tried to keep his passengers comforted with the promise that they would soon be safe
aboard the Onward.
48
Pease noticed that the last woman he had taken off the house was watching him closely,
47 George Anson Pease Papers, Mss 2146.
48 From Yamhill County Website: “caused severe damage to the former mission site and changed the river's course to
its present location. The state park's Mission Lake fills a remnant of the old channel. The state park also boasts the
nation's largest black cottonwood;” “Ediger Landing, Yamhill County, Oregon,” accessed July 23, 2018,
http://www.co.yamhill.or.us/content/ediger-landing; Oregon City Argus, December 14, 1861; George Anson Pease
Papers, Mss 2146, Oregon Historical Society Research Library Hubert Howe Bancroft, Bancroft’s Works: History of
Oregon Vol. 2, 1888, 483-484; Oregonian, February 12, 1888; also, “Zeaber” is spelled “Zieber” in other records;
Many thanks to Scott Daniels and the Oregon Historical Society in Portland for helping with these sources.
130
fretful but speaking nothing, nothing to betray her fear but a look of deep distress, and when Pease
had rowed beyond the turbid currents and into smoother waters, he lay on his oars to catch his
breath and rest his back and arms when her stare again caught his eye, this time her eyes filled
with a confidence that made Pease feel as if his weary arms had “lightened an inch from wrist to
elbow.” Still, they had another four hundred yards of rushing currents crowded with fallen trees
and floating brush and debris, and her face conceded the danger ahead.
Pease rowed out half a mile to avoid the eddies that threatened to pull them all back towards
the house and the crush of the swift waters and debris, reminding them all the while that they
would soon be safe if they stayed stock-still. Pease brought the skiff up to another perilous
crossing, and he tried twice to pass through it without success. He asked the woman to reach out,
to grab hold of the branches of a nearby bush, to pull the boat towards it, and to let go again on his
call, which she did as Pease gave a “good back water stroke” of his oars, the skiff veering just
beyond the clutch of the whirlpool and debris, and not long after they found themselves alongside
the “good old Onward.”
On her upper deck, the seventy-odd watched the crew help Pease usher the children out
one by one and before slowly and carefully conveying the two women out of the boat and onto the
steamer, where the crows gave three hearty cheers. Exhausted, Captain Pease sent Kelley back out
after the men left back on the cabin roof.
49
In all, George Pease and his shipmates rescued more
than twenty survivors there at Fairfield, where not a single house remained.
Pease left Salem at seven in the morning and began the journey back north down river
towards his home in what was left of Canemah. The river had been receding since three in the
morning but still moved dangerously along. En route back downriver, the Onward found another
49 George Anson Pease Papers, Mss 2146, Oregon Historical Society Research Library
131
man clinging to a tree, and when he arrived at Salem Landing, he plucked up two more whose
canoe split in half when it drifted against a cottonwood.
The rivers' rising had slowed, but when Pease passed by where Champoeg should have
been, he saw no house nor any “dry spot.” The floods swept Champoeg “entirely clean of houses”
and leaving the townsite as “bare as a sand beach.”
50
Champoeg was utterly swept away. Some of
the residents there scaled trees and or other elevated things, “clambering to the highest points they
could reach, much in the style of old-fashioned pictures of the Antediluvian catastrophe.” He
passed by what was left of nearby Butteville, a few structures peeking out a couple of feet above
the waterline. When the Onward again passed through Wheatland should be, the floodwaters were
still at the eves of Zeber’s House, and the Pratt property at Gervais Prairie was thoroughly washed
away and not far off Pease could see planks caught up in the branches of trees, the remnants of
houses wedged like fish in a net.
George Pease and the Onward returned to Rock Island just above the flooded-out Oregon
City after their trip upriver to Corvallis. The Onward brought news of the “great loss,” and utter
devastation and “so on up the river, everywhere.”
51
He parked the steamer just above Rock Island,
fearing there would be no place to land above Willamette’s falls. Pease was “afraid to come down
as the water was so much higher” than he “had ever seen.” and walked over the hills towards
Canemah where he discovered his house, seated awkward twirled halfway around and impaled in
place by a giant tree that had pushed in through the back sitting-room door and bored through the
wall between the back and front room fireplaces where the chimney had fallen like an anchor. His
family was not there.
50 University of Oregon Library Knight, The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 21, 1861,
Image 2,” no. 1861/12/21 (December 21, 1861).
51 Bancroft and Victor. History of Oregon, 483- 484.
132
That evening a gloom settled across the Willamette Valley. All that night, as the night
before, “people whose homes were being invaded” by the high water “hurried to places of security”
and “glad to escape even with the sacrifice of all their goods.” In Oregon City, a mammoth hunk
of timber struck the upper side of Governor Abernathy’s old brick store, which then collapsed with
a “lurch upstream,” and many valuables, among them, his collection of books and musical
instruments.
52
Hard rain with high winds came the night the Columbia River flooded—a feat usually
reserved for snow melts of the summer months. It rose to within 10 feet of its highwater mark on
the 5
th
of December, the highest level since white Americans began recording it
53
That same
evening, the steamboat St. Claire under Captain Silas R. Smith and Engineer Alonzo Vicars, a
small boat working Yam Hill trade, ran the Willamette Falls. This feat was never endeavored and
hoped “not soon to be tried again.” Large crowds of survivors in the riverfront towns of Oregon
City, Canemah, and Linn City “watched her descent with intense interest” and “greeted her with
cheers” as soon as it was clear that the St. Clair would survive the journey.
54
A fleeting moment
of levity for a populous yet to understand the full repercussions of the sights they were seeing.
Pease searched for word of his family. Eventually, he came to Captain Jerome’s House.
where he reunited with his wife and children. Pease’s neighbors had helped the family escape
before the worst came that first Monday night while Pease was riding through the storm, rescuing
all in need.
55
52 On the evening of December 4
th
.
53 Meteorological Register Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory, December 1861.
54 From the Oregon Argus, Saturday December 14, 1861 (W.L. Adams, Editor).
55 Gervais Prairie named for Joseph Gervais, trapper, and settler colonial of French Prairie. While reports claim more
than forty saved, Pease remembered returning with “36 rescued peopel(sic) on board beside my through Passengers
landed at the high bank away up back of where the dock is now.” George Anson Pease Papers, Mss 2146, Oregon
Historical Society Research Library, 11-18.
133
Figure 11: Steamboats were vital to the rescue and recovery efforts during the cascading disasters of 1861-1862. The Steamer
Onward near Salem, Oregon, 1861, Public Domain.
The storms continued to grind their way down the coast, bowling across Southern Oregon
and Northern California. Between December fifth and December eighth, heavy rains and snows
fell at Shasta and across the northern Sierra. When the warm storms arrived, aerial aqueducts
dumped rain on the foothills that were still draped in more than a foot of snow. Higher up the
Sierra, the snowpack was even more substantial. On the Placerville Pass at around 7000 feet, there
was fifty feet of snow. In two days, the rains had washed nearly all the snow from the Sierra. Water
poured downslope in waves.
56
The Feather, American, and Sacramento Rivers continued to rise.
The greening hills belied the colors to come. Still, some thought the rapid rise in waterways
was unusual for that time of the year. They claimed the fall would be as quick as the rise. The
floods would “not likely to be any greater” unless more rain fell in the mountains.
57
More rain and
snow were indeed falling in the mountains. And the river levels continued to climb.
The Eel River submerged the lands adjacent to its flow for days. The Eel cut apart the
56 Francis Evelyn Bishop, “The Winter of the Flood 1861-1862,” 2, Calaveras Historical Society
57 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 135, 8 December 1862 “City and County”
134
ground in quick bites carving “block or masses of earth” into the river as it carved a new course.
Houses and outbuildings went along for the ride as the tie river dug a new channel a quarter mile
south of its former path. John Swett lost half of his land when the river changed course. Gradually
an island grew in the middle of the Eel a quarter of a mile wide and more than a quarter mile long
where Swett’s land once was.
58
At Red Bluff, there was water as far as his sight could reach in all
directions, and the few bridges there that helped mark the route were long gone.
The stream systems from California’s opposing mountain walls, especially the Sacramento
and San Joaquin poured vast volumes of the storm fall into the Central Valley.
59
The Feather and
Yuba River had risen “quite high,” and the steamers went to Yuba to unload cargo and passengers
at the landing at the plaza.
60
Within just a few days, the Sacramento River had risen twelve feet.
61
On the sixth, the Yuba was already within 3 inches of its highwater mark. Downstream in
Sacramento City, the rains were only light in the early days of December, but over the 8
th
and 9
th,
two and a half inches of rain fell on the capitol in 48 hours.
In the foothills far to the east of the capitol, the Calaveras River made a “deafening thunder”
as it boomed through the canyon and tore a new path towards the Valley. The sound could be heard
for miles.
In Southern California, at Rancho Ballona, hundreds of miles to the south, the volunteers
of the 4
th
California Volunteer Infantry stood night watch at Camp Latham along the Ballona creek
near Los Angeles. They were there to surveil and squelch suspected secessionist activity in
58 “The freshet continued for several days…” Heckman vs. Swett court proceeding, from Land Loss on the Eel River,
cases determined in the Humboldt Appeals Court, Supreme Court of California, 303-310.
59 “Democratic Sentiment.: Resolutions Adopted Unanimously by the Conventions of Cass and Macomb Counties.
Cass County Resolution. Macomb County Resolutions. The Army--The President--The Soldiers--Gen. McClellan,
Greeley, Senator Chandler, &c. The Great Floods in California. What Buckner Says of Floyd and Pillow.,” Detroit
Free Press, 1858-1922, Detroit, Mich., March 5, 1862.
60 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 11, 4 December 1861, “City and County”, “High Water”, “Growing
Green”
61 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 131, 4 December 1861 -- Untitled
135
Southern California and the Lower Colorado River region. The weather there had been cool with
dense fog all day and some rain during the night. About an inch of rain fell on the fifth of
December. At the dead of midnight, a rainbow as “bright and beautiful” as if it were the product
of the “brightest rays of the midday sun” struck across the night sky.
62
What could this miraculous
moonbow auger, some there wondered.
Steady rains continued across the Pacific Northwest. During the nights, the rain fell
heavier. Across the valleys, wrecks of buildings lingered in various and continuing stages of decay,
the “sunset land,” at least temporarily, no more.
63
Those below the Willamette Falls waited
anxiously for news from the south or east. The news was grim. Most of the Northwest from Puget
Sound east to the Cascade and south was washed out, mudded over, or entirely underwater. To the
east of the Cascades, every stream between the Dalles and Deschutes and beyond rose higher than
any settler Oregonians had ever experienced. The Deschutes bridge and hotel were gone.
64
The
river swished away along with the keeper’s dwelling house, stable, and outhouses. The roads here
were either underwater or so filled with mud and debris to make them useless, impeding stage
travel and mail delivery. Some refugees from the valleys pushed from both directions for the “dry
land” of the Dalles above the Cascades and the “watery elements below.” One paper teased local
“mariners” that the streets of the Third Ward were now navigable. They came sharing “marvelous
tales of the amphibious character” of the Willametters. For Portlandian Thomas H. Pearne though,
it was not marvelous, but a “disastrous flood” that “swept over this entire coast.” The weather
62 A newspapers reporter imbedded with them witnessed a “rainbow at the dead hour of midnight as bright and
beautiful as if it were produced by the brightest rays of midday sun. It is said that they are quite common in that
section. “The Cariboo and Nez Perce Mines,” Red Bluff Beacon 5 December 1861 CDNC
63 “‘All accounts from the interiors unite in representing the freshets as the most fearful which has visited the State
since its occupation by Americans. The state Republican., January 11, 1862, image 4; “The Flood in California”;
From the Sacramento Union, of Dec. 14th,
64 “On Monday the bridge over the Deschutes, with the keeper’s dwelling house, stable and outhouses, we all carried
away” as a loss of $10,000 “The Deschutes Bridge Gone”, NEWS, Weekly Oregonian, Portland, Oregon, December
7, 1861, page 2.
136
unleashed “great destruction of property and loss of life.” Near every flouring mill in the state was
damaged or destroyed. Vast amounts of grain were lost or ruined.
65
A “large portion of the active
capital” of Oregon was destroyed.
66
Pearne joined the refrain of commenters claiming flood levels
higher than ever known since Oregon was “settled by the whites.”
67
All the while, the Willamette,
like every other river in the region, continued its destructive rise.
68
The rain fell hard in San Francisco, but it fell harder in the interior. Down in the Upper
Sacramento River Valley, vigilantly steering the steamer Gem through the Sacramento River's
rapids, John Carr could identify the channel only by the tops of the cottonwoods that lined the
banks. The river continued to rise all the time. The expanding channel grew ever jammed with
belongings of every description roiling along with the current—dead horses and cattle, sheep,
hogs, houses, haystacks, household furniture, and everything imaginable plunged headlong for
the Delta, the Bay, and beyond. The Gem chugged south in that same direction towards the
capital city, stopping here and there, plucking off castaways from the tops of trees or huddled on
the rooftops of immersed houses. When he finally arrived at Red Bluff, there was water as far as
his sight could reach in all directions, and the few bridges there that helped mark the route were
long gone.
The warm and windy storms moved from the north. The rains came in sheets all day and
all night, and every stream across Central and Northern California grew treacherous. The night of
the 6
th
, the storm of wind and rain “increased to a great height and extended” over a “great circuit
of country” around Marysville. The towns as “far ups as Strawberry Valley” and the Columbus
65 “Interesting from Oregon--Destructive Freshets,” The Sun, 1837-1992, Baltimore, Md., December 25, 1861.
66 “The Flood” News, Weekly Oregonian, Portland, Oregon, December 7, 1861, page 2.
67 “‘All accounts from the interiors unite in representing the freshets as the most fearful which has visited the State
since its occupation by Americans. The state Republican., January 11, 1862, image 4; “The Flood in California”;
From the Sacramento Union, of Dec. 14th, we take the following extracts:
68 University of Oregon Library Knight, The Oregon Argus., Oregon City, OR, 1855-1863, December 21, 1861,
Image 2,” no. 1861/12/21, December 21, 1861.
137
House were deluged by heavy and relentless rain. All creeks, and sloughs, and streams filled with
dumbfounding speed. It rained all the next day. Every stage was delayed, and some like the San
Juan, Downieville, and Lincoln stages never arrived. Mail was put on boats. By dark, the Yuba
River made a “clean sweep across the tongue of land” between the Feather and the Yuba. The
Yuba had risen nine feet and continued to grow. The water in the ravine near Auburn in Placer
County was deep enough to float the largest class steamboats. The river there swept off part of the
town.
In Sierra County, Rabbit and Slate Creeks ran very high and wrecked bridges and flumes
in its path.
69
Across Shasta and Trinity Counties in northern Sacramento Valley. all was desolation.
Rivers overran their courses, washed-out bridges, mired roads, and swamped fields and towns. The
only means of travel was by boat. The overflows spread south. For over one hundred and fifty
miles along the Sacramento River's course south to the capital and ultimately the Bay and the
Pacific, everything flushed to oblivion.
70
The storms continued their charge south, bombarding rains across northern and Central
California. From the sixth to the ninth, over a foot of rains fell at Downieville, seven inches alone
on the 8
th
. Nine inches of rain fell in Grass Valley over 36 hours between the 7
th
and 8
th
of
December.
71
From the 8
th
to the 9
th,
over two and a half inches of rain fell in Sacramento. Walls of
water and flows of debris cascading down the Sierra in rivers upon broided rivers engorging their
channels and filling the valleys to the hilltops. The Upper Sacramento River was on a “big swell”
69 “The Flood in California”, The State Republican. (Eugene City, Or.) 1862-1863, January 11, 1862, Image 4,” no.
1862/01/11, January 11, 1862.
70 Fort Terwaw and Camp Lincoln established to enforce colonization and protect white settlements from Indian
resistance. Argus, December 14, 1861; Dr. Perez Snell, a dentist and “Tuolumne’s pioneer scientist,” measured 30
inches in 10 days at Sonora, a number that many have questioned over the years. Recent findings reinforce Snell’s
data; http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/weatherman/content?oid=6374045; Carr also survived the floods of
1853. John Carr, "Pioneer days in California," Times publishing company 1891, 291–295, 397.
71 “The Great Floods in California,” The Globe (1844-1936); Toronto, Ont., February 7, 1862.
138
and so “unruly it could not be kept within its banks.”
72
The North Fork of the American River was also overflowing. It rose fifty-five feet at the
town of Auburn, wreaking havoc there. Once the water “rushed through the canyon at Folsom,” it
“rolled over the country on each side in restless waves, which prostrated everything before them.”
The riverbeds filled “nearly to the hilltops.” The destruction wrought by the river on its way
towards the capitol was “terrible.” The expanding river grew ever jammed with belongings of
every description roiling along with the current—dead horses and cattle, sheep, hogs, houses,
haystacks, household furniture, and everything imaginable plunged headlong for the delta.
73
Figure 12: Floods spread from Redding to Bakersfield. “Sacramento during the flood. View north from R St. Levee,” California
Historical Society.
At the same time, another wave of storms was landing on the Northwestern Slope. More
rain and more flooding came to British Columbia, Washington Territory, and Oregon. Still reeling
72 “High Water” “Rainbow at Midnight,” “The Cariboo and Nez Perce Mines” Red Bluff Beacon 5 December 1861
CDNC
73 “The Flood in California”, The State Republican. (Eugene City, Or.) 1862-1863, January 11, 1862, Image 4,” no.
1862/01/11 (January 11, 1862.
139
from the storm of the first week of December, the Pacific Northwest was again under siege by
rivers from the sky. A day and a half after the torrents of December’s first week, another storm
trundled in after, bombarding the northwest for the second time in as many weeks.
In coastal Washington at Neah Bay, James Swan reported almost constant rain day after
day, noting rain for the “past 24 hours,” “heavy rain all day,” accompanied by violent winds.
74
Described as “one of Washington’s Territorial period's most colorful personalities,” the
“anthropologist, judge, political advisor, artist, schoolteacher, and promotor of Port Townsend”
James Gilchrist Swan was a prominent settler-colonist of the Pacific Northwest. Born in
Massachusetts in 1818, he left his wife Mathilda Loning and their two kids for the San Francisco
rush in 1850. By ’52, he was in Shoalwater Bay (currently Grays Harbor), learning Chinook Wawa.
Soon after, he worked as a translator for the negotiations during the settler wars against Pacific
Northwest Indians. He would later practice admiralty law, survey for the Northern Pacific Railway,
become Indian Agent, U.S. commissioner, and Hawaiian consul to the United States by the
1880s.
75
At the time of the ’61-’62 storm season, Swan shuttled between Port Townsend and the
Makah Indian Reservation at Neah Bay, where the Indian Agent appointed him schoolteacher,
where he taught Euro-American farming, sewing, and English. He later resigned after an
accusation of not teaching the Makah Christianity. Swan’s position at Neah Bay is located at the
far western tip of Washington State at the entrance to Juan de Fuca’s straight. His often meticulous
daily notes on general temperature, wind direction, and precipitation help us track the chain of
74 By December 12, “…there has been almost constant rain for the past 24 hours…” On the 14 of December, “Heavy
rain all day with stormy wind…On the 15 of December, “The past 24 hours ???? rains the hardest and most constant
of any day this month…Great flight of ducks this AM.”
75 Swan though is likely most famous for his work for the Smithsonian collecting Indigenous artwork, heirlooms, and
other material culture for display at the 1876 world’s fair in Philadelphia, the 1884 London Fair, and the 1893
Chicago exposition. Perhaps his (and other like Swan) location on the Pacific Rim and the very different climate and
meteorological realities of the Pacific Slope landscape (extreme wet and dry and elevationally variegated)
encouraged new forms of vernacular scientific knowledge production. But more on this some other time.
140
storms as they blew in from the Pacific.
76
Down at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia, over two inches of rain fell from the 6
th
to the
8
th
. On the eighth of December, Swan noted a second and “most frightful freshet” that “threw the
last one all in the shade” pulsed through Washington and Oregon's waterways. The second wave
of floods was on. The second rise of water at Oregon City was several feet from matching the peak
of the first. Still, at some places upriver from Oregon City, rising streams reached within inches of
the first inundations.
77
Steamboats continued to run the Willamette Falls—a feat that had never
been done before that winter—with ease, a sign of just how high the flow there was. While the
Woolen Mill in Salem continued to stand through two consecutive floods, property damage was
severe along the Willamette. Three hundred yards from the Woolen Mill, the Jones & Reed Co.
Sash and Blind factory were gone. Joseph Watt’s Cabinet Manufactory, once half a mile upriver
from Salem, was gone.
To the south, the Umpqua had begun to fall back to its “accustomed limits,” but the newest
round of “warm weather” with “heavy rain” caused a second “fearful rise” in its waterways, again
threatening the fort. A unit of U.S. troops on their way from Fort Umpqua to Fort Vancouver found
their way blocked at the ferry by the ever-rising river, and the new fifty-thousand-dollar military
road was washed out and unusable.
78
Their commander, Lieutenant Rives, split the force in two—
some traveled over the mountain surviving with little trouble. The rest hastily slapped together a
small fleet of flat-bottomed vessels and headed down the river towards Scottsburg. Rives and his
aquatic contingent buffeted against the rapids, and not long after one of the skiffs lost its bearing
76 Swan’s observations can clarify the type and number of storms that combined to produce the Big Winter. His daily
gathering of weather data, though incomplete in places, and relative in others, is an example of citizen scientist, and
early meteorology in the nineteenth century Pacific West.
77 University of Oregon Library Knight, The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 21, 1861,
Image 2,” no. 1861/12/21 (December 21, 1861).
78 Bancroft and Victor. History of Oregon, 483- 484.
141
and bouncing through the white-capped riffles it upended, and the “cries of the poor wretches were
heart-rending” as they “struggled in the surging river” as it “bore them swiftly away.” Job Hatfield
launched out after them, the rapids aswirl with foam and shrapnel. Hatfield rescued two soldiers
from watery deaths but could not save the Sargent’s wife, who disappeared beneath the current
before Hatfield could reach her. Others were also lost.
79
In Scottsburg, Captain Scott’s mill vanished. Lord & Peters’ store, which had survived the
high waters of the first wave of flooding, went spinning down the river before splintering a half-
mile downstream adding to the growing pile of leveled buildings, the colossal heap of destruction.
The water kept rising. Allan, McKinley & Co.’s store and wharf also took a ride on the flooded
Umpqua on its way to the Willamette and god knows where to after that. Joseph Moore lost a
livery stable and all its contents. Tons of hay and grain swept past, and wayward houses, along
with crowds of dead cattle, horses, and hogs, washed ashore at Upper Town.
This second flood demolished Lower Town, leaving no vestige on the lower bench and a
“scene of desolation” across the Umpqua River Valley.
80
The flood carried away everything of
lower Scottsburg and all the mills and other industrial works on the main river. Jacksonville
flooded for the second time. Communication between Oregon and the rest of the Slope was severed
and would be for weeks. The second wave of great floods submerged every river valley on the
northwest Slope “with no Noah to help them out of it.”
81
79 “Scottsburg, Ogn., Dec. 11, 1861” Oregon Sentinel., Jacksonville, OR., 1858-1888, December 28, 1861, Image 3,”
no. 1861/12/28 December 28, 1861.
80 The town was named for homesteader Levi Scott in 1850; “there was a lower town at the head of tidewater on the
Umpqua River which became the site of businesses houses and mills. A mile up stream was the upper town, the
distributing and shipping point for the mining regions and communities of southern Oregon. As many as 500 pack
animals could be seen loading here at one time. The decline of the community began with the opening of ports near
the market points in southern Oregon and northern California and the railroad further inland. In December 1861, a
great flood wiped out the lower town. Here in April 1854 was published the first newspaper in southern Oregon, The
Umpqua Weekly Gazette;” Historical Marker. “Scottsburg, Ogn., Dec. 11, 1861” Oregon Sentinel., Jacksonville,
Or., 1858-1888, December 28, 1861, Image 3,” no. 1861/12/28, December 28, 1861.
81 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 131, 4 December 1861 -- Untitled
142
Back in California, the storms continued to pour rain and feed the floods. Oversaturated
mountain and hillsides began to slide across the region, adding debris to the already swollen
waterways. The additional runoff was tremendous. And still, “it rained and rained and rained!”
82
Around the ninth of December, the Trinity River in northern Sacramento Valley rose higher than
Euroamericans had ever seen. On the Feather River, flooding devastated Oroville, where rising
waters at least twenty houses were carried off, with it damaged countless more and threatened to
pull more into the river. The North Fork of the American River near Folsom rose thirty-five feet.
Floodwaters on the Yuba River annihilated every building in the town of Foster’s Bar (currently
under Bullards Bar Reservoir) save the Union Hotel.
83
Houses from the lower town joined the
other buildings, “furniture, and stock of every description” as it paraded down the Yuba.
Hundreds of Chinese Californians living and working the tributaries of the Yuba drowned.
At Rough and Ready, the damage was worst felt by the Chinese, “many scores of whom were
living on the old flats which they worked below the town, and some lives are reported lost from
among them.”
84
Those who survived the inundations at places like Long Bar, Ousley’s, and Sand
Flat lost everything—their settlements, tools, gold, and friends.
85
The town of Nicolaus on the
Feather River where Kanaka, Maidu, and Chinese workers lived was “entirely underwater” as well.
From there, the Yuba and Feather Rivers flowed “very high” and flooded almost every
ranch along their courses, drowning immense numbers of livestock and destroying nearly
everything in their paths. Highwater undermined several large brick buildings in Marysville,
including the Merchant’s Hotel—toppling them to the ground. The floors in the Merchants’ Hotel
82 Bishop, “Winter of the Floods,” 3.
83 “Condensed News from California Papers.,” The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio,
January 20, 1862.
84 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 138, 12 December 1861 –“The Flood in the Country” CDNC
85 “The Flood in California”, The State Republican. (Eugene City, Or.) 1862-1863, January 11, 1862, Image 4,” no.
1862/01/11 (January 11, 1862).
143
collapsed into the basement, along with beds filled with slumbering guests, severely injuring many.
Marysville firemen rescued those trapped in the Hotel and other “crumbling ruins” at the “extreme
peril of their own lives.” Numerous frame houses floated from their properties, some far
downstream. A relief boat rescued two children from one home, but the river had carried the house
downriver when they returned for the mother.
86
Families living along the Feather, Yuba, and
Sacramento Rivers banks were destitute. Some were trapped in their buildings' second story,
unable to leave without watercraft.
87
Tens of thousands of acres were underwater, and there was
“not a dry spot” to stand.
88
Business stopped and transportation and communication ceased.
89
By the ninth of December, the flood had reached the lowlands of the Sacramento Valley.
The entirety of the interior of northern California was engulfed. From the Sacramento's mouth to
fifty miles beyond Marysville and from mountain to mountain, the Sacramento River submerged
all for hundreds of miles, lonely above the surface poked the tops of trees and a random house or
barn roof. The valley there is flat and wide, and the rivers spread 40 miles from the Sierra Nevada's
foothills, near Folsom, to the base of the coast ranges at Fairfield.
90
The Sutter Buttes stood above
the waterline, the longtime island refugee in the flooded valley.
91
86 Peter DeLay, History of Yuba and Sutter Counties California with Biographical Sketches…,”Historic Record
Company, 1924, 100-101.
87 “Since the 9th of December—date of the first flood—there are tens of thousands of acres of land under water”
Letters from Antonio Diaz Peña January 28, 1862 from Mokelumne River area,
88 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 138, 12 December 1861 –“The Flood in the Country” CDNC
89 From the Hartford Daily Courant on December 16, 1861: “Terrible Storm and Freshet—Many Lives Lost—
Departure of General Shields—Eight Hundred and Sixty Thousand Dollars in Specie Coming. San Francisco, Dec
10, 1861. “During the past four days the heaviest rain storm that has been experienced for many years has prevailed
in California, causing severe freshets in the valley and great destruction of property,” The New York Times, January
21, 1862, “The Great Flood in California. Great Destruction of Property Damage $10,000,000.”
90 “The Great Floods in California,” The Globe, 1844-1936, Toronto, Ont., February 7, 1862.
91 “My mother’s ancestors came to California by covered wagon over the Sierra Nevada in the summer of 1847. They
settled in the vast Sacramento Valley in what is now Colusa County and tried to build a future along the fertile banks
of the Sacramento River. About 13 years later, they took refuge on the nearby Sutter Buttes because of one of the
worst floods ever to hit California. My grandmother, Frances Graham, passed along this bit of family folklore to me
from her mother about a deluge of biblical proportions that occurred in 1862. The flood devastated their farm. She
said it was like nature taking revenge for the hydraulic mining that took place during the California Gold Rush.
Many called this flood the “Noachian deluge of California Floods.” From “Weather Watch: storms bring welcome
144
Built upon the Sacramento and American Rivers' shores—in what was part of a semi-
seasonal lakebed—Sacramento City was hit hardest. Settler-Colonials built what would become
California’s capital city at the convergence of the Sacramento and American rivers. The City sits
on the eastern bank of the Sacramento and the southern bank of the American and is “situated in a
saucer” with the “rim formed by the levees,” and during very wet years the saucer “filled with
water.”
92
There had been “traditions” of large floods during “Indian times” and “old Spanish rule.”
Indigenous people built high mounds throughout the rivers valleys and often built their villages on
high ground. The Franciscans had Indigenous Californians build the mission settlements away
from the rivers. Most white Americans “took little notice.”
93
Sutter built his famous fort on the hill
above the river for a reason.
The city was initially situated sixteen feet above the yearly low-water mark, and nearly
every year since the city’s founding, the river rose seventeen or eighteen feet. A trapper who spent
several seasons in the valley remembered frequently boating over Sacramento's site, like in 1846
when the river overflowed to seven feet deep for sixty days. Sacramento flooded in 1849, 1850,
1851, and twice each winter in ’52 and ’53. In the summer of 1853, Sacramentans raised the
business district four feet by filling the streets with earth and lifted a bank around the city that
varied from four to twenty feet in height. This levee girded the city for two miles along the
Sacramento River and three along the American. Raising the levees and streets gave residents a
sense of permanence, confidence, and security behind their wall, where they built homes and
planted gardens.
94
rain but downpours raise the risk of flooding,” San Luis Obispo Tribune, December 13 2014. Also noted in the
Antonio Diaz Peña letter, January 28, 1862
92 George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862 The annual meeting of the Howard Benevolent Society.
93 Saxon, Five years within the Golden Gate, 1868, 126-7.
94 “The Great Flood In California. Great Destruction of Property Damage $10,000,000.,” The New York Times,
January 21, 1862.
145
Figure 13: The Sacramento and American Rivers combined to form a giant lake in the heart of California. “Sacramento during
the flood. View north from R Street levee.” California Historical Society.
They knew that it had been raining hard for days, but like their counterparts along the
Columbia and Willamette, believed that the prolonged heavy rain that fell in the valley was not
warning enough of the “terrible flood impending.” But on the 9
th
of December, those “warm heavy
rains” caused the American River to rise a “great height,” at least fifty-five feet.
95
The flood down
on Sacramento as “sudden as a tornado” and “found them totally unprepared.” The floodwaters
ran against the northern levee and then ran down to the railroad embankment, where it mounded
itself up against those barriers until the flood rose above them too and began to pour into the city.
“On Monday, the day it came,” one man remembered, the weather was “comparatively clear” even
though it was expected that the river would be “pretty full” from all the rain. Still, none showed
any fear that the water would fill the city. Even after the flood “burst over the bank” of the
American at Brighton and “smashed against the levee at Thirty-first Street” much of the city
95 Thompson, Kenneth. “Historic Flooding in the Sacramento Valley.” Pacific Historical Review 29, no. 4,
November 1, 1960, 349-360; and Lansing, “Notes,” 76–83. “The Great Flood in California.; Great Destruction of
Property Damage $10,000,000.,” The New York Times, January 21, 1862. Barkley, 20" less than 01/10/1862
146
remained unaware. Some rode down the streets “warning the people that a dreadful flood” was
pushing towards the capital from the east. The water came soon after their warning. Under the
barricades, the soft earth collapsed, and a “vast body of water” gushed into the streets, flooding
everything save a strip of Front Street. The floodwaters spilled in so quickly that people had no
more than an hour’s warning of the approaching danger. Those living in two-story homes, moved
their furniture and cooking implements to the upper floors. Those in single-tiered houses had no
choice but to “run for their lives.”
By 9 o’clock in the morning, the capitol of California was flooded from one end to the
other.
The water rose to fifteen feet in some places, ten in others, and three in some places.
Nearly every “fashionable house” had a parlor with three to six feet of water sloshing through it.
In the years to come, in some surviving homes, the high-water line was “visible in the plastering
of the second story.” Amidst the cacophony, dinner was still being ordered at a hotel thought to
be built above the flood line. The water entered the hotel while guests sat at their tables, and
before long was a foot deep. The men carried the ladies in their chairs to the stairway.
A young and newly eloped Henry George was there. At the time, George worked at the
Daily Union and stayed at the old City Hotel on K Street in Sacramento. George and his new
partner Annie Fox had been at the hotel for four months when the floods filled the hotel's first-
floor dining room and spoiled their lunch. The water-filled the room so rapidly that the guests
got up onto the tables and chairs and used them as a makeshift causeway to escape to the
staircase and the floors above. He recalled that after the bakeries ovens were underwater, so there
was no bread, and “for a time fruit cake in stock became a substitute” and “spirituous liquors
were also exceedingly scarce” which George noted was a “serious deprivation in a community,
where, as in every country, custom had made drinking of some sort one of the common marks of
147
cordiality of social life.” George gives some of his Union buddies Annie’s “New England Rum,”
after which she informed them all she had been keeping it for her hair.
96
Every house in Sacramento stood in at least two feet of water even on “the highest ground.”
Dozens of timber houses, some two stories tall, lifted and wandered off. One house that had sailed
a great distance from its foundation boomeranged back again by a shifting current. Many others
floated around “hither and tither” and turned on their sides or upside down. An old outbuilding at
Sutter’s Fort washed away. The single-story structure was one hundred feet long and thirty feet
wide and sat fifty yards to the fort's east. Sutter allegedly built it to house newly arrived
immigrants. It earned the nickname the “old penitentiary” before Alex Abell and Charles Cragin
converted it to a hospital, but it was M. Yager’s brewery the day it disappeared into the river. At
some point during the events, the prison bark La Grange sank. The bark was moored on the
Sacramento River opposite H Street and had been the county prison since 1850.
97
Figure 14: Moored near the capitol since 1850, the boat was the county prison until it disappeared during the winter of 1861-62.
“‘La Grange,’ prison brig, 1860,” California History Room.
96 Henry George, The Life of Henry George, 1900, 135-140.
97 “The Winter of 1861-1862” compiled by the Staff, Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly, Vol IV No I,
November 1958, 14-19. Lance Armstrong, “Early Sacramento Hospitals were located at Sutter’s Fort,” Valley
Community Newspapers, December 15, 2011. From description of “La Grange,” prison brig, California History
Room, Picture Collection.
148
From nine in the morning until the day faded, Sacramento’s stock owners and livery-stable
keepers rushed to drive as many horses, mules, cattle, and hogs across the Yolo bridge, down the
levee, and out of the city in a bid for Sutterville. Some crowded their cattle onto some of the few
dry spaces along Poverty Ridge, I Street, and the levee on R Street.
The flooded streets soon filled with boats, all hurrying about, many looking for meals that
couldn’t be had. The whole place was a “floating caravansary.”
Members of California’s state
Legislature moved about in boats, as did everyone else who could get one. Those without proper
boats turned to washbasins, bathtubs, and makeshift rafts. All things imaginable seemed to pass
by the hotel. Amongst the debris appeared a portion of a sidewalk bearing a man and his dog.
The man sat calmly on a stool, “contemplating the watery aspect of city and county.”
98
Reverend
Jesse Peck described the overall scene:
It is morning, and the rain falls in torrents. Down come the mountain
floods…and the American river is rushing madly upon the doomed city.
There it comes. It is within four squares of us. We spring to bring in a little
wood for the emergency. On it comes. Strong men and beasts are struggling
above us. The tops of the houses are covered with anxious gazers. Quick.
Every article to the upper story of our strong brick “hired house.” Flour,
meat, potatoes, books, carpets, all. The water is at the door-sill! In it comes!
There are our neighbors from the cottages near. No safety at home. Strong
men wade to our door up to their hips, with wives, and daughters, and tender
babes in their arms and on their shoulders. “Come in. God be praised for
one place of safety.” Another company arrives in a boat. Our upper rooms
are full. Still, the waters rise.
99
A chain-gang went to work on the R Street levee between Fifth and Sixth Streets atop
which the railroad rested, and around eleven that forenoon they hacked an opening. The “rush of
water was as fierce to get out as it was to get in.” The penned waters hurried through the improvised
98 Saxon, Five years within the Golden gate, 1868, 125.
99 Jesse T. Peck, “The Great Flood in California.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, January
30, 1862; The Great California Flood: Hundreds of Chinamen Drowned,” New - York Daily Tribune (1842-1866);
New York, N.Y., January 14, 1862.
149
hatch a “perfect torrent” carrying away the nearby houses and “dashed them to fragments.” The
cut helped to lower the water level one foot along J and K Streets. In some places, water levels fell
five to six feet but the streets of Sacramento remained flowing with several feet of water.
100
Men,
women, and children crowded atop every building and house in the city that hadn’t yet washed
away. They stared out “saddened and anxious” as beneath them passed furniture, parts of buildings,
street planking, lumber and timber, and all congesting the canals.
Figure 15: The multiple great floods of that winter damaged or destoyed nearly every structure in the Central Valley. Many
houses floated away. “Sacramento: Fires & floods: Floods of 1862, View from top of building 4
th
and N St.” California History
Room.
The storms continued to rush through the sky, and the rivers continued to flow through the
capital and beyond. The floodwaters continued to rush into the valleys. The “destructive element”
carried bridges away, swamped roads, and severely damaged railroad lines.
101
As the rivers spilled
across the plains, they gobbled up orchards, the current pulling on the trees, and one after another,
they gave in. Some rushed off with the rapids. Others hung on desperately by their unraveling
roots. Across the valley, “no land [could] be seen,” and all the houses were standing in water,” and
100 “The Great Floods in California,” The Globe (1844-1936); Toronto, Ont., February 7, 1862.
101 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 24, Number 3656, 9 December 1862 – Flood Anniversary, CDNC
150
here and there were “hay and straw stacks covered with cattle and horses as the only place of
refuge for them.” Parts of bridges tumbled with bales of hay and a kitchen table. Lumber swirled
with drowned cattle, water wheels, and entire cabins. Henhouses mingled with sluice boxes,
dressers, parts of mills, and giant pines and spruce that had survived California storms for one
hundred years, all gushed down the maddened rivers on their way towards the sea.
A newcomer who had just bought a farm outside of the city quickly found the tallest tree
for refuge as the floods arrived. While up there, he found the name of the previous owner carved
into the tree, along with the date of prior floods. He stayed wedged in that tree for hours. In the
distance, he heard what he thought was music. Not long after, a house floated by, and on its
rooftop sat a man playing the banjo while he and his wife sang. The farmer could still hear them
as they faded from sight downstream. People and animals alike crowded atop any piece of high
ground they could find. One man spent four hours looking for a plot of dry land to bury his dead
child. But it surely could have been worse. The floodwaters entered the city during the day,
likely limiting the damage to life that would have occurred at night when people were in sleep
and enveloped in darkness.”
102
102 Bishop, “Winter of the Floods…,” 6; Saxon, Five years within the Golden gate, 1868, 125; “Flood Anniversary,”
Sacramento Daily Union, Vol 24, number 3656, 9 December 1862.
151
Figure 16: One opportune photographer took several images of the destruction across Sacramento City. “Sacramento during the
flood, view taken from Mr. Hamberger’s residence, on N Street, between fourth and fifth.” California History Room.
Sacramento City stood in a “sea of water at sunset.” In six hours, the flood had destroyed property
estimated at the time to be worth a million and one-quarter dollars. It was a “fearful visitation.”
103
The storms continued their paths south and west, bring heavy rains with them. The floods
were just as explosive south of Sacramento. The Cosumnes River “rose fourteen feet in twelve
hours” and poured across the plains, “several miles wide,” destroying roads, bridges, and causing
the “greatest distress.”
104
On the south bank of the Cosumnes was the town of Mokelumne City, a
rival to Stockton as the region’s leading trade city and the second largest town in San Joaquin
County. They built sloops there that set sail from San Francisco. But the highwaters overpowered
the town, washing Mokelumne City from the landscape.
103 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 24, Number 3656, 9 December 1862 – Flood Anniversary, CDNC
104 Letters from Antonio Diaz Peña January 28, 1862, from Mokelumne River area, describing recent rains and flood,
Letter from George Kearsing. “The Flood in California”, The State Republican., Eugene City, OR, 1862-1863,
January 11, 1862, Image 4,” no. 1862/01/11 (January 11, 1862).
152
To the south and east of the Delta, the San Joaquin and its tributaries continued to pour
down into the valley. The Stanislaus river had had ten to twelve feet of deposits on its banks, upon
which “oaks from five to ten feet in diameter” had been flourishing for over three centuries. The
floods “tore away” these “old banks” and carried away enormous chunks of land think with trees
all uprooted and carried down the bloated stream. In some places, the Stanislaus left its old stream
bed and carving new channels. The town of Knight’s Ferry on the Stanislaus River lost nearly all
of its houses and commercial buildings.
105
The bridge overarching the Stanislaus River had
survived the early stages of the flood, but it too finally gave way when what was left of the Two-
Mile Bar bridge came riding down and smashed through it.
106
In honor of New York, John Marvin named the town of Empire in 1850, which he helped
establish on the south bank of the Tuolumne. It became the head of navigation for steam travel on
the Tuolumne and the shipping point for wheat grown in the region. Eventually, it grew to be the
seat of Stanislaus County. It had a three-story hotel, two boarding houses, three general stores, a
blacksmith, a schoolhouse, and a church. The floods scrubbed all of that and the rest of Empire
City from the countryside.
107
105 Knight’s Ferry of Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie fame. Charles Delong Diary as referenced in Secrest
and Seacrest, California Disasters, 2005; Engstrom, “The California Storm of January 1862,” Roden, 1989, 105.
McGlashan and Briggs, 1939, 430 – 431. Kenneth, Thompson, “Historic Flooding in the Sacramento Valley,”
Pacific Historical Review 29, no. 4, November 1, 1960, 349-360; and Lansing, “Notes,” 76–83; Null and Hulbert.
106 California et al., “Journal of the Senate and Assembly,” Journal of the Senate and Assembly, 1863; California,
Legislature, and Assembly, Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly of the ... Session of the Legislature of the
State of California., 1862; Delong Diary as referenced in Secrest and Seacrest, California Disasters, 2005;
Engstrom, “The California Storm of January 1862.” Periods of snowy, cold weather and episodes of warm rain
accompanied by melting snow alternated during the winter, leading to extreme flooding McGlashan and Briggs,
1939, 430 – 431. Null and Hulbert: “...in San Francisco...nearly 10 inches [fell] in December 1861, followed by an
unprecedented 24 inches in January 1862... the 1862-1862 storms caused record or near-record flooding events
across the state, from Eureka and Humboldt counties in the northwest, all the way to Orange and San Diego counties
in the south,” p. 27. Walls of this stable remained during a flood in 1950 and were used to measure a high-water
mark that year of 175.8-175.5 feet, corresponding to a flow of 180,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). This information
is tabulated in Geological Survey, 1953. Also tabulated are peak flows on the American River for 5 other floods
back to 1907; the peak flow in 1862 to be no less than 250,000 cfs.
http://www.redlandsfortnightly.org/papers/Taylor06.html.
107 Robert Kelley. Battling the inland sea: floods, public policy, and the Sacramento Valley, California Press, 1998;
Historic Spots in California, Stanford; Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California: 1848-1859, The History
153
The sister tributaries of California’s Great Central Valley, the Sacramento, San Joaquin,
and Tulare basins melded into a gargantuan freshwater lake system that connected California’s
Great Central Valley with the discharge of the thousand miles of mountain ranges encircling it.
Floodwaters stretched from Shasta's feet in the north to Sacramento and the Delta and south from
Poverty Flats to Kern Island below the Tehachapi.
108
Along the riverbank, “great bundles” of snakes of “every variety and size” hung from the
surviving trees' top branches. As the waters continued to rise through the great valley, they
detached and floated away gargantuan blankets of tulés—chunks from one hundred a half-mile in
length—drifted in fleets on a hundred-mile sojourn from the valley to the sea with “myriads of
water-snakes…twisting and twirling in the salt sea, and to see the water-fowl that screamed over
their nests as though warning the islands of their danger, and to see our coast when any of the
islands were thrown upon it, and the thousands and thousands of snakes wriggling their way over
the shrubless sands that bound it for miles in search of anything to hide them from the wholesale
slaughter that sticks and stones, and knives and even guns made among their host. We wanted St.
Patrick to come.”
109
The great lake of California continued to grow, twelve feet deep and more
standing for months.
In Sacramento City, the Howard Benevolent Society began to organize a relief effort for
the general region. Surely a major reason for the relatively low number of deaths was due to the
Company, San Francisco, 1888, 513, note (Pac News, May 2, Aug. 28, 1850.): In 1896, the town relocated one mile
north of the river, and was renamed Empire for the Santa Fe Railroad,” Empire City; The Historical Marker
Database from hmdb.org The Historical Marker Database accessed December 29, 2015.
108 From Redding in the north to Bakersfield down south.
109 The famous killer of snakes of course, but St Paddy’s Day also a Spring holiday. Engstrom, “Storms,” Engstrom
notes that In the Sierra Nevada foothills, a large volume of sediment generated by gold mining was transported from
the vicinity of the mines into the main channels giving credence to some who have argued that hydraulic mining
weas a contributing factor to the disasters of the Big Winter, James, 1989, p. 573)” and Brewer, Up and down
California in 1860-1864;” Roughly 30 miles from city of San Francisco; Named for the Karkins, an Ohlone group
quoted from Engstrom’s “Storm,” “The Great Floods in California,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922); Detroit,
Mich., March 5, 1862.
154
Howard Benevolent Society. Founded in 1857, Howard used its five-dollar membership fees,
monthly dues along with “voluntary contributions, and legislative appropriations” to serve the
“needy and afflicted regardless of purse, or faith, or race.” On the 9
th
, Howard President George
W. Mowe ordered the four active boats to retrieve families. The steamboats “luggage-ladden” and
overloaded with men, women, and children “hurried” between Sacramento and San Francisco, the
“only place free from peril in the State.” Steamer Nevada, damaged by debris at Steamboat Slough,
began to sink with 200 on board; the pilot intentionally grounded the boat to evacuate the
passengers.
The Agricultural Pavilion on the corner of Sixth and M opened its doors to refugees from
around Sacramento. Howards volunteers prepared the Pavilion for the surge of survivors. Four
boats from the city’s impromptu fleet ran day and night, delivering those stranded without homes
or transport to this makeshift relief center where the Howard Benevolent Society cared for
hundreds of survivors, all grateful for its supply of blankets and the caldron of hot soup. By seven
that night, the society had fed at least four hundred women and children and provided them
blankets. The Hall “thronged all night by men and women seeking refuge and shelter” from the
wind and the rain.
110
110
Saxon, Five years within the Golden Gate, 1868, 126-7.
155
Figure 17: “The Old Agricultural Pavilion” on the eve of demolition, by Eugene Walter Hepting. Torn down in 1922, the
Pavilion housed state fairs from 1858-1883. More importantly, it housed several hundred families during the Big Winter of 1862
and most of the images of the flood were likely taken from its roof. California State Library
In Oregon, the rains slowed. On the 10
th
of December, there was hoarfrost at sunrise. The
rain though set in anew. The surrounding lands had not even drained, and waters were rising
again. That day the Willamette River rose beyond any previous level known by American
colonists.
The day-spring on that morning of the 10th burned “bright and beautiful” over the
Sacramento Valley, but it was short-lived. The daylight fell upon a scene “desolate and dreary” as
the “fearful visitation of tempest and flood” had submerged the three major interior cities of
California Sacramento, Marysville, Stockton, and every other town and settlement in the Central
Valley. “Probably in the history of the United States,” Howard President George Lowe lamented,
“there is not a parallel to the situation of our community on the morning of the 10
th
. Homes,
bedding, clothing—everything was waterlogged, and the rivers continued to pour into the capitol.
Peck again recorded his chaos that unfolded as the waters swept through the city streets:
Two strong men bear a stove into the hall, and by great exertions, we gather
pipe of different kinds and set it up. Thanks to Providence, we have
provisions and now a place to cook. The flood increases. Boats are moving
rapidly through our streets, rescuing the helpless. Property is of no account.
Strong horses and mules struggle for life. We shout to each other, giving
orders, and encouraging exertion. Down sink a fine team, and wagon, and
rider. Poor man! he falls to rise no more. God pity the bereaved ones at
home! The water has reached the marble mantel in our parlor, and still it
rises. We are, by the ordering of Providence, on one of the highest points of
the town. The danger is greater below. We look out, and far as the eye can
reach, it is one vast sea. At our place [N, above Ninth] the current is
frightful. Vigorous animals fail to stem it and float downward rapidly from
our sight. Rafts and driftwood bear, now a man with a brave heart, strong
muscles, and setting pole; now a dog and poultry. Here comes a fence, a
pile of lumber, a wagon, and now more horses, and mules, and cows, with
noses just above the water, struggling for life. The high pickets are covered,
156
and still the water rises.
111
Rumors quickly circulated that many “lives had been lost,” but how many, where, and who
remained unknown.
112
All communication and transportation between interior and the Bay and the
greater world beyond were severed, save the few surviving steamers powerful enough to push
against the river’s muscular current.
Above the capitol, floods raged on the Middle Sacramento and Feather Rivers. The width
of the Sacramento averaged thirty miles. In Marysville, steamers sailed over the tops of trees in
Uncle’s 300-acre orchard.”
113
The Defiance steamed up and down the streets of Marysville,
assisting those “rescuing the unfortunate.” There too, a grandmother and her young grandson
survived the night sitting on top of a tall tombstone.
114
Like that resolute grandmother, countless peoples were stranded across Central California.
Every relief boat that went out corroborated this. Every refugee coming in from the countryside
told melancholy tales of stranded families and animals like one house on the Feather River, three
and a half miles from the town of Nicolaus, where sixty people took harbor on the roof of a building
so small that they barely had room to turn around.
Peck gazed out across the horizon, and at three o’clock P.M. for a moment, the sun reflected
the “quivering light” off of the “dancing waters.” Peck continues:
Our home is an island. Our doors float from their hinges. Chinaware, servers,
books, sacks of grain, and other effects left below move out into the sea and take
their chance. Doubtful if we ever see them again….We “hope for relief” in a few
hours but await the will of the Lord. Five o’clock P.M. The water is rising. The sun
sets amid the richest effulgence of golden light. A dark cloud skirts the eastern
111 Jesse T. Peck, “The Great Flood in California.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, January
30, 1862; The Great California Flood: Hundreds of Chinamen Drowned,” New - York Daily Tribune (1842-1866);
New York, N.Y., January 14, 1862.
112 Letters from Antonio Diaz Peña January 28, 1862, Letter from George Kearsing
113 “The Winter of 1861-1862” compiled by the Staff, Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly, Vol IV No I,
November 1958, 14-19.
114 “Condensed News from California Papers.,” The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio,
January 20, 1862.
157
horizon, and the floods move fearfully by.
115
The waters had subsided a few feet during the night exposing everything from L-street north as
scattered puddles and beds of sludge littered with wooden planks as walkways, sidewalks, and
crossings, and here and there lay boats and rafts stranded helplessly above the waterline. All the
city south of L Street remained submerged entirely, and watercraft remained the only mode of
locomotion.
116
By one that afternoon, the streets were clogged with up to four feet of muddy water.
The city's single-story houses were deserted, and those living in multi-floored dwellings continued
to move whatever belongings they could to the upper floors. The cellars filled with water and large
amounts of stockpiled food goods were ruined. The flooded streets continued to be crammed with
all imaginable watercraft—boats, scows, rafts, barn doors, practically anything buoyant—on
missions across the city to rescue the many trapped in the upper stories of homes in the worst-hit
parts of Sacramento.
Figure 18: People found all means of floating transportation in the days, weeks, and months of flooding across the Pacific Slope.
“Sacramento during the flood. 1
st
Street (Front Street), south from I Street, #19.” California History Room
115 Jesse T. Peck, “The Great Flood in California.,” Christian Advocate and Journal, 1833-1865, Chicago, January
30, 1862.
116 Jesse T. Peck, “The Great Flood in California.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, January
30, 1862; The Great California Flood: Hundreds of Chinamen Drowned,” New - York Daily Tribune (1842-1866);
New York, N.Y., January 14, 1862
158
To the west and south of the capital, the floods continued to spread their devastation
towards the Bay. In Yolo County to the west of the capital city, the advancing flood carried off
ancient Indian mounds that had survived countless floods and had stood for so long that they were
topped with massive oaks. The floods leveled them, trees and all. Scattered along the course of the
current were numberless skulls and other bones that protruded from the mud.
117
Almost all of Yolo
County was submerged by the river and the “rush of water from the coast mountains.” The depth
of water in the tules west of the capital rose to fifteen feet. The river deposited there huge masses
of sediment.
The floodwaters surged as they pushed towards the Bay. At Main Landing at the head of
Cache Slough in Solano County, the floodwaters stood ten feet above the ground and eighteen feet
above the low water mark.
118
The floods consumed a twenty-five-year-old adobe house in Solano
County, thought to have been built safely above the flood line. The Sacramento River rose two
feet over its banks at Washington and three feet above its bank at Rio Vista fifteen miles downriver.
The water there would eventually rise to eight feet. The entire town was washed away.
119
Another
mile above Collins’ Landing, the water stood over four feet above the marsh.
The floodwaters stood two and one-half feet above the marshes around Suisan City—nine
or ten feet above low water. The floodwaters “did not rise more than six inches above the marsh”
at the “highest of tides” in the islands of Suisan Bay. The islands themselves were crowded with
cattle who “continued on them all winter without the least inconvenience” and “have been doing
all the time exceedingly well.” Similarly, on the swamplands north of Suisan Bay, roughly one
117 Appendix to Journals, 1862, p 43.
118 From Fairfield in Solano County, Surveyor John Peabody on Dec 10 1862; California et al., “Journal of the Senate
and Assembly,” Journal of the Senate and Assembly, 1863; California, Legislature, and Assembly, Appendix to
Journals of Senate and Assembly of the ... Session of the Legislature of the State of California., 1862.
119 From Fairfield in Solano County, Surveyor John Peabody on Dec 10 1862; California et al., “Journal of the Senate
and Assembly,” Journal of the Senate and Assembly, 1863; California, Legislature, and Assembly, Appendix to
Journals of Senate and Assembly of the ... Session of the Legislature of the State of California., 1862;
159
mile down from Collins’ Landings, “with no floating islands to flee to,” a pack of savvy hogs
found refuge throughout the winter. The Sacramento rose eight feet and there was almost no
current where the decline of the river married the horizontal of the Bay, though the river raged
above.
From San Francisco, Isabelle Saxon saw the “entire coast, from the Sierra Nevada to
within a mile or two of the Pacific Ocean, appeared one entire and vast lake, diversified here and
there by straggling tree-tops and piles of drift-wood, with floating relics of once-prosperous
homesteads and thriving farms.”
120
To the north of the Bay, the Russian River flooded,
swamping everything in its path. A fifty-year-old sun-dried brick house there, long safely
perched above all previously known highwater marks along the Russian was washed away. An
overflowing Santa Rosa Creek flooded Santa Rosa's town where the waters ran eighteen inches
deep through the streets.
Napa Valley overflowed, and parts of the town of Napa were leveled.
South of the Bay, San Jose likewise was entirely underwater.
121
At a nearby ranch, two sisters awaited the younger one’s husband's return but instead came
the flood and news of his drowning. The river rose up around their house. Their only boat was far
too small to carry them all, so the younger woman put her sister and the two kids in the boat, and
their servant rowed them to safety while the younger sister continued to await her husband’s return.
The older sister and her children made it to the high ground, but by the time the man returned with
the boat, the young woman was gone. Days later, aboard a steamboat bound down to San
120 The rain “poured in a deluge without intermission for ten weeks!...Rain in the valleys and snow in the
mountains…Whole towns were swept away. Scarcely a village in the entire district of the Southern mines remained.
In the capital…was repeatedly submerged, the water so deep in the streets that all who ventured to remain were
driven to the third stories of brick dwellings, and were seen issuing from the buildings in boats.” Isabelle Saxon,
Five Years within the Golden gate, 1868, 120.
121 “The Flood in California”, The State Republican. (Eugene City, Or.) 1862-1863, January 11, 1862, Image 4,” no.
1862/01/11 (January 11, 1862), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83025130/1862-01-11/ed-1/seq-4/. “The
Winter of 1861-1862” compiled by the Staff, Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly, Vol IV No I, November
1958, 14-19.
160
Francisco, a “mournful group” gathered—the older sister and her children and a broken-hearted
man, the younger sister’s new husband who—considering the rumors of his demise—ostensibly
returned from the dead “ruined in worldly wealth” and “his last treasure swept from him by the
ruthless element.”
122
As the winter wore on, floodwaters and debris backed up at the Carquinez Strait near
Benicia before coursing out through the golden gate. So boisterous was the current, and so
voluminous the outburst of fresh water into San Francisco Bay, that the sea level there rose half a
foot with water stretching for miles in all directions from the mouth of the bay.
123
The bay became
a vast shadowy lake vomiting a plume of black for fifteen miles out into the Pacific. The bay's
tides ceased, and no sea craft could enter the harbor against the outpouring save the most potent
streamers. The captain of the clipper Prima Donna, which had barely survived four turbulent days
at sea trying to enter the Golden Gate, noticed a meter of fresh water covering the surface of the
bay as he passed by the devilish teeth of the Farallon Islands, those islands of the dead, thirty miles
out from the Bay. There too, he saw incredible carpets of what he thought was kelp that the storms’
currents had pushed north up from the great lakes of central and southern California.
The incredible flow of sand and mud changed San Francisco Bay. Sediments clouded the
water, limiting the light that could reach the Bay floor and suffocated life on the rocky bottoms.
124
122 Isabelle Saxon, Five years within the Golden gate, 1868, 121.
123 “Democratic Sentiment.: Resolutions Adopted Unanimously by the Conventions of Cass and Macomb Counties.
Cass County Resolution. Macomb County Resolutions. The Army--The President--The Soldiers--Gen. McClellan,
Greeley, Senator Chandler, &c. The Great Floods in California. What Buckner Says of Floyd and Pillow.,” Detroit
Free Press (1858-1922); Detroit, Mich., March 5, 1862.
124 Marine Biologist Joel Hedgpeth considers the winter of 1862 the “holocaust for San Francisco Bay.” “All this
fresh water was very bad for the estuarine species adapted to a mixture of sea and river water. The native oyster,
which prefers high salinities, was nearly exterminated. But this impact created the opportunities for new species
even as it wiped out others. The years when human beings changed the bay most profoundly were also the golden
years for California’s oyster industry…the hydraulic gold mines, the flood of 1862, and sewage all contributed to
making San Francisco Bay a paradise for Atlantic oysters in the later half of the nineteenth century.” From Matthew
Booker, “San Francisco Bay’s Immigrant Osters, 1860’s-1920’s: How they got there, why they disappeared, and
why this history matters,” University of Oregon Environmental Studies Program Distinguished Speaker Series,
Inaugural Lecture, April 11, 2007.
161
Anglers pulled freshwater fish out of the bay for three months. No saltwater fish could be found
in the bay, and the oysters “like good men, died in their beds.”
For days a thick fog blanketed the Central Valley, making it impossible for the people to
dry out. Few had changes of dry clothes, and the demand for socks and shoes and clothing was
desperate.
125
Water levels in Sacramento were up to twelve feet in places.
126
The floodwaters in
the lower part of the city had grown so deep they lifted almost all the houses along Fifth and Sixth
streets. Some shifted, others turned over. Still others wandered off drunkenly. From many of these
houses, women stood at doors and windows, calling out for help. The steamboat Swallow smashed
itself against the pier trying to thread its way through the drawbridge, staving in its hull and gravely
injuring Elizabeth Neat and Mrs. M. Wyer.
Figure 19: Many of the images were likely taken during Leland Stanford’s inauguration as California governor. “Sacramento
during the flood K street east from 4
th
St.” neg no 22513, California Historical Society
By late evening, the water level on either side of the R Street levee found equilibrium. The
125 George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862
126 “About twenty thousand dollars have been subscribed here for the relief of the sufferers at Sacramento…,” From
the Hartford Daily Courant on December 16, 1861; San Francisco, Dec, 13, 1861.
162
backflow filled the city at a higher level than any reached to that point, drowning buildings and
livestock and people across the city. Boats continued to shuttle passengers between the few hotels
and restaurants that had working kitchens, provisions, and dry fuel to cook and feed the growing
number of refugees.
The roads in and out of Sutterville and Camp Union to the southwest of the capitol were
impassable. Across the river from Sutterville on the old race, Camp Union was a training ground
for the 5
th
Infantry Regiment of the California Volunteers under Brevet Brigadier General George
W. Bowie. It supplied the Union with troops for Western camps, especially in Arizona, New
Mexico, and Texas throughout the Civil War. One-third of the state’s 15,000 soldiers trained there.
The rising waters forced the entire camp to evacuate before both Sutterville and Union were
overwhelmed. The troops though, “aided the flood-stricken” capitol.
127
At nightfall, the water level of the river in the city was over twenty feet.
128
Peck opened
his upper floors to his neighbors. He describes the somber mood among the huddled survivors as
they waited in dread for the rivers to pull them in too:
“It is night. The moon shines softly upon the sea of ruin around us. The water rises.
With our neighbors gathered in our little chamber we sit thoughtful and sad. What
distress in the city! How many have lost their all! How many who yesterday lived
in happiness and fancied security must go forth when the waters are assuaged
houseless and homeless to battle with poverty and diseases! Many it is feared, will
be called suddenly into eternity. Half-past eight o’clock. The water is now one foot
higher in my hall than at four o’clock. It is four feet and three inches and seems to
be climbing up after us. I have never experienced such a night…. In the night our
strong brick house cracked and settled, loud explosions following each other in
rapid succession, but we trusted in God and suffered no harm.”
129
127 After the Big Winter, Camp Union was reestablished across the river at what is currently the intersection of
Sutterville Road and Land Park Drive, next to the Sacramento Zoo, Encyclopedia of Historic Forts: The Military,
Pioneer, and Trading Posts of the United States
128 Calling out for boats “which were for a time scarce, and for a little while it seemed as though many lives must be
inevitably lost. All the boats at the levee were soon brought into requisition for the purpose of rescuing them, and
they were removed to places of safety;” Receded 1-2 inches by 10 pm that night
129 Jesse T. Peck, “The Great Flood in California.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, January
30, 1862.
163
Despite the devastation and ongoing storm, the “mercurial temperament” of the Sacramentans was
“witnessed during this anxious time. Boating and rowing parties formed for “moonlight
excursions.” Strains of music could be heard echoing over the waters and through the darkness
whenever there was an hour or two break in the rains. Some invited friends in the Bay to come
“participate in these enjoyments.” Full brass bands and choruses of “powerful throats” from under
“your window or your neighbor’s.” The singers and musicians would serenade the houses like
Christmas carolers, waiting to be shown a light from within the dwelling before moving on to the
next.
130
130 Isabelle Saxon, Five years within the Golden gate, 1868, 121.
164
Figure 20: Most of the houses in Sacramento that survived the highwater, still remained unsafe to live in. “Sacramento during the
flood. View taken from Mr. Hamberger’s residence on N St., between 4
th
and 5
th”
Bancroft Library.
The rains slowed though they did not cease as the weather was “still in the keeping of
Morpheus.” As the American River receded, the Sacramento rose, spreading “great fear” that the
flooding might actually grow worse. But the threat passed for the time being. On the 12
th
of the
month, the rain returned, though it fell more lightly and the high waters continued their slow
retreat, further revealing the desolation. The floods had ebbed enough to open short spans of the
two main streets. Seven gaps, each between sixty and three-hundred-fifty feet, punctuated the R
Street levee between First and Fifteenth Streets and from Sixteenth to Thirty-first were countless
165
more holes bled out the city, the rampart a broken smile. These breaches in the bulwark and the
damage to the trestle bridge at Seventeenth and Eighteenth prevented the train cars from running
the ridge into the city. There too along Ninth between B and K Streets, amid some of the most
tremendous damage anywhere in the city, drifted the corpses of fifteen horses.
131
Where the “first fury of the flood was spent” spread a post-apocalyptic landscape pocked
with “scores of capsized houses” leaning awkwardly against trees and toppling over other derelict
dwellings. Here and there, mammoth piles of stray lumber and shattered wood reached out from
beneath the murky depths and floating about everywhere the carcasses of cattle, horses, and swine
further disfiguring the general wreck. Figuring the worst of the winter had passed them, people
across the Slope began to dig out amidst the slop and mire. Boats and rafts, filled with people,
spread out across the disasterscape, in rummaging for salvageable household effects. Houses were
still rising from their foundations and floating away. Reverend Peck described the diluvian scene:
“Thank God the waters have abated…. The ruin is everywhere. Our poor neighbors
are moving in boats, and wading to get to their houses, and trying to draw their beds
and clothes out of the water…a large number of houses, some two stories, have
been borne down by the current into the river. Some are said to have gone with
precious freight of human life—voices were heard calling for help but in vain. The
wife of one of my nearest neighbors stood in water for three hours before her
husband could get a boat to relieve her…. You can judge of the state of my home
when I inform you that I have with my own hands removed tons of mud from the
floors below, and by the help of a strong man two days, with all the exertions of my
wife and little daughter, we are now, Friday morning, only in a tolerable, but by no
means comfortable condition.”
132
131 “The first, on Fifth-street, 100 feet; second, at Sixth, 200 feet; third near Eighth, 350 feet; fourth, at Tenth, 60 feet;
fifteen at twelfth, 90 feet; sixth at Thirteenth, 100 feet; seventh at Fifteenth, 160 feet.” From “The Great California
Flood: Hundreds of Chinamen Drowned,” New - York Daily Tribune (1842-1866); New York, N.Y., January 14,
1862; “One of the more densely populated areas of the state, the capital city of Sacramento was particularly hard hit.
The peak flow of the American River pushed more than 260,000 cubic feet of floodwaters per second.” “The Great
California Flood: Hundreds of Chinamen Drowned,” New - York Daily Tribune (1842-1866); New York, N.Y.,
January 14, 1862; also appeared in “The Great California Flood—Hundreds of Chinamen Drowned.,” The
Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio, January 17, 1862; The Sacramento press predict the loss
of property—mostly in losses of buildings, household furniture, and wood—at over a million dollars.
132 Jesse T. Peck, “The Great Flood in California.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, January
30, 1862; The Great California Flood: Hundreds of Chinamen Drowned,” New - York Daily Tribune (1842-1866);
New York, N.Y., January 14, 1862.
166
On December 13
th
, the rains returned. Across the foothills of the Sierra, the warm heavy
rains melted snow. Even at higher elevations, the snow had stopped falling, and instead, rain fell
everywhere.
133
Across Central California, river channels that had just begun to recede were
billowing once more. The Trinity River made its second record rise of that season. The Sacramento
River rose to twenty-two feet above its low water mark was inundated again, and Sacramento City
was again “subjected to suffering and damage” from the deepest most destructive flood of those
to which she has been exposed.” The highest waters came with the “rapidity of a hurricane” and
the high tide of the American River burst into valley in “one great wave” as if conjured by a sudden
and violent “bursting of the walls of an immense reservoir.” This time the water just came over
the levee. California’s capital city was again underwater. Unlike the first wave, the second flood
came in the darkness of night:
It was announced by alarm bells, which threw the people into the utmost
consternation. The streetlamps gave no light. Men, women, and children rushed
into the streets to tread upon the upturned sidewalks or plunge into mud or water.
Hundreds found their way to the Pavilion, and many, with lanterns dimly
glimmering in the thick darkness, groped their way toward the oncoming flood, to
ascertain, if possible, the extent of the danger. In the good providence of God parts
of two or three streets were left for man and beast to stand upon.
134
The waters herded wayward homes—some of them two stories—through the recently carved gaps
in the levee on R Street. Houses that had survived the first great flood and all their contents were
scattered about the city or pulled down river towards the ruins of Sutterville, and beyond. The
currents in the river moved so powerfully that when two “rafting buildings” collided, “which
happened often,” they would crumple and fall into “the boiling flood as is if built of paper.”
135
By
133 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 138, 12 December 1861 –“The Flood in the Country” CDNC
134 Rev Jesse T. Peck, “Fourth Flood in Sacramento.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, March
6, 1862.
135 “The Flood in California”, The State Republican. (Eugene City, Or.) 1862-1863, January 11, 1862, Image 4,” no.
1862/01/11 (January 11, 1862), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83025130/1862-01-11/ed-1/seq-4/.
167
the 14
th
, the cities of Sacramento, Stockton, and Marysville were fully inundated.
the morning brought relief from the undefined terror of the night. Again, as the
waters slowly retire, the good people began to restore order in their almost ruined
homes.
136
The constellation of settlements around the Central Valley—Santa Rosa, Auburn, Sonora, Nevada,
Napa, “not to speak of less important towns” were once again, all at least partially underwater.
137
Figure 21: Those who had access to secure second floors stayed there but were isolated and had to be resupplied by the network
of steamers. “Sacramento City During the Great Flood of 1862. No. 31. View North from R Street Levee.” Sacramento Co.:
Sacramento: Lawrence & Houseworth, #31; stereo 1495, California State Library, Picture Collection
South and east of the capitol, the scenes were as desolate. Mail communication ceased at
Hornitos, where all bridges and boats on the Merced River were washed away, quartz and flour
mills destroyed. At Snelling, the flood washed off Hall’s Hotel, where the river shifted its bed, and
the current ran through where the Hotel once stood. The losses across the county were “immense”
136 Rev Jesse T. Peck, “Fourth Flood in Sacramento.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, March
6, 1862.
137 Letters from Antonio Diaz Peña January 28, 1862, Letter from George Kearsing “The Great Floods in California,”
The Globe (1844-1936); Toronto, Ont., February 7, 1862.
168
as the “flood gates of heaven” were opened.
138
The rich lost a “large portion” of their property.
The poor lost it all.
139
The storms continued to rage, and within forty-eight hours the third flood came on, higher
and more destructive than the second. The “sufferings of the people beggar description.” Hundreds
across the city again crowded into riverboats and “escaped with their lives.” The vast majority of
Sacramentans remained in the capital to “renew the struggle.” When the water levels had fallen
enough for Reverend Peck to reach his house, he grabbed a few essential things and moved them
to “two small rooms in a brick block over a store.” Peck called his family home from the Bay and
prepared as well as they could for “future contingencies.”
140
Constant rain continued across Southern Oregon and Northern and Central California,
which continued to be “entirely underwater.” The telegram was out. The roads were blocked. The
railroads had stopped operating, and it seemed the entire every settlement was cut off from each
other and the rest of the world. Pockets of survivors held out on the roof of buildings here and
there like islands as the storms continued to roll through.
Yuba and American Rivers and their branches, the floods were “more destructive” than
“ever before experienced,” with high waters in many places long “confidently” thought to be “far
above the danger from high water.” The Yuba’s rise at Downieville was as violent as it was sudden.
As the previous flood there had just subsided, the weekends’ heavy rains quickly brought the
streams up into the town again. The river swept away most of the houses in the Jersey Flat district,
and every home in Durgan’s Flat was gone along with every “bridge, flume, and woodwork of the
138 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
139 “The Great Flood In California.; Great Destruction of Property Damage $10,000,000.,” The New York Times,
January 21, 1862, sec. Archive, http://www.nytimes.com/1862/01/21/news/the-great-flood-in-california-great-
destruction-of-property-damage-10000000.html.
140 “The indomitable will of the Sacramentans rose above the power of disaster.” Rev Jesse T. Peck, “Fourth Flood in
Sacramento.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, March 6, 1862.
169
sort” in and around Downieville destroyed by the flood.
141
In Nevada County, every bridge on the South and Middle Yuba was wrecked. Bridges at
Freeman’s, Webber’s, Emery’s, and Illinois Bar were gone. The costly suspension bridge at
Washington was also gone. The “water played sad havoc” in Nevada City, the large flume that ran
from Kelsey’s Ravine to the Nevada City clogged up. The floodwaters surged back and engulfed
the lower floors of the buildings from the Main and Broad street bridges in the central block
fronting on Commercial Street and Main all the way to Cheap John’s corner, and “goods were
damaged materially.” The “fie flume” of J. B. Jeffery, across Deer Creek, was slurped away, and
D. Bovyer’s dams on Deer Creek for the Rough and Ready ditches were smashed out. The bridge
at Worrell’s Mill and the flume of Dixon & Co. were also destroyed. The North San Juan Ridge
routes were blocked.
The Middle Sacramento and Feather Rivers poured through the valleys. In Chico, the flood
came fast and spread wide. At Missouri Bend, near the mouth of Pine Creek, at least three thousand
cattle drowned, and houses and ranches “without number” were completely submerged. At
Bidwell’s Bar, the water was four feet higher than the great floods of the decade past. The deposit
of sand and sediment swept down by the water filled the Bar. Near Marysville, gravel covered all
of Bliven’s ranch save where the house stood, unscathed. Only a small number of livestock were
lost here. From Bliven’s ranch down to Honcut and around to the Feather to Marysville, the loss
was catastrophic as sheep, cattle, and hay were swept off in a “promiscuous wreck.” The
floodwaters left thick deposits of sand from a foot to six feet deep.
142
Still, the losses were less
than at the settlements on the Yuba.
143
In Yuba City, the flood covered the entire plain, save two
141 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 138, 12 December 1861, “The Flood in the Country,” CDNC
142 Peter DeLay, History of Yuba and Sutter Counties California with Biographical Sketches…,” Historic Record
Company, 1924, 100-101.
143 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 138, 12 December 1861, “The Flood in the Country,” CDNC
170
knolls that stood above the waterline where Indian Agent G. M. Hanson and ex-sheriff Mr.
Kennard had built their homesteads like tiny island fiefdoms. The waters undermined the “neat
and well build” Sutter County courthouse. Its walls bulged out over a foot and the frame was so
warped that the doors would not be open or close. A Colusa stage driver watched as the lakes went
over the levee and covered the entire town in water. The tule around Colusa was an “immense
lake” deeper than any settler had known. Every farmer and rancher there was “drowned out” or
fled with as much of their livestock as they could muster to the highlands at the foot of Sutter
Buttes. The destruction across Sutter County was immense. Every ranch in the vicinity was
underwater. It would take two days for the driver to make the trip from Colusa to Marysville. His
voyage required “all sorts of conveyances, as he found it necessary to ride, row, swim or wade.”
144
The floods “destroyed immense amounts of property.” The number of stock animals lost
in the valleys of the Sacramento, Feather, Yuba, and American Rivers was “fearfully great.” Many
lives were “sacrificed” when people were “so sure they were beyond the danger as to remain until”
it was “too late to escape.”
145
Figure 22: The Great Floods made both national and international news. From London Illustrated News, 1862.
144 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 138, 12 December 1861, “The Flood in the Country,” CDNC.
145 “The Flood in California”, The State Republican. (Eugene City, Or.) 1862-1863, January 11, 1862, Image 4,” no.
1862/01/11 (January 11, 1862), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83025130/1862-01-11/ed-1/seq-4/.
171
On the 15
th
of December, Howard Benevolent Society opened a hospital on Fourth Street,
between I and J. Under the direction of Doctors Harkness, Montgomery, and Frey, the hospital
cared for the countless sick, including entire families. I. S. Van Winkle of Sacramento allowed the
Society to use the upper floor of his brick house on Fourth Street for a hospital, “free of expense.”
Smallpox broke out in the city, and the Society set up a “pesthouse” and hired nurses to staff it.
There at least twenty-four cases in the capitol, and four people died from it. Much of the relief
efforts was applied to those suffering heartrending and appallingly “under the severest affliction
from disease.” The others remained under convalescing hospital care. The spread of this disease
has halted by great effort and at an expense of $950.” The “entire medical fraternity of the city
have responded to our calls and treated at least 150 patients.”
146
Doctors on the Pacific Slope during the nineteenth century were often also meteorologists.
Medical specialists have long explored the relationship between climate, weather, and health. They
looked to the environment and its manifestations as both cause and cure of many ailments.
147
Dr.
Frederick W. Hatch was a “weather watcher” in Sacramento. His office was on 7 Court from 1858-
1868. Dr. Hatch was also a professor of medicine at the University of California, the first president
of the City Board of Health in 1862 and remained a member for two decades. Hatch prided his
membership in the American Medical Association, consulted for the Sacramento Board of Health
and published studies on the region's meteorology and climate. His articles show a belief in
weather influencing or even inducing disease.
Samuel Howard Gerrish, another medical weatherman, recorded temperature reports in his
146 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 24, Number 3602, 14 October 1862, “Fifth Annual Report of the Sacramento
Benevolence Society.” George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862 The annual meeting of the Howard
Benevolent Society
147 Linda Lorraine Nash, Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge, California,
2006.
172
diary beginning January 1, 1860. He arrived in San Francisco in June of the same year. In October
of 1862, from Vallejo, California, he noted the purchase of a "Peregorie" thermometer. Gerrish
kept at least 52 volumes of diaries that, along with his daily activities, record the temperature three
times each day, along with comments about weather conditions like cloud coverage and rainfall
totals. Between 1861 and 1885, Gerrish maintained a scrapbook of newspaper excerpts on weather
observations and weather-related events, including one curious piece on eclipses, auroras, and
forecasting collision with comets.
Another of these west coast medical meteorologists was Dr. Thomas Logan. Among his
contributions to the development of medical science in the nineteenth century. But it’s primarily
been Logan’s work that has been key to understanding the extent and power of the storms of 1862.
His observations and data collected in diaries and journals and meteorological and climatological
studies contributed to developing the understanding of atmospheric rivers. Born in Charleston,
South Carolina in 1808, Dr. Thomas Muldrup Logan was the son and grandson of trained
physicians. He studied and practiced medicine in Charleston before continuing his training in Paris
and London, where he treated the first outbreaks of "Asiatic cholera." He published an article in
1836 titled: "The Climate and Health of Charleston," where he investigated the relationships
between climate and mortality. He called his hometown a "salubrious city," even though its
environment was related to influenza, yellow fever, and malaria. He relocated to New Orleans,
where he worked at Charity Hospital for a short time before sailing to San Francisco and eventually
to Coloma and the Mother Lode for his bout with gold fever. His time mining was short-lived, and
in August of 1850, he moved to Sacramento and resumed his medical practice. Logan survived the
floods of 1850 and the outbreaks of typhoid, encephalitis, and dysentery that followed. A cholera
epidemic hit that fall too, and in a little over two weeks, roughly one thousand Sacramentans died,
173
including seventeen doctors. Logan treated patients throughout.
Dr. Logan’s recorded daily observations are some of the earliest systematic gatherings of
meteorological data in the American West and maintained some of the Pacific coast's earliest
mortality data [along with Spanish Missions and Hudson’s Bay Co. record]. With the weather
instruments he brought from the Smithsonian Institution, Logan began his daily weather
observations of the Sacramento Valley, measuring precipitation, temperature, and humidity, key
to his climatological, metrological, and necrological data collecting. Describing the weather
instruments in January 1856, he used a J. L Gay-Lussac’s designed siphon tube style barometer
customized with a Parisian-built Bunton air trap. When Dr. Logan first arrived in Sacramento, he
had a conventional ship's barometer, though it may have ranged too low. He mounted it roughly
45 feet above sea level “as measured at San Francisco.” Logan also used an attached thermometer
on the barometer, a psychrometer for testing humidity, and an open-air thermometer he acquired
directly from James Green, one of the first significant makers of weather instruments in the United
States.
148
Doctor Thomas Logan set the baseline for his measurements for the level of the Sacramento
River at the lowest watermark he observed at spring tide in 1849. He set the river's mean depth at
“about thirteen feet below zero” and an average width of three hundred yards. Logan tracked and
visualized the Sacramento River as it rose and fell across the winter months of 1861-1862 when it
reached its highest level on record.
The second wave of storms continued to move down the Northern slope. Heavy rains and
high winds struck at intervals across Washington Territory. The overflowed waterways overflowed
148 Glen, Conner, "History of weather observations. Sacramento, California, 1849-1948," 2005.; Glen, Conner,
"History of weather observations. San Diego, California, 1849-1948,” 2006. Museum of History and Technology
(U.S.) and William Edgar Knowles Middleton, Catalog of Meteorological Instruments in the Museum of History
and Technology (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1969, 16.
174
had rendered every road impassable.
149
At Port Townsend at the mouth of Puget Sound, on the
fifteenth of December, after several consecutive days of near non-stop rain, James Swan wrote that
for twenty-four hours, the rains fell the hardest and “most constant of any day” so far that winter.
In Yamhill County, southwest of Portland, backwater from the Willamette pushed into the
Yamhill basin. The flood rose to the eaves of Wolfe’s warehouse at Lafayette and “took off”
Williams & Lippincott’s store and most of Dayton's buildings. The floods obliterated Lafayette
bridge, Watt bridge, Haun(?) bridge, and the North Yamhill bridge, and nearly every fence and
farm between Lafayette and McMinville as it did almost every bridge on the North Yamhill River.
Hannah’s dwelling-house on the opposite shore of Dayton's town began to float away but had been
secured and so stayed on its farm.
150
Much of the debris barreling down river lodged itself on Rock Island backed the
floodwaters, causing high waters upriver. It also saved Oregon City from destruction. If not for
Rock Island, the Oregon City Argus Office would have been “located somewhere about Astoria,”
predicted one of their reporters. The two upper floors of the Chapman’s lost Oregon City’s Island
Mill were found up Abernathy Creek with all the machinery they housed. The warehouse was also
discovered, along with a large amount of flour, though the river had carried it several miles, before
abandoning it on Sauvie Island in the Columbia River.
151
The storms continued to rage across southern Oregon and Northern California. Above
Weitchpec, at the mouth of the Salmon River on the Klamath where the river narrows, the water
rose forty-two feet above the wire bridge there that was ninety-feet high above the stream below,
149 “The Courts,” “Washington Territory” Sacramento Daily Union 21, January 1862
150 “All the bridges on North Yamhill, except Chuck Smith’s, are gone.”
151 University of Oregon Library Knight, The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 21, 1861,
Image 2,” no. 1861/12/21, December 21, 1861, https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83025129/1861-12-21/ed-
1/seq-2/.
175
adding up to one-hundred-and-thirty-two feet above low water. The highwater left marks on trees
above the bridge.
152
Gigantic landslides swept down all along the Klamath River Valley, especially
on the steep banks between Scott River and Orleans Bar. The mountainsides began “crawling”
with boulders and trees and moving “immense bodies of earth.” Travel through the mountain and
foothills was “exceedingly dangerous,” especially for the footmen who attempted to keep
delivering the mail to Orleans Bar and Happy Camp. The slides also generated anticipation and
“great expectations” among miners for the new diggings. The mass movement of earth “opened
places where the ground has every appearance of being rich.”
153
In southern Oregon along the Rogue River above White’s Bridge, “every man living” was
“more or less injured, some irreparably.” The river passed through Rainey’s ranch ten miles above
Pelton’s ferry, it widened considerably, cutting a new channel through the “best part of his farm”
and covered the remainder in gravel and sand. The water rose to four feet in Rainey’s barn. It
uprooted the giant pines near the barn—more than two hundred years old and “bearing no trace of
ever before having been reached by the water of the river” and swifted away downstream. Every
farm there suffered—like Cock’s ranch, and Armstrong and Haley’s farm were severely damaged,
sand burying their fields and their fences carried off to who knows where. The river ripped a new
channel through J.M. Wagner’s field, washing away or burying his soil, and so damaged his farm
he abandoned it. Dr. Riddle lost several thousand fence rails, half his orchard, forty bushels of
potatoes, and large amounts of vegetable. Near Riddle’s farm, “driftwood lodged against the
bank,” forming a partial dam that the blocked waters eventually smashed through the bank creating
a wide, deep stream there that looked to be as “perpetual as the river itself” as it tore through three
152 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
153 “This country will “no doubt be full of Chinamen next summer, washing over these new places with their
rockers.” Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
176
or four farms below.
154
While his family escaped in a skiff, the river devoured Pelton’s ferry boat,
all his buildings, with all of their contents—grain, hay, hogs, and other stock. Mr. Savage, who
ranched at the foot of Table Rock lost everything, though further below that, the damage was less
severe. Likewise, at the mouth of Sardine Creek on the Rogue, the highwater flooded a house there
forcing the family to abandon it. The overflow damaged every farm on the smaller streams north
of Rogue River. Throughout the valley, a “great many cattle and hogs” drowned.
155
Back in Sacramento, the Levee Committee’s men put down sidewalks and crossings
connecting to the Capitol. Still, the going was dangerous. At the low end of P Street, a young
woman was trying to move from one boat to another when she fell and sank below the water. Her
companions seemed helpless to save her. A man named Gardner “plunged into the cold element”
and brought her back to the safety of the sidewalk. She would have drowned but for his opportune
timing. The water in the Sacramento River was twenty-one feet eight inches and rising, though
slowly. The American meanwhile, ran very high. The city, north of L street, remained above the
rising water for the time being.
154 “The larger part of Nye’s and Mattoon’s rails, whose farms were well fenced, were carried away. Mr. Wrisley’s
principal loss was in rails, which he estimated at twenty thousand. Bybee and Brotherton lost a great many rails and
suffered considerable damage… Farther down the river, Mr. Hewes suffered severely in the loss of rails and in the
soil of his farm.”
155 from Table Rock, December 21, 1861; “Floods—Great Destruction of Property,” Oregon Sentinel. (Jacksonville,
Or.) 1858-1888, December 28, 1861, Image 3, December 28, 1861.
177
Figure 23: The streets of California’s capitol were flooded for months. “L Street, looking east from the Levee, on the banks of the
Sacramento River. #30.” California History Room.
Howard’s relief boats continued to patrol the “submerged district” for twenty miles above
and below Sacramento. The Howard Society scout boats scoured the valley's flooded districts,
seeking out those stranded and families who had lost everything. They found many in “extreme
poverty” and “absolute want.” The rescue boats then brought the refugees to Sacramento. From
there some took made by steamboat to San Francisco.”
156
156 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
178
Figure 24: The Street Ferry Boats were critical to daily life in Sacramento. Scene here likely on Stanford’s inauguration day. “M
Street, east from Sixth Street, showing the Street Ferry Boats. #17.” California History Room
The Howard Benevolent Society continued distributing food, medicine, and supplies to what
seemed an unending parade of the ill and destitute. For countless nights and says, volunteers threw
themselves at the daunting task Howard Society members worked “so long as a single-family
needed assistance.” President Mowe boasted that his Society workers were discouraged by no
horrors or dangers of their missions. They “grappled with diseases and destitution in every form.”
They were most often successful, performing “almost miracles,” as the relatively low number of
deaths in Sacramento indicates. “Success generally crowned their efforts.”
157
Mowe would also
praise the “fraternal affection” of the “noble, ardent,” “self-sacrificing” people of San Francisco
for their contributions to the relief effort. Without their “readiness to aid any and all who are in
157 “Flood Anniversary,” Sacramento Daily Union, Vol 24, number 3656, 9 December 1862.
179
distress,” according to Mowe, the “great emergency” and the “amount of human suffering” would
have been “ten-fold greater.”
158
In the Bay on December 17
th
, storms prevailed. The steamers arrived one after another
thronged with survivors from the interior. The city opened the largest hall in San Francisco for the
refugees—the building could hold two thousand. City residents donated bedding, clothing, and
food “in abundance for the sufferers who flocked there.” Leading ladies and prominent gentlemen
of the Bay waited tables and showed “every respect” to make the refugees feel “as little as possible
that they were recipients of charity.” While rain sprinkled outside, inside the Music Hall, and the
Chess Room of the Mercantile Library women were busy sewing clothing for the survivors. The
“colored citizens” met that night to adopt measures to contribute to the relief effort.
159
[implying
that people of color—presumable Black Americans, were on their own, even if together] San
Franciscans contributed forty to fifty thousand dollars to the Howard Benevolent Society of
Sacramento to be redistributed to the needy in the valleys.
160
San Francisco and its immediate surroundings also struggled with high water. Survivors in
that city also spent days and nights on the roofs of their sunken houses “exhausted with cold, wet,
and hunger till rescue came or they fell into the water and were drowned.” One mother’s numbed
arms dropped her baby into the water three times. Another mother survived the night but had no
idea where her husband and newborn were.
161
But as each rainy day passed, the number of those in need of “public benevolence”
swelled.
162
Individual heroism, rugged collectivism, generosity, donations, support, and succor
158 George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862
159 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume IV, Number 143, ? December 1862 – San Francisco News. “More Aid for
Sacramento—Masonic Election—Postal Appointments--…”
160 Saxon, Five years within the Golden gate, 1868, 125.
161 “Fearful indeed was the misery I witnessed, and the devastation occasioned by that three months’ deluge.” Isabelle
Saxon, Five years within the Golden gate, 1868, 124.
162 “Flood Anniversary,” Sacramento Daily Union, Vol 24, number 3656, 9 December 1862.
180
from citizens, churches, strangers, and friends, was still not enough to offset the devastating losses
and suffering generated by the overlapping disasters of the winter of 1862. The President of the
Howard Benevolent Society proposed a political movement to move the Legislature to “grant the
Supervisors of San Francisco power to appropriate” money to “meet the crisis.” The Legislature
had the power and the imperiled welfare of the State's peoples to “take action” and use its
constitutional authority to “grant state aid.”
163
163 “News of a great food in Oregon carrying away whole villages and destroying an immense amount of property.”
Also reports of deaths: Nancy Davis was found dead in her bed on the 12th, A man named Wilson shot his wife to
death on the 13th, cornet player Herman Schroeder died. Langley, San Francisco Directory, 1862, San Francisco
Public Library, 24.
181
PART 2: December 1861– February 1862
Towards the end of the year, a new wave of storms swept across British Columbia,
Washington, and Oregon. Across southwestern Canada, “many warm heavy rains” “inundated the
whole country” and swept away “bridges, mills, hay wheat, cattle, and whole towns.
164
The
damage caused by the floods was extensive in Victoria, British Columbia where the overflows
carried away “bridges, farm-houses, hulls, and drowned great quantities of stock.”
165
At Port
Townsend, Swan witnessed livestock—some Makah Indians caught a live pig—and other
smattering of debris washing ashore on the morning of December 18
th
. The same day, the weather
turned and the “cold was unusual.”
166
From British Columbia to Central California inland the
Pacific Slope went from flooded to frozen over. A prolonged series of cold snaps, driving
snowstorms, and freezing rain, with intermittent hail showers swept across the northern Slope from
the coast to the Columbia Plateau.
By the 20
th
, the rains tailed off and the cold worsened. Ice one-quarter-of-inch thick
covered many of the waterways around Puget Sound. The Makah began bringing in even larger
quantities of “drift stuff” consisting primarily of portions of frame buildings, mill gear, sawlogs
and lumber. White Jim and his father recovered a log of Redwood as cedar, fir and spruce were
abundant.
167
By the 22
nd
, snow began to fall at Fort Vancouver. Across the Columbia in Oregon,
the damage from the floods was still extensive when the cold arrived. Along the Willamette, the
hardships would deepen as the temperatures dropped. The floods had destroyed significant
quantities of grain. Most of the frame-houses in Oregon City were gone, for example, and the water
164 Writing from Olympia, Puget Sound January 22, 1862 to her “Dear Mother and Lizzie”
165 “British Columbia: Letter from a Canadian in Victoria the Latest Loss of Cattle the Prospect for Farmers
Emigrating to British Columbia the Prospects Ahead,” The Globe (1844-1936); Toronto, Ont., April 8, 1862.
166 Bancroft and Victor. History of Oregon...1848-1888 (V.2 of History of OR; Vol. XXX, The Works of Hubert
Howe Bancroft). 1888, 483- 484.
167 Swan Diary 5, 1861-1862.
182
still ran four feet deep through the town. The steamship Rival, the same ship that broke the fear of
the Willamette Falls during the winter’s first flood, had an accident when it finally broke a crank
while charging up the river.
168
The weather moderated slightly, but the snow remained. Light rains
continued to fall lessened, but by Christmas Eve, the weather turned deadly cold transforming
showers into sleet and sleet into snow.
169
Several inches of snow fell and lasted through the week,
the air growing colder until Thursday when the weather turned “almost artic,” and the snow began
to “fall merrily. Frozen snow covered the ground. By the end of the year, the conditions had killed
over half the livestock in the Willamette Valley, and those that survived were starving. Survivors
in Champoeg accused some local Métis of looting the surviving buildings.
170
At the Siletz Reservation, multiple Native groups struggled through the worsening winter
weather. Some occupied the agency's storehouse in defiance of the agency office. A detachment
of troops from Ft. Hoskins marched on Stiletz in retaliation. A messenger was sent to Captain Scott
at Fort Yamhill to request additional soldiers to put down the uprising. Scott sent thirteen men
from his command.
171
168 “Flood in Oregon,” Hartford Daily Courant (1840-1887); Hartford, Conn., December 24, 1861. University of
Oregon Library Knight, “The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 21, 1861, Image 2,” no.
1861/12/21 (December 21, 1861), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83025129/1861-12-21/ed-1/seq-2/.
169 The Great California Flood: Hundreds of Chinamen Drowned,” New - York Daily Tribune (1842-1866); New
York, N.Y., January 14, 1862; also appeared in “The Great California Flood—Hundreds of Chinamen Drowned.,”
The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio, January 17, 1862; Jesse T. Peck, “The Great Flood in
California.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, January 30, 1862. Also appears in Detroit Free
Press on February 7, 1862, though with some edits; “Graphic Account of the Great Flood in California,” Detroit
Free Press (1858-1922); Detroit, Mich., February 7, 1862.Hubert Howe Bancroft, Bancroft’s Works: History of
Oregon Vol. 2, The History Company Publishers, 1888, 483-484; Secrest, William B. Jr. and William B. Secrest Sr.
California Disasters 1800-1900, Quill Driver Books, 2006.
170 The memoir also reveals some of the casual racism towards mixed Indigenous peoples. Maty Higley Hopkins
remembered that “Whether the half-breed Indians had looted the place of the goods and things on the shelves, we
never knew.” Higley also lamented the fabric they salvaged, noting that “mother washed the bolt of woolen
plaid…she made each of us girls dresses and petticoats. Oh! How we hate this ugly big plaid with its stripes of
brown, black and green…we damned the big ugly plaid…we felt as if we were dressed for a mascaraed…Five years
later I was still wearing a petticoat made of this material.” Mary Higley Hopkins, Oregon Historical Society.
171 University of Oregon Library Knight, “The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 28, 1861,
Image 2,” no. 1861/12/28 (December 28, 1861), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83025129/1861-12-28/ed-
1/seq-2/.
183
While the Northern half of the Slope froze and was buried in snow, the southern half
continued to be deluged. Christmas day gifted fair weather and a “hope of better times," but the
next day and every day for weeks after, torrents of rain dashed those hopes. Across California, the
rains again came heavy on the and would last until the 23
rd
of January with few pauses. The storms
broke with great intensity as “torrents of water were precipitated on the earth—it seemed as if the
clouds had broken through, and the waters over the earth and waters under the earth were coming
into conjunction.”
172
The onslaught flushed down the Sierra Nevada, again inundating the Central Valley's
battered cities for a third time that winter. The heavy stream flows teemed down the mountains,
flooding Downieville, San Juan, and Grass Valley to the northeast of Sacramento, Oroville to the
north, cutting off communication between the settlements and wiping away bridges and houses.
The mining fields at Long Bar, Ousley’s, and Grand Flat were again underwater. In Nevada
County, the “severe storm” flooded Deer Creek and South Yuba to “nearly the height attained two
weeks ago.” John S. Morris and his span of horses were overwhelmed in a slough near Prairie
Town when they crossed back over where they just came. Morris survived by swimming out, but
the horses drowned.
173
The overflowing Feather poured into the rising Yuba and overflowed across the lowlands.
The Yuba reached its most significant height of the third flood on 23
rd
and 24
th
though this was
lower than its highwater mark of the December 9
th
floods. Again, the Yuba river had backed up so
dangerously into the slough it threatened everything in Marysville below E-street. The floodwaters
poured into the city as E and covered the slough up to Fourth Street. The water level rose to four
to five feet within the mark of the last flood. As the floodwater poured through the valley, the Yuba
172 “two slight interruptions,” The Los Angeles Star, “The Rains”, January 4, 1862.
173 Daily Alta California, Volume 13, Number 4330, 27 December 1861, “The Second Flood of 1861”; CDNC
184
began to recede, though it stayed high at Marysville. Fortunately, the townsfolk were better
prepared for this wave of flooding after the “late disastrous one.”
174
The rain continued to pour down in elongated sheets. By nightfall, a shroud of water draped
down from the slough above Third street to the Yuba river. Peeking out here and there were
archipelagos of rooftops, where survivors watched through the night in terror as felon winds
bestirred the remorseless flurry.
175
A “tremendous crash” at sunrise on Monday announced the collapse of J. K. Eaton’s store
on the Plaza in Marysville, the floodwaters having undercut the building’s foundation, as they
continued to rise engulfing everything on that side of the city. The Eaton family lived above the
store and with nothing but their nightclothes, fled for the Merchant’s Hotel around the corner. Still,
their sanctuary was short-lived as minutes after they arrived at the hotel, that building’s floors
groaned and gave way, and the cellar supports collapsed and the waters tore through the bowels of
the hotel. Most everyone in the hotel was still in bed and awoke to the horror of the building
collapsing around them. They rushed out into the early morning in their nightclothes and
barefooted into the rain and mud and rising waters. Around them, other brick buildings began to
tumble down. Behind Merchants Row, a brick storehouse fell with a booming applause of
clattering bricks. The interiors of all the stores on the upper side from First street and on around
the corner to Lennox & Elwell’s on the Plaza toppled one by one.
At daybreak, the stretch of town above A Street and along the slough was awash, and the
water continued to rise all morning, immersing house after house and sending off the smaller
abodes off towards the Yuba. Marysville was underwater, and the plains to the south towards Eliza
was “one sheet of water.” The lake was peppered with trees, roofs of houses, floating animals, and
174 Daily Alta California, Volume 13, Number 4330, 27 December 1861 – The Second Flood of 1861”; CDNC
175 From the Marysville Appeal, 14-Jan-1862
185
wrecks of property of every type.” To the west, “one vast water level” stretched over a submerged
Yuba City and beyond. Broad streams poured down from the north, cutting across the plains,
“swiftly coursing toward the great sheet of water” that married the Yuba and Feather rivers. Every
bridge on the main Yuba and the South Yuba disappeared into the floodtide save one at Simpson’s.
Marysville merchants R. E. Brewster, L.H. Babb, Lennox & Elwell, J.L. Eaton, lost most of their
inventories.
From Marysville, floodwaters spread in every direction. The farmers and ranchers of the
surrounding valleys lost nearly all their livestock and crop harvest. The third wave of floods
affected parts of the countryside that had escaped some of the previous storms' devastations.
Highwater continued to disrupt travel and telegraphic communication and enlarging the Central
Valley’s great lakes.
The Sacramento River flow was twenty-two feet, seven inches above low water, at one
point rising ten inches in twenty-four hours. One inch higher than the high mark of the 1853 rainy
season. The levee on the American River east of the Tivoli was blown out in several places and
the waters just flowed in. Two miles below the city, the water gushed out through the large gap.
Even though the floodwaters poured into the city, they flowed almost as quickly out, keeping the
city's business portion from suffering further damage. J, K, and L Streets also avoided extreme
flooding as long as the water could continue to run uninterrupted through the city.”
176
176 “The Third Flood of 1861,” California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, 3 January 1862, Volume 16,
Number 13
186
Figure 25: California’s capitol flooded at least four distinct times that winter, and maybe as many as six times. “Sacramento
During the flood. J Street East of Third Street.” Charles Weed, 1862, California History Room (Left). Figure 26: “Sacramento
during the flood. J Street East of Third Street.” California History Room (Right)
California’s legislatures decided to adjourn until the end of the month, hoping to wait out the
disasters. Comparing the storms to the “great Noah shower,” one newspaperman described—in
what would become an often repeated if dubious refrain—that it rained for “more than forty days
and nights past.” He noted “but twelve clear days” since the 9
th
of November. Since then it rained
continually” and “poured…unceasingly” and the “whole country, the valleys, and lowlands” are
underwater. Towns and villages “swept away.” Farms and farmhouses “washed clean” or engulfed
by six to ten feet of water. Sacramento was a “ruined city.” The rain continued to “‘pour down’
and the waters continued to rise, and there was “no hope” of a break in the weather on the horizon.
A news report out of Baltimore opined that it would “be a miracle” if the city can “ever recover
from this blow.” The storms had checked the prosperity of the “whole State has received a check”
and it would “require years to recover from.”
177
The rains fell just as hard further inland at the Port
177 “The Great Flood In California: Immense Loss of Property--Sacramento a Ruined City,” The Sun (1837-1992);
Baltimore, Md., February 19, 1862.
187
of Stockton. On the 23
rd
, the Calaveras overran its banks.
178
At Moraga just east of San Francisco, the damage was as remarkable. In the center of the
valley, there had been a “beautiful broad meadow” was washed away to a “bed of sandstone”
littered with drowned horses and cattle, and the valley lay scared by deep impassable gullies forty
feet deep. The “once beautiful place” was so “changed that one could scarcely recognize it.” One
ranchero lost a brother who drowned trying to salvage some of their things. The man took his
brother’s body in a boat and rowed for two days looking for “materials for a coffin” and a “dry
place” to bury him.
179
Streams in Santa Clara and Alameda overflowed across adjacent farms and ranches. The
rise of water in the mountains was less sudden and less severe than that during the overflows of
early December, and people there were better prepared to evade the new floods and protect what
had survived the previous floods.
180
The Sacramento River continued to rise and on the 25
th
rose to twenty-two feet three inches
marking a sycamore tree that leaned from the riverbank. The mark was three inches short of that
George Rowland notched in 1853 when the water reached its apex during that flood.
181
A woman
and her two young children—aged two and four—were trapped in their house as the waters rose.
She escaped to the upper story as the waters filled the lower floor. She stacked a trunk on her
bedstead and sat atop the pile with her two babes. They were rescued just as the waters rose to her
feet. The next day they were relocated to a San Francisco boarding house covered in sheet iron.
During the first night, some adjacent mills caught a fire that spread into the house of refugees.
178 Barkley, states Calaveras flood from Dec.
179 J. T. H, “Our San Francisco Letter.: Effects of the Disastrous Floods--Immense Losses to City and Country--
Incidents of the Great Freshet--Immense Fall of Rain--Damage to the Mines--Death of H. A. Perry--John at Home,”
Chicago Tribune (1860-1872); Chicago, Ill., March 6, 1862. Bosque, 1904, 82.
180 “The Third Flood of 1861,” California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, 3 January 1862, Volume 16,
Number 13
181 Daily Alta California, Volume 13, Number 4330, 27 December 1861 – The Second Flood of 1861”; CDNC
188
Most escaped, but the woman and her children did not. Survivors could hear her the mother’s
screams from inside the burning building. Their skulls were found in the ruins the following day,
the children’s toys still by their sides.
182
The Pavilion sidewalk on the corner of Sixth and M street became “a regular embarcadero.”
All public travel through the flooded capital came and went from the “city flotilla.” The ranchers
came up in boats from several miles south, also landed at the Pavilion sidewalk.
183
Residents of
the lower portion of Sacramento also regularly complained that their houses were being entered
and pillaged of anything left to be carried off. Chief Watson was urged to “establish a marine
police” force to patrol for “pirates and overhaul and bring into port every suspicious craft whose
papers are not entirely satisfactory.”
184
182 Isabelle Saxon, Five years within the Golden gate, 1868, 124.
183 Daily Alta California, Volume 13, Number 4330, 27 December 1861 – The Second Flood of 1861”; CDNC
184 “The Great Flood In California: Immense Loss of Property--Sacramento a Ruined City,” The Sun (1837-1992);
Baltimore, Md., February 19, 1862.
189
Figure 27: Many people across the valley lost their property, their homes, their animals, in and some cases their loved ones.
“Sacramento during the flood, California State Library.
The destruction was immense and ongoing in every river valley on the West Coast. Thousands of
cattle, horses, and sheep were dead. More would die from starvation, exposure, and mass culling.
The “destruction to the new crop of lambs” born during the winter season was great in the uplands.
Entire stores of grain were washed away. The significant loss of “fences, houses, and barns cannot
be repaired in years.”
185
The “loss of stock, fences, houses, hay, grain, and other property” was
“beyond calculation” assumed to “foot up millions,” delivering “utter ruin upon thousands.”
186
In Northwestern California, Three miles below Weitchpeck, Andrew Smith Halladie’s new
185 J. T. H, “Our San Francisco Letter.: Effects of the Disastrous Floods--Immense Losses to City and Country--
Incidents of the Great Freshet--Immense Fall of Rain--Damage to the Mines--Death of H. A. Perry--John at Home,”
Chicago Tribune (1860-1872); Chicago, Ill., March 6, 1862.
186 “The Great Flood In California: Immense Loss of Property--Sacramento a Ruined City,” The Sun (1837-1992);
Baltimore, Md., February 19, 1862.
190
wire rope suspension bridge 98 feet above the Klamath River washed away.
187
Even further south, in the town of Jackson, overflows pulled the Young American Saloon
and the building adjacent onto the Middle Fork of the Jackson Creek. The buildings blocked the
stream’s flow and the water backed up into the town where it flowed instead down Walter Street,
carrying off the old American Hotel as it went. The Creek again changed its course, this time to
the south. It took Sloan’s Works with it. The North Fork eventually overflowed down Main Street,
smack through Rickert’s Wagon Shop. And on the night of the 24th, the Mokelumne rose so high
that it pulled in the entire 300 feet long and 22 ft high bridge.
188
A southeastern wind along with heavy rains came to Stockton also on the 26
th
of December.
The heavy flows from the mountain streams, especially the Calaveras, hit the Delta on December
26
th
, submerging parts of Stockton, the water levels rising every day. By the 27
th
, water stretched
for miles in every direction from the city and would for days. On the Central Coast of California,
a flooded Salinas River was impassable for weeks.
189
There continued to be no communications and almost no business across the Northwest
Slope, though Fisher’s cider mill, which had been shut down from the floods, was back up and
running and crafting “plenty of the best cider.”
190
A small taste of cheer to bring in the new year.
In Washington Territory east of the Cascades, it began to snow heavily on New Year’s
187 Hallidie was a major bridge builder in the region. In the year leading u to that winter he built bridges bridges
across the Klamath River at Weitchpeck, at Nevada City, across the American River at Folsom, and across
the Bear, Trinity, Stanislaus, and Tuolumne rivers. In 1863 he also built a bridge across the Fraser River, that was 10
miles upstream from Yale at Alexandra in British Columbia.
188 Letter from George Kearsing, “On the 27th, the flood waters washed away the bridge over the Mokelumne River
at Woodbridge. Letters from Antonio Diaz Peña January 28, 1862, from Mokelumne River area, describing recent
rains and flood. Bishop, “Winter of the Floods,” 4.
189 The Los Angeles Star,” The Rains”, January 4, 1862
190 From the Oregon Argus, December 28, 1861: “The unsettled condition of affairs since the flood, probably
explains why we have not had communications and expected remittances. We should be glad to hear from several of
our friends, who are in arriers [sic], but to whom we have not sent bills. Please send by Tracy & Co., when
convenient.”
191
Eve. The stock suffered “from the bunch grass being rotted” by the “unusual storms.” The snow
fell heavy and it fell light, but it never stopped, and it was “fearfully cold” all the entire time.”
191
Near Walla Walla on Eckler Mountain above the hamlet of Whetstone, Tom Whetstone, and
Ambrose “Dick” Owsley were wintering and gathering log and timber to build Whetstone’s house.
A few days before the new year, they made a big sled and took a load of shingles to Walla Walla.
Owsley, Bill, McCormich, and Jake Hybarger made ten thousand shingles. In the falling snow they
“split them from out with a frow from pine timber and shaved them with a drawing knife.” They
supposed it would be “good sledding,” so they put the shingles on the sled along with five hundred
pounds of dried deer hams, as well as ten bushels of wheat and a bushel of feed corn, and headed
towards Walla Walla with behind three yokes of cattle.
192
The first day, in the bitter cold, they
made it to Stubb’s Ranch [Dayton] and the Touchet crossing. They tried to drive the sled through
the creek but the pine sled got stuck. They got out into the freezing stream, unhitched the team,
and hauled the ham and shingles to the other side of the river. It took them all night.
The next morning, they hitched back up and pushed down to Whiskey Creek's mouth on
the Coppei River. The cold bit harder. McCormick’s ears froze. Jake couldn’t feel his feet. They
camped that night at Bill Bunton’s house. It snowed all night. Jake didn’t even know his feet were
frozen until they started to thaw later in the house. They pulled Jake’s shoes off and had him soak
them in a tub of ice water, after which he “danced and hopped around all night.” The morning after
the trio continued to Walla Walla. Jake couldn’t put on his shoes and was “suffering terribly” with
gunny sacks on his feet. The snow was over two and a half feet deep and came up to the top of the
sled, so they ditched the shingles and continued to Walla Walla with the deerhams and wheat.
191 Ambrose Owsley Account of Winter 1861-1862; Collection number: cage 4963 Ambrose A. Owsley Papers;
Washington State University
192 “The deer were thicker there then than cattle ever have been since. You could kill all the deer you wanted—could
go out any time and get one in an hour,” Ambrose Owsley Account of Winter 1861-1862
192
They camped one more night on the flat on Dry Creek, where they sheltered their cattle in
Kimble’s[?] new house. In the morning, they moved on to the Reynolds mill where they had their
wheat ground and sold their hams for twenty-five cents a pound. The next day they started back,
in snowing and the freezing cold. They made it to Dry Creek, where they left their sled and
provisions and pushed on in the snow before getting bogged down in a hollow above Dutch
Charley’s, a place later known as Dixie, a clue to the town’s founders. By this time, “anyone could
track them” by the blood Jack Hybarger’s feet seeped through the gunny sacks. They cut some
wood from near the creek and stayed the night at Dutch Charley’s. The next morning, Owsley
found the cattle back at Kimble’s, where they stayed for ten days.
193
The same Christmas storms punched over and around the Cascade and Sierra Nevada
ranges, bringing downpours of rain and snow to the Great Basin. East of the Sierra in Nevada
Territory, the storms poured down rain and snow. It was “Rain! Rain! Rain!” and the “most terrible
storm ever witnessed by man.” Severe storms continued in the mountains above Carson Valley,
dumping much rain and snow. After ten or twelve days straight of unbroken “rain or drizzle,” one
witness declared that they had already had “rain enough for one spell” before it cleared off with a
northerly wind.
194
The Carson River spread a mile and a half wide and the dreadful current cut
new channels in several directions.
193 "The Weather," Puget Sound Herald, December 5, 1861, p. 2, col. 1; "The Late Freshet," Puget Sound Herald,
December 5, 1861, p. 2, col. 3; "The Weather and Things," Overland Press, December 16, 1861; "Rain," Puget
Sound Herald, December 19, 1861, p. 2, col. 1; "Snow Storm," Puget Sound Herald, December 26, 1861, p. 2, col.
1; The Weather," Washington Statesman, December 20, 1861, p. 1, col. 4; "Farmers Should Prepare for
Winter," Washington Statesman, January 10, 1862, p. 2 col. 2; "The Weather," Washington Statesman, January 10,
1862, p. 2, col. 5; "Frigid," Washington Statesman, January 19, 1862, p. 2, col. 5; "Snow!" Puget Sound Herald,
February 6, 1862, p. 2, col. 1; "A Gratifying Change," Puget Sound Herald, February 13, 1862, p. 2, col. 2; "East of
the Mountains," Puget Sound Herald, February 20, 1862. p. 2, col. 4; "The Cold Winter -- Loss of Stock,"
Washington Statesman, February 22, 1862, p. 2, col. 1; "Spring," Puget Sound Herald, March 6, 1862, p. 2, col. 2;
"Disappearing," Washington Statesman, March 8, 1862, p. 2, col. 2; "The Weather," Washington Statesman, March
15, 1862, p. 4, col. 1; "Change for the Better," Washington Statesman, March 22, 1862, p. 2, col. 3;
194 The grass began to grow, and the hills around the city “covered in green,” a “pleasure to greet these indications of
the arrival of our springtime.” California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences’, Volume 166, Number 17, 31
January 1862 – State Summary
193
At Dutch Nick’s in Empire City, the floodwaters climbed to the second-story windows.
The waters did immense damage there as well, washing off “immense quantities of hay” and
damaging stores of grain. The riot of stream cut up the roads, making them “impassable even for
horses,” shutting down the quartz mills even that survived. The damage to mines in this region
was extensive, like at Gold Hill, where most claims caved in at their mouths and would need
sinking shafts moving forward to be viable.
195
The floods severely damaged nearly every mill, pulled off dams and ditches and bridges,
washed off the tailings valued by miners and its tributaries, and even carried off Spraule and Co.’s
entire mill. Sutro & Co.’s steam mill’s elevated seat, though, kept it above the fray. The
floodwaters turned the boiler in French’s Mill up on its end and washed away all the stamps and
two hundred and fifty pounds of amalgam, valued at $12,500. In Carson Canyon, the floodwaters
tipped a quartz mill and two sawmills into the river and ferried them away. At least two men
drowned, their names unknown.
196
The mills along Gold Cañon suffered similar fates. The river
floated away over 1,000 cords of firewood, one of the most tremendous losses for settler-colonials
in Washoe amid that Big Winter. Eleven men road a floating island on the flooded Carson for two
days and survived. Among them, Mr. Spraule, who had been missing for days following the
destruction of his mill. At least four men—one named Dayton—and two women were less
fortunate.
A young Samuel Clemens and two of his business partners were caught in the storm and
195 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
196 “A normally arid state, Nevada received about twice its typical annual rainfall in the two-month period of
December 1861 to January 1862. This excess water transformed the Carson Valley into a large lake. Villages and
settlements, located on higher ground along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, were mostly spared. But at
lower elevations, town and cities suffered. Nevada City was inundated with nine feet of rain in sixty days.” From
page 37. Note: Nevada City is on the California side of the Sierra foothills not in the Nevada Territory during the
winter of ’62. “Condensed News from California Papers.,” Ingram and Malamud-Roam, The West Without Water:
What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell us About Tomorrow, 2013; The Cincinnati Daily
Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio, U, 1862.
194
forced to seek refuge at Honey Lake Smith’s a roadhouse along the Carson. The floods marooned
Clemens and his crew there for several days before they attempted to push out in the floods on
their own. They almost drowned in the process. Clemens and his associates again nearly lost their
lives after losing themselves in a blizzard on the way to Virginia City. Paul’s Mill at Silver City,
south of Virginia City, was destroyed as was Quartz Mill was destroyed by the Carson.
197
The
bodies of four men and two women, names unknown, were found on the Carson River, as were
the bodies of a woman and her two children at Dayton.
198
A concert was proposed in Nevada, the
earnings to fund the relief efforts in Sacramento.”
199
The winter Utah began its transition to statehood was also the “year of floods” even though
the winter there had been relatively mild until the end of December. Fort Clara was seated on the
northeastern side of the Clara
200
The stone fort had walls one hundred feet long, eight to ten feet
tall, and two feet thick. Some of the Paiute invited the Saints to the Santa Clara Valley to learn
farming techniques and defend against Ute raiding parties. The Saints built their settlement
opposite the river from a Paiute village of over three hundred and one of at least seven bands living
along the river. At the time, Totsaggabots was a key leader on the river. Totsaggabots and his
group built up a settlement on around sixty acres. They were able to raise enough crops—Captain
Jackson for example, raised twelve acres of corn and squashes—to supply his band and trade the
surplus with the Saints and other immigrants.
201
197 Orson Ferguson Whitney, History of Utah, Vol 4 Biographical, 1904.
Daly Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862, “Letter From Placerville” “Storm in the
Mountains”,: Paul’s Mill, Washoe”
198 “Lives Lost by the Flood,” Daily Alta California, Vol XIV, Number 4356, 23 January 1862,
199 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 22, Number 3374, 21 January 1862 – Nova Scotia, “Relief in Nevada”
200 John R. Alley, “Prelude to Dispossession: The Fur Trade’s Significance for the Northern Ute and Southern
Paiutes,” Utah Historical Quarterly 50, Spring 1982, 104-23. Martha Knack, Boundaries Between: The Southern
Paiutes, 1775-1995, Nebraska, 2000, 48-94, W. Paul Reeve, Making Space on the Western Frontier. Mormons,
Miners, and Southern Paiutes, Illinois, 2006.
201 George Armstrong to Brigham Young, June 30, 1857, in Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
accompanying the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1857, Harris, 1858, 309.
195
Some of the saints that had deserted their colony in San Bernardino had relocated to Fort
Clara in 1857 and 8. By May of 1861, there were thirty houses, thirty-four men, and thirty
families.
202
Brigham Young invited another ninety Swiss immigrants to settle at Santa Clara to
grow grades, figs, olives, cotton, and indigo. By the time a Swiss Company of settlers arrived on
November 28, 1861, there were already about twenty families living in the town around Fort Clara.
Some of these new arrivals camped around the fort, while others moved inside. George and Sophia
Staheli took the second floor of the Ira Hatch home in the fort’s southwest corner as Sophia was
about to give birth.
203
Outside the fort walls were at least seven houses, the “adobe meeting house,”
a schoolhouse, and Hamblin’s grist mill, and beyond that, at least twenty acres of cultivated land
with peach orchards, cotton fields, and vineyards. Walter E. Dodge had built his own “remarkable
nursery.”
204
In December, the Swiss saints began to relocate to the lower flat on the Big Bend of the
Clara, roughly a mile southeast of the fort. Most camped in their wagon boxes or made shelters
from willow branches. Some built dugouts into the sides of the hill. By Christmas of 1861, they
had built a diversion dam on the Santa Clara and dug out irrigation channels. There they enjoyed
a festive Christmas when the rains began to fall. To the north, heavy rain and snow fell in Pine
Valley and the Upper Santa Clara Creek. The fall of snow and rain was “incessant.” They wouldn’t
stop for “forty consecutive days.”
205
From nearby Fort Harmony on the Kanarra Creek near the
Ash River, John D. Lee of Mountain Meadows Massacre infamy wrote that through the previous
week, storms raged, making “prospects dark and gloomy.” Harmony was built in 1854 as a colony
202 Todd Compton, “The Big Washout: 1862 Flood in Santa Clara,” Utah Historical Quarterly, January 2009.
203 Mary Judd autobiography, 27 Huntington Library, San Marino.
204 Jacob Hamlin Journal, January 1856, and Zadok Knapp Judd, “Reminiscence on the Settlement of the Santa
Clara,” in James G. Bleak collection, Box 2, Fd 6, Utah State Historical Society.
205 Daniel Bonelli to Brigham Young, January 19, 1862
196
for Latter-Day Saints in Washington County, Utah. On Sunday, December 29, 1861, Lee wrote
that “the Earth a sea of water and thus closes 1861.”
When “father” and the “expressman” from Florence Idaho arrived on snowshoes to a teary
reunion, the snow was five feet deep across the Walla Walla Valley. They headed out again, taking
two steers for pack, and pushed through following the high ridges to Coppei, where they stopped
at the hot-stove and hot toddy heaven of Sam Gilbreath’s public house. Owsley gave Gilbreath a
lien on the shingles over the hill from his house to pay their bill was $20.00. At Stubb’s Ranch
[Dayton], they found four pack trains snowed in, a serendipitous turn as the goods supplied the
townsfolks there. Owsely and his crew loaded up on provisions—flour, coffee, etc.—and returned
to their camp at Whetstone, where the snow was twelve feet deep. “Mother, Barney, and Belle had
hunkered down there the entire time. They had worried that the men were all lost, the “old man
and all the rest.” They survived on nothing but meat for ten days. Owsely dropped off the wood
and other supplies and returned on foot through snow and winds to Stubb’s to buy more. They
returned with fifty pounds of supplies each, and Owsely face was “frozen and blistered by the
wind.” But they were alive.
California’s capitol had been underwater as much as eleven feet of water for weeks. The
Sacramento River reached its highest mark for the third time that winter in the Capitol city on the
1
st
of January. It was 22 feet and seven inches above its normal flow.
206
Survivors still stranded on
their upper floors were unable to make fires for warmth or cooking.
207
One man saved himself and
his bulldog. The man held the dog’s head above the water for some time until a rescue boat scooped
the dog and the man up at the last second, narrowly in time to save either. The man “sighed in
206 The California Pictorial Almanac for 1862, Haas & Davidson, publishers; Chas. F. Robbins, printer, A.
Rosenfield Publisher, San Francisco, Kessinger’s Legacy Reprints, 9.
207 “Congressional.: Senate. The Great Flood in California. A Flood at Cincinnati.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922);
Detroit, Mich., January 21, 1862.
197
relief” then “cast a look of deepest affection” over the “shivering brute at his feet” before “half-
musing” or “half-curious,” and “apparently indifferent in manner” wondered to no one in
particular, ‘what has become of my wife and children?’”
208
Figure 28: “Sacramento During the Flood. View North from R Street Levee.” Courthouse and State capitol in distance. Charles
Weed, California State Library
It had been raining since Christmas, but New Year’s Day was pleasant in Southern
California. The rains brought hope to Southern California stockowners for improved prospects
following several years of drought in Southern California.
209
There was even hope that the
devastation to the livestock industry across the Slope might improve the business outlooks of the
208 “Condensed News from California Papers.,” The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio,
January 20, 1862.
209 “The principal rainfall…began on December 24, 1861. Yda Addis Stroke stated in her history of the county that it
rained for sixty consecutive days. E. M. Sheridan also made the same assertion.” The Los Angeles Star, January 4,
1862; “The Rain”; “The Winter of 1861-1862” compiled by the Staff, Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly,
Vol IV No I, November 1958, 14-19.
198
ranchers on the southwestern Slope.
210
On January 4
th
the rains returned with a vengeance. The
Los Angeles River overflowed, blocking the stage routes to and from San Bernardino and San
Diego. On Thursday, a teamster bid to ford the river but was turned back from “the contest”
missing a wheel from his wagon.
Likewise, the coast routes to San Francisco and points north, like the transcontinental route,
are “impracticable in winter” and the entire route was deemed unfit for travel. The L.A. papers
lamented that the tri-weekly mail there had failed and that there had been no correspondence from
the north for two weeks. And still, the Estrella reported “rain, rain, rain” dropped “morning, noon,
and night—day in and day out.” Further south, the profusion of rain did not seem to damper San
Diego’s famously pleasant weather, at least not yet.
211
The roads were quiet in and out of Fort Yuma on the Colorado river. Union soldiers were
on the lookout for paramilitary movements by Confederate sympathizers. They had recently
confined a group of “political prisoners” from the region. These pro-Confederates had been taken
prisoner, but once they swore their allegiance to the Union, they were released but were rearrested
soon after for conspiring with “hostile intentions.” Company D, Second Cavalry, C. V., under
Captain M’Laughlin, arrived on the steamer Senator if any of the rumored uprisings arose. Though
he tried to resign his command, Captain McLeave returned to resume command of the First
Cavalry at Camp Carelton, near San Bernardino.
212
Near Fort Yuma was Jaeger City. Jaeger owned and operated the ferry that bridged Arizona
and California. The town had a store and a hotel, and the ferry linked it to Colorado City on the
Arizona side of the river. In 1858, the ferry was a crucial crossing for the Butterfield overland
210 Bandini-Stearns Papers, Huntington Library
211 The Los Angeles Star, “The Rain” January 4, 1862; “The Winter of 1861-1862” compiled by the Staff, Ventura
County Historical Society Quarterly, Vol IV No I, November 1958, 14-19.
212 Los Angeles Star, Volume XI, Number 35, 4 January 1862 – Business Notices,” “The Rain”, CDNC.
199
Mail, and Jaeger was the site of the company’s stage station and district office. The Colorado
overflowed into both settlements.
213
The New Year in southwestern Utah began “with a storm.” The “face of the country” was
“deluged with water.” By Saturday, January 4
th
, the snow was 8 inches deep and the adobe Fort
Harmony had nearly decomposed in the rain and “returned to its native element.” Lee and his
family suffered brutally during the storm as they tried to build shelters in the downpour. The water
in their underground rooms raised to a depth of 3 feet. Bailing night and day, they could not keep
the water out and were at last compelled to abandon the buildings and take the storm in shanties
made of planks. During the entire storm, the wind was south, but the weather became severe when
it changed when it shifted to the north. They chose to suffer the storm than risk being buried alive
in the eroding fort. The survivors would later relocate to New Harmony and Kanaraville. Away
from the river.
214
January’s alternating rains and snows riding terrific winds raised the water levels
in streams across the region.
Om January 4
th
, Howard Benevolent Society transferred management of its “pesthouse”
and the care for the families there to the city and county authorities.
215
The “Relief Committee”
was called upon to reduce the suffering of those across the region, many of which remained
unknown. One citizen advocated that the committee “be cautious not to bestow their charity on
anyone unworthy of it.”
216
He did not elaborate on how he defined “unworthy” though it seems
some might have been. That same night, yet another round of storms moved into Central
California. The clouds sunk low and the “torrents fell” for the next five days and nights. From the
213 Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852-1916, Arizona, 1978, 15; Edwin Corle, Gila,
River of the Southwest, Nebraska, 1951, 187-188, 193.
214 Ward Record at Harmony kept by John D. Lee.
215 George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862
216 Letter from George Kearsing/Antonio Diaz Peña January 28, 1862, from Mokelumne River area.
200
northwest Slope, the cold followed south. On January 5
th
from six to eight inches of snow fell on
the Sacramento Valley floor near Chico.
The new wave of heavy rains and cold temperatures continued to devastate the First
Peoples interned at the Klamath River Reservation. The renewed floods again barreled over the
Fort at the mouth of the Klamath destroying nearly everything in its path and pushing it down river
and out to sea.
217
Superintendent Hanson arrived to find “every acre” of the reservation eroded to
“bare cobblestone” on one side and sand “three feet deep” on the other. Every “panel of fencing,”
every “Indian village” and over thirty government buildings were washed away. The mill was
gone. The granaries with all their stores were gone. The government stores were gone. The farming
and blacksmithing tools were gone. And all the pigs, poultry and most of the cows were “all swept
into the Pacific.” An elder among the Yurok informed Hanson that this was the worst flood in any
of their memories. As snows arrived on January 5
th
, Hanson messaged the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs. The “cries of over two thousand Indians in the state of starvation” he wrote, “will reach
the ears of authorities” in DC. Hanson was equally discouraged at the lost hopes of creating
agricultural communes among the Klamath.
218
On the evening of January, the 6
th
a “violent gale from the East” crashed across the
Northern Slope. It began snowing during the night. The blizzard continued into the next day, and
by the 8
th
, the Columbia River was “frozen solidly.”
219
The snowstorms continued into the next
day and by the afternoon there was two feet of snow on the ground on the Lower Columbia. It
snowed for the next four days.
217 A letter from Port Orford, published in the Oregonian of January 11
218 Hanson to Wright, Dec. 31, 1861, and Hanson to Dole, Jan. 5, 1862, NA, RG 75, 01A, Ltrs. Recd., Calif. Supt.;
published in the Oregonian of January 11. Correspondence, Hanon to Wright, Dec. 31, 1861, Hanson to Dole, Jan. 5,
1862, National Archive, RG 75, 01a, Letters Received, California Superintendent.
219 Meteorological Register, Fort Vancouver, 1861-1862, month of January 1862.
201
Back in Utah at Fort Harmony, it was “snowy through the day” on Tuesday the 7th. After
two days there was snow ten inches deep.
220
During the eighth and ninth, it rained as hard as it had all winter. It fell especially hard on
the snow-covered Sierra. Hangtown Creek near Placerville again broke its record height. The flood
levels reached their high-water mark of 183.0 feet above sea level on January 10, 1862, on the
Stockton and Coover’s stone stable on the American River near Folsom. In Marysville, the
floodwaters rose six inches higher than the extreme high of the early December flood. Many
merchants and farmers moved whatever goods had survived the previous floods to high ground,
minimizing the losses compared to floods earlier that winter.
221
On the Central Slope, it had rained almost constantly for the previous ten days. Everything
was flooded along the entire “length and breadth of the route” from San Francisco to the Sierra
Nevada which were “deeply covered” in snow. Snow fell across the foothills and from their snow
covered the plains in ten inches of snow something never no settler had ever seen.
222
Dr. Logan
noted Dr. Richie’s measurement of incredible 84 inches of snowfall over twenty-four hours on
January 9
th
, which if true, would top the United States record of seventy-six inches s measured in
Silver Lake, Colorado in April of 1921.
223
At Excelsior Hill in Sierra County, heavy rains caused
a snow-slide that killed Buel Marshall, Henry Learned, and George A. Johnson.
224
In the “Venice of California,” the rains continued, and winds blew unrelenting, and the
220 Ward Record at Harmony kept by John D. Lee.
221 Peter DeLay, History of Yuba and Sutter Counties California with Biographical Sketches…” Historic Record
Company, 1924, 101.
222 “heretofore known from time whence the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.’” Los Angeles Star, Volume
XI, Number 39, 1 February 1862 – Correspondence and other stories, mostly flood related.
223 J. L. H. Paulhus, “Record Snowfall of April 14-15, 1921, at Silver Lake, Colorado,” Monthly Weather Review,
February 1953, 38-39. The world record is 7.5 feet in 24 hours recorded in Japan.
224 “Lives Lost by the Flood,” Daily Alta California, Vol XIV, Number 4356, 23 January 1862,
202
survivor in flooded out Sacramento remained vigilant, “hourly looked for” the next inundation.
225
The Capital had been inundated for a month. Refugees continued to flee to San Francisco, where
both public and private houses opened their doors to the survivors. The rains fell heavy there too,
flooding San Francisco. Montgomery Street was completely underwater.
The California Steam Navigation Company continued to ferry passengers to San Francisco
free of charge. After their arrival in the Bay, the volunteer committees there would aid the needs
of the thousands of refugees, providing lodging, food, and clothing, and the teams did all they
could to ease the miseries of those who “lost their all” and were “reduced to want and despair.”
Several thousand had been provided for, and more are coming. “Where it will end,” President
Mowe asked, “nobody knows.” The steamboats “go up daily, loaded with clothing” and
“provisions for the destitute” of Sacramento, and vessels are “plying in all directions,” plucking
people from the roofs of ranch houses and barns where many had “clung in desperation for days.”
Many “remote locations” had yet to be reached, and the rescue parties feared that “great loss of
life must already have ensued.”
226
The people of San Francisco “contributed nobly” with an “unstinted hand” to the relief of
the growing number of distressed. They “forwarded thousands upon thousands” of dollars in
money, goods, and supplies to the Howard Benevolent Society, and contributions continued to
come in from the “old and young” alike. The committees visit the surviving homes seeking
donations of money, clothing, and other necessities, and most often their requests were rewarded
by donations. San Francisco collectively donated fifteen thousand dollars for the “sufferers of
225 Los Angeles Star, Volume XI, Number 39, 1 February 1862 – Correspondence and other stories, mostly flood
related.
226 “The Great Flood In California: Immense Loss of Property--Sacramento a Ruined City,” The Sun (1837-1992);
Baltimore, Md., February 19, 1862.
203
Sacramento.”
227
Citizens of other cities in California, and some in Nevada Territory, followed San
Francisco’s lead and sending donations that kept the Howard Benevolent Society in operation as
“ministering angels to thousands.”
228
It had only been a month since the “fearful flood” of December 9th, 1861. It had been a
“month of suffering” and “exertion unparalleled,” as three separate floods swept across the great
Central Valley. Water covered two-thirds of the city of Sacramento. It filled nearly every house
with one to five feet, and the majority of the city’s residents had endured the continued storm sin
the uppers stories of the houses in the highest past of the city. On Friday morning on the 10
th
of
January, the waters climbed again. At first they rose slowly, spilling across the upper reaches of
the city and sending the residents into a scramble, “that wild rushing to and fro,” that “struggle
for the life of men and beasts which no man who was once seen can ever forget, and which no
language can describe.”
227 Henry G. Langley, The San Francisco Directory for the year 1861-1862, San Francisco Public Library, 24.
228 “Flood Anniversary,” Sacramento Daily Union, Vol 24, number 3656, 9 December 1862.
204
Figure 29: Image of the nascent capitol building in Sacramento. “Sacramento During the Flood, Taken from the top of the Pavilion,
6
th
and M St.,” California History Room.
This was the day of Leland Stanford’s inauguration as governor of California, so he
traveled from his house by boat. On the way, they landed at the door of Reverend Peck’s church,
where they picked up the reverend and his wife on their way to the capitol. The waters were too
high on the main route, so they had to find another but eventually arrived. Despite the storms and
floods, for at least a moment, Peck felt “some satisfaction” witnessing a “noble patriotic
republican,” even if only “unjustifiable denominational pride” over the former Oneida
Conference.
229
Nearly as soon as Peck returned home from Stanford’s inauguration, the still-rising waters
began “rolling down” J Street—the highest street in Sacramento. The sidewalk in front of Peck’s
229 Peck was deeply proud of the state governments Oneida connections, “Seminary student to ascend to the chair of
the state. Hon. J. M’C. M. Shafter, President of the Senate, is an alumnus of the Wesleyan University; and Hon.
George Barstow, Speaker of the House, is a professor in the University of the Pacific.” PECK, “Fourth Flood in
Sacramento.”
205
two-story home was elevated, but the waters quickly topped that. Reverend Peck again looked out
on the chaos in the flooded streets below his house:
Now the struggle to save property and life is painful but heroic in the highest degree.
Goods are thrown from the lower to the higher shelves…Brave men are leading and
swimming noble animals…Helpless women and children are reached by boats,
while boatmen and men from the tops of houses shout to each other, making more
frightful the roar of rushing waters. The steady rise exceeds the highest mark of the
first great flood [of December 9, 1861], and still it goes up. Alas what a dismal
night! Families escaped from drowning in their own houses crown our upper halls
and rooms. Piles of splendid goods, millinery, clothing, and furniture, some
dripping with water, are thrown on the flood, and exhausted men and women came
to our humble table…How great the benefit of our snug cooking stove and
furniture! How kind the providence which secured us a small supply of food before
the flood!
The scenes of horror…defy description. Cracking, falling, floating houses;
businessmen ruined in an hour; strong men struggling for life in the current of our
streets. Many of all ages and both sexes clinging to houses and floodwood,
shrieking in despair, some sinking in death, and flood still rising! Alas for our poor
city! Our churches are partly submerged, our people scattered, our support gone,
and our city and country for hundreds of miles around one scene of desolation!
The suffers by the flood are aided by princely benevolence; but the Church,
the poor Church, no one remembers…“We must have help from home or sink in
desolation and despair at the capital of this great state.”
230
Dr. Logan recorded the river twenty-four feet above its regular level on January 10th. Floodwaters
filled the city twenty inches higher than the first inundation. The destruction of property was less,
as there wasn’t much left to be destroyed after so many highwater events that winter. This flood
submerged Sacramento's streets for several days, and the southern portion of the city would be
swamped for several months.
231
The heavy rains and floods in San Francisco on the 10
th
of January damaged the streets,
the railroads, the gardens, the houses, and all the cellared goods.
232
Eldridge Lorlin was found dead
230 Rev Jesse T. Peck, “Fourth Flood in Sacramento.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, March
6, 1862.
231 “Flood Anniversary,” Sacramento Daily Union, Vol 24, number 3656, 9 December 1862.
232 “News from California,” The Sun (1837-1992); Baltimore, Md., February 6, 1862.
206
in Tasejao Valley in Contra Costa County.
233
The streets of the capital that not long ago were traffic jammed with carriages and other
vehicles and crowds of people were instead full of boats, some of which were crowded with
“parties of drunken rowdies” or with “anxious and wild-looking persons” clambering about trying
to secure any supplies they could find and any secure lodging for their families from the “capacious
maw of the direful element” which has conquered California’s capitol. The great flood of the 10th
of January 1862 in Sacramento was “one of the most novel, and at the same time, wild scenes of
desolation and distress, that ever has befallen a witness.” Since the Fall of 1849, President Mowe
had lived through the rapid “changing and ever-varied ups and downs of life in this country,” and
he had “seen and retained many of the things and sights that have transpired” yet he had never
witnessed “anything like the condition of things” during the Big Winter.
234
There was at least three
feet of water surging J street, and the water had nearly risen to the counter in the reading room of
the St. George Hotel. The water level reached twenty inches beyond what it had on the 9
th
of
December during the great flood of 1861. During that first flood, the business districts were
relatively clear the next day, but the floods of the 10th of January caused the roads to remain
submerged in the streets through the business section for days. The southern parts of Sacramento
would stay underwater for months.
Countless horses and cattle fought for their lives as they struggled through the flooded
streets. Dogs, pigs, chickens, and rats were “howling, squealing, and cackling” as they “battled
through the water” that surrounded them. The American River poured through the city, and as that
falls, the Sacramento River will rise and keep the city filled with water.”
235
233 “Lives Lost by the Flood,” Daily Alta California, Vol XIV, Number 4356, 23 January 1862.
234 George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862
235 Los Angeles Star, Volume XI, Number 39, 1 February 1862 – Correspondence and other stories, mostly flood
related.
207
This time Howards was better prepared. They opened the Pavilion on Friday at 7 in the
morning for the countless sufferers in the capitol. They sent rescue boats out in every direction
through the city to retrieve those in danger. By there in the afternoon, Howards was serving dinner
in the Pavilion to 850 refugees. Five hundred thirty stayed in the Hall through the night. The night
of Saturday the 11th was a “severe trial.” The floods spread in every direction for miles. In the
City, hundreds again fled to the nearest two-story building, where they hunkered down, though
they were without heat, food, clothing, bedding. The needs of the suffering were far too great for
the supplies on hand. The next day, Howards opened four more emergency stations around
Sacramento.
At noon, the steamboat Nevada docked with news that the steamer Cornelia was close
behind with provisions of cooked and other food and clothing. The shipment revealed that families
looked to have taken “their ready-cooked meats” from their tables and “clothing from their
wardrobes” and “stores from their larders.” The Howard Society promptly redistributed to the
families in need throughout and beyond the city.
Stockton began to flood again on the 9
th
, and by the 10th, most of Stockton was again
underwater. The water covered all the streets on the 11
th
of January and stood over a foot deep for
days. To the south, most of the area around Stockton was underwater. The business district at
Knight’s Ferry was washed away. On Saturday January 11
th
, the Mokelumne River's water level
at the Big Bar Bridge was forty-four feet above the low water mark, though in eighteen hours, they
would come down thirty feet.
236
Near the town of West Point, on the North Fork of the Mokelumne
River, was the Indian Ladder Bridge. The bridge was 60 feet above the river at low water and
thought safe from floods, but the Mokelumne devoured it. At the Middle Bar on the Mokelumne,
236 California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences’, Volume 166, Number 17, 31 January 1862 – State Summary
208
a miner was preparing supper when the river pulled his house downstream. The miner escaped as
his cabin sailed downriver. With the glowing lantern inside, the fire in the stove still burning, and
its smoke puffing from the chimney, the house looked like an odd little steamer from a distance.
From where G.F. Kearsing watched from his home along the Mokelumne River, he could
see the rain continue to fall and the river continued to rise. On the 10
th
it came over the bank and
towards Kearsing’s home. It tore away part of the hill before carrying away the blacksmith shop,
destroying their garden, and left their house tattered. As the flood raged below them, it washed
away the Shoer[?] bridge as the Mokelumne swept across the countryside.
237
Between the 8
th
and
the 11
th
fifteen inches more of rain fell in Central California.
“Ever to be remembered the 10 of Jan 1862 on the Mokelumne River. Early in the morning,
Geo’ & Wm were building a shanty in the pouring rain. At the same time, I was busy
packing up our bedding trunks &c, after setting up all night listening to the rain beating on
the roof, the dashing of the water as it was coming up to the house rising about a foot an
hour the river…the roar of the waters pouring down every gulch the sound of which
appeared to me as of distant thunder. None of us had a disposition to eat anything that
morning nor did we take anything until about ten O’clock when we each took a cup of
coffee, the last of anything cooked in that house for several days; the water having washed
away the lower part of the chimney which caused it to settle, consequently had to be
removed, the opening of the fireplace boarded up and the large kitchen stove brought in,
after shoveling out of the house a quantity of sand collected there, also cleaning out the
stove which was filled with wet sand, the kitchen having been destroyed. also, Millhouse;
Water Wheel, Bridge, Workshop, (with many tools) Fences around the garden were all
swept away, Together with all the soil, plants, trees, &c &c.
238
But to return to the shanty building Geo’ & Wm slept among the bedding trunks
&c all night in the shanty No 1, but in the morning finding the water somewhat nearer than
they thought to be safe on pleasant concluded to build another shanty higher up on the
mountain, and remove the things from shanty No. 1 which was accordingly done
After some days the water fell, and after some repairing and cleaning out as I have
before stated we put such things into the house as was really needed. Still, the house had
not more than got well dried before we had another rise and we all had to flee to Shanty
No 2 Where we were all obliged to pass the night. I have a very bad cold. In the morning,
the rain held up for a short time, and I went again up the Butte and stayed until the water
fell several feet; when I came down again, I have now been down five days
237 Kearsing letter marked received (New York) March 5th, 1862.
238 Letter from George Kearsing/Letters from Antonio Diaz Peña, January 28, 1862.
209
Flooding was severe across the foothills east and southeast of the Delta. Fifty head of cattle were
sent from Stockton to the mountain communities of Angel’s Camp and Vallecito. Both had been
without meat and they were running out of food. Thirty were lost to the rivers on the way, and the
remainder did not make it till mid-month.
239
The floods destroyed all mining ditches and
infrastructure near Mokelumne Hill in Calaveras County. The Calaveras River made a “deafening
thunder” as it boomed through the canyon as it carved a new course. The sound could be heard for
miles.
All the lands in Stanislaus County adjoining the Tuolumne, Stanislaus, San Joaquin Rivers,
and Dry Creek, overflowed and ran eight to ten feet across their valleys. Those living in these
plains “only saved their lives fleeing to the mountains and high lands.” Dry Creek flooded lands
to the width of up to two miles. The “extreme height” above the regular flow of the Tuolumne and
Stanislaus rivers was twenty feet. At its peak, the Stanislaus reached 80 feet above its low water
flow. The Stanislaus current was so powerful that the river widened its channel between two
hundred feet and fifteen hundred feet. In some places the river broke into three and sometimes four
channels as it braided its way across the plains. Trees ten feet in diameter uprooted and went
“rolling and tumbling” down the “turbulent streams.” Entire tracks of “well-timbered land” were
carried away wholesale. Floodwaters in the wetlands of Stanislaus County rose to ten feet, with a
current running west-northwest.
Where the Tuolumne river flows between the mountains, the height was as high as sixty
feet. The Tuolumne and burst across the landscape to the width of a mile. The currents shredded
the Tuolumne banks and Stanislaus banks, in some places increasing the width from two hundred
feet in some areas to fifteen hundred feet in others. The Tuolumne River changed its channel,
239 Bishop, “Winter of the Floods…,” 5.
210
overflowed its banks, and pushed up large new sand bars before it washed away the topsoil of the
nearby ranches, destroying them. Floodwaters destroyed ninety percent of the crops and carried
off fences, houses, and thousands of cattle and horses. Ferry landings across the region were ruined
by the “washing of the banks, changes in channels, and formation of bars.” The “immense volume
and velocity” of rushing waters uprooted countless trees. Throughout the county, deposits of sand
varied from six inches to four feet. The San Joaquin, though, shifted very little, remained clear of
bars, and mostly stayed within its long-worn channel.
240
The effects on the Merced River across that county mirrored those on the Tuolumne and
Stanislaus Rivers. The highest water on the Merced River and Dry Creek was measured at fifteen
feet. Though still inundated, the hillier Mariposa County escaped complete inundation but lost all
toll bridges and all mining infrastructure on the banks of the Merced and its network of creeks,
where the water rose as high as fifty and sixty feet above the low water mark. Property along the
Merced was damaged “to an amount not dreamed of by men who have long time lived in the
localities.” Though the dam survived, the river damaged Benton Mills, destroyed Wyatt’s bridge,
and wiped out everything at Split Rock Ferry and everything below that, including Chapin’s one
hundred-thousand-dollar dam and mill. At Merced Falls, just below that, Murray’s and Nelson’s
bridges and their two flour mills “went by the board.”
241
In Fresno County, the San Joaquin River ran twenty-six feet above its low water mark at
Millerton on January 11
th
.
242
At Fresno City at the “head of the navigation” on the San Joaquin
flowed sixteen feet above low water and flooded across Fresno Slough. Water four feet deep
240 W. H. Lyons reported that he had obtained from Mr. J. D. Morley, of Stanislaus County,
241 “News from California,” The Sun (1837-1992); Baltimore, Md., February 6, 1862.
242 George E. Drew, the County Surveyor of San Joaquin County from Stockton on December 3, 1862 to J. F.
Houghton the state Surveyor General reported; California et al., “Journal of the Senate and Assembly,” Journal of
the Senate and Assembly, 1863; California, Legislature, and Assembly, Appendix to Journals of Senate and
Assembly of the ... Session of the Legislature of the State of California., 1862.
211
covered adjacent lands in both directions from the San Joaquin meets King’s River above Visalia.
The river changed its channel for short distances in several different places, forming news bars,
leaving soil deposits over a foot deep, and “cut up the roads so mad.”
243
The town of Visalia on
the edge of the San Juaquin and Tulare Basin “was overflowed with water several feet deep by the
great freshet of January” 1862.
Figure 30:California’s Delta in some way handled the high water better, but still the floods were historic. “Head of Stockton
Channel From El Dorado Street Bridge during 1862 Flood, Stockton CA,” Wm. M. Stuart, Bancroft Library.
On January 11
th,
the great lakes of California continued to expand across the state’s central
valleys. The waters spread out from the Delta, expanding outwards to the northeast, east, and
southeast,” of Stockton, and ever more seemed to come spilling down from the “mountain streams”
and continued the flood’s rise and spread. Between Sunday and Monday, the 12
th
and 13
th
, Howard
Benevolent Society set up three more stations at distant points south of the capitol. This network
of relief posts fed over 1,500 people every day for ten days. These stations would feed refugees
every day until February when as many as 212 still came for food. Over those two months,
Howard’s stations fed over 10,000 people. Mrs. Lawson who managed the Sutter’s Fort station,
243 J. C. Walker, County Surveyor of Fresno County from Millerton on July 1, 1863; California et al., “Journal of the
Senate and Assembly,” Journal of the Senate and Assembly, 1863; California, Legislature, and Assembly, Appendix
to Journals of Senate and Assembly of the ... Session of the Legislature of the State of California., 1862.
212
where they cared for large numbers of those in need but “economized and saved our property from
waste.”
244
The weather remained ominous, looking “as much like a storm as it has any time this
winter.” The “general impression that this city is ‘played out.’” Five Chinese men were found at
Uniontown in El Dorado County. John Proctor died at Two-Mile Bar on the Stanislaus. Mrs. Carr
and her “hired man” were killed fourteen miles east of Sacramento City. At 10 in the morning on
the 10
th
of January, the Knight’s Ferry Bridge gave way and disappeared down the river. At noon
the same the day the wire rope suspension bridge went too. Thomas Robbins drowned. The
Tuolumne overflowed. Edward Deering was killed at Jacksonville, Tuolumne, along with twenty
Chinese men. Judge Kelly, an African American boot-black, drowned in Sacramento City. J. B.
Welty was found dead not far from the capital on the Sacramento River. An unknown Frenchman
was found dead in Sacramento City. Samuel Jones, Giles A. Buel, and Morris Flood drowned at
Boston Bar.
245
Flooding continued to devastate the communities around San Francisco Bay. It
rained 12.72" over downtown San Francisco over the previous seven days and by the 11
th
, six feet
of water covered most of Alvarado in Alameda County. To the south of the Bay, The San Lorenzo
River crested at Santa Cruz.
Simultaneously in the Great Basin, the Carson River overflowed across western Nevada
Territory, flooding the town of Dayton, northeast of Carson City. Floods also struck around the
Great Salt Lake. The storms reached Ogden City in Utah Territory. Most of the bridges on the
Weber River were destroyed when it overran its banks.
244 California et al., “Journal of the Senate and Assembly,” Journal of the Senate and Assembly, 1863; California,
Legislature, and Assembly, Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly of the ... Session of the Legislature of the
State of California., 1862. Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 24, Number 3602, 14 October 1862, “Fifth Annual
Report of the Sacramento Benevolence Society.” George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862.
245 Los Angeles Star, Volume XI, Number 39, 1 February 1862 – Correspondence and other stories, mostly flood
related. “Lives Lost by the Flood,” Daily Alta California, Vol XIV, Number 4356, 23 January 1862. On the 11th,
“Lives Lost by the Flood,” Daily Alta California, Vol XIV, Number 4356, 23 January 1862.
213
Also, at the same time, the great freeze continued to devastate the Northwest slope. All
along the northern part of the Slope, all the navigable rivers of British Columbia, Washington
Territory, and Oregon sat locked in ice.
246
At Neah Bay, the brook froze over for the first time
Swann had experience on January 11
th
, and the cold would only grow harsher from there. By the
15
th
, Swann had survived the coldest night he had ever endured on the Pacific Coast. Waterways
across Washington Territory froze. Some were more than half a foot thick with ice. Half a foot of
ice-covered Union Lake and into Union Bay for at least six weeks during “Seattle’s Coldest
Winter.” Two feet of snow fell at Lake Union that would last until mid-March.
247
Some folks “took
advantage” of the weather to go ice skating and sleigh riding.
248
Some Makahs informed Swann
that they could not remember a winter ever so cold. Swann entertained himself one morning by
sliding back and forth on the frozen stream near his home.
The Columbia froze with ice that flowed down from its inland branches, blocking
transportation between Portland and the rest of the valley from the sea. The captain of the
steamboat Brother Jonathan got stuck in the frozen Columbia River in ice 12 inches thick. Heavy
snows blocked all roads. The overland mail between there and California had been cut off for more
than six weeks and communication with eastern Oregon and Washington by both land and water
246 “From San Francisco.: The Floods California Assumes Her Portion of the Direct Tax,” New York Times, 1862.
247 “Seattle’s Coldest Winter,” {H1400 E114, Folder 3/3 & 5/12; Episode 114 Seattle's Coldest Winter; Gamble
unknown (possibly Velez) (artist) ; People walk along a wintry street piled high with snow. Includes original
drawing, proofs and text. Proof by Gamble published in 1931 depicts a woman ice skating. Text describes the winter
of 1861-1862. Collection of approximately 200 pieces of original artwork and newspaper proofs for the Seattle
Shopping News historical series "Spotlighting Seattle's Story." Seattle Shopping News was a small local Seattle
newspaper, specializing in advertising for local retail, published between 1922 and 1973. The newspaper was
proofed twice weekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays during the 1930s and Mondays and Thursdays during the
1950s, by the Seattle Shopping News Association, and often included retrospectives on local history, as well as short
pieces on local, national and international news. The episodes in Seattle history include stories about historical
figures, events, buildings, sights, industries, and other topics. The artwork is ink drawings made by several artists
including W.S. Gamble, Cone, Joe Velez and Mero (possibly David Mero).
248 “Seattle’s Coldest Winter,” Seattle Shopping News, University of Washington Spc. Cool.
214
ceased.
249
Over the month of January, Swan took nine separate snowfall measurements on the
Northwest coast and calculated an average deposit of thirteen and one-third inches. He also
estimated a total of nine inches of rain to have fallen during the month.
250
“Last night, the wind
blew almost a gale,” Swan recorded, and it was the “coldest and most disagreeable night this
winter.” He noted that the Makah at Neah Bay was "very cold and miserable,” for they had not
anticipated “so harsh a winter,” and the reservation had “not well provided” for them. Every day
Makah would come to Swann with salvaged things to trade or sell for bread or molasses.
The snow was over a foot deep across the countryside. Again he wrote of the “coldest night
this winter.” Every day he wrote, and every successive night Swan claimed it the coldest he had
ever felt while on the Pacific Slope. For several consecutive nights, temperatures across the Pacific
Northwest measured at least 4 degrees below freezing. Fifteen inches of snow fell in the Willamette
Valley, and two feet of snow blanketed eastern Washington and Oregon.
251
249 Bancroft and Victor. History of Oregon...1848-1888 (V.2 of History of OR; Vol. XXX, The Works of Hubert
Howe Bancroft). 1888, 483- 484.
250 “22 degrees in late January with cold air coming from the north.”
251 Thomas H. Pearne, “Letter From Oregon.: Disastrous Flood. ... Frost. Reltion And Politics. ...,” Christian
Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, March 20, 1862. But by the 19th, the snow turned to rain “and snow
melting fast…” (he was excited to report to his diary in early December that he had installed a rain gauge).
215
Figure 31: The Big Winter survived in the memories of Pacific Northwesterners at least until the 1930s. Seattle Shopping News's
"Spotlighting Seattle's Story" series, Episode 114 entitled "Seattle's Coldest Winter", 1931, Suzzalo Library University of
Washington Libraries, Special Collections.
The unusual freezing temperatures and heavy snow caught many off guard and took heavy
tolls. The Slope’s mild winters had allowed stockholders to graze their herd throughout the year
and had made no provisions for such a severe freeze. A quarter of all livestock drowned in the
floods, and vast numbers of cattle, sheep, horses, and hogs were stranded across the landscape, left
to freeze and starve to death.
At Umatilla, the ground had been covered with up to two feet of snow for over a month
when Charles Redman reported to merchants Hadley & Owens that he was indeed still very much
alive. Redman’s herds though were far less fortunate. Four hundred sheep and lambs froze to death
or starved as there was no feed, and substituting balm tree cuttings was all Redman could do. The
cattle were “dying very fast” across the countryside, the Umatilla scattered with the “dying and
dead.” All their horses lost or runoff, likely in search of any nourishment they could find. People
“tell you the Umatilla River never freezes over,” Redman remembered, but he could now “tell a
216
different story” as the ice on the river was over a foot thick and dense enough to “carry a
locomotive.” Redman did all he could to save as many of his sheep as he could, but there was
nothing he could do for the surviving cattle. He thought it best to abandon the plan to bring them
to market in the Spring as they would likely be too thin on delivery if they even survived the
journey at all. The rains he thought were terrible, but the snow beats all the floods that can be
imagined.
252
In mid-January, back on the Klamath, Superintendent Hanson visited the Agency at Wau-
Kell where he found the farm “fields of bare cobblestone, on one side, and Sand, 3 feet deep on
the other, which had taken the place of nearly every acre of arable land on the Reservations.”
Every “panel of fencing, every village, every government building—the stores, the mill, all the
granaries and their crops, the blacksmith shop and tools, all the poultry swine and cattle,
everything—save a single barn was in the Pacific. The oldest among the Yurok told Hanson that
it was the worst winter and largest floods they could ever remember. The people were
starving.
253
In Southwestern Utah, after “forty days of rain,” the waterways grew restless. Where the
Santa Clara River and Rio Virgin meet, the town of Tonaquint [today’s St. George]—set to be one
of Brigham Young’s cities of “spires, towers, and steeples”—was overwhelmed and destroyed by
heavy rains and high waters, leaving only a smear of mud and debris for miles. Three hundred and
nine families tried to seek refuge in their wagon boxes, but their clothing, their bedding, their food
252 The men he was in debt at least $300 to for animal feed; Charles M. Redman letter to Hadley and Owens, CA
1862 Jan 23, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon
253 Hanson lamented how the floods had ruined the plan to convert the Indians to farming communes. A soldier later
described the scene: “Little is left of what was once the beautiful residence of the U.S. Agent…a lone white cottage-
like looking building and a barn and what was once a mill standing in the midst of a barren sandy bar” is all that
remained. Hanson to Dole, Feb. 14, 1862, NA, RG 75, 01A, Ltrs. Recd., Calif. Supt. Rogers, "Early Military Posts
of Del Norte County," California Historical Quarterly, 26, 3. “The Klamath River Reservation—1858-1894,”
History Basic Data, Redwood, National Park Service.
217
and fuel, everything still got soaked.
254
On Sunday January 13, the still-raging storm continued to “spreading a mantle of gloom”
over Fort Harmony back near the Virgin River. Brigham Young bragged that the Desert Saints had
the “best Fort ever built in the Territory.” But after so much rain, Harmony’s walls were crumbling.
The collapsing adobe houses made it more dangerous inside than out. Lee moved another part of
his large family to the high ground. At 9 that night, a terrible snowstorm set in.
255
The next day the storm continued “vehemently raging.” Lee’s barn collapsed that
afternoon. Its side was washed out days before, and only the timber frame supported it. The barn
was filled with horses, hogs, and calves, but all escaped unharmed. The south wall of the Fort
began to teeter and all expected it to go next. Lee evacuated the rest of his family from the west
side of the fort. They spent “another night of gloom and darkness” watching parts of walls
constantly crumble away. For the Saints it was a “time of watching as well as praying,” as there
was great fear that some would be buried in the “masses of ruins.” At midnight, a large portion of
the South wall finally went down with an “awful crash.” When the morning light finally came, the
“storm still raged.”
256
Further South, the willow shelter, tents and wagon covers weren’t enough to protect the
new Swiss Saints from the downpour. The Clara began to grow broader and deeper. The Rio Virgin
and Santa Clara rivers overflowed red across the countryside, stealing everything in their paths. In
the early morning hours of Friday January 17, the river came “as a thief in the night” to John Ray
254 John Staheli, “The Life of John and Barbara Staheli, Ms 7832, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Archives. Daniel Bonelli to Brigham Young, Brigham Young Collection, Box 28, fd. 17, microfilm reel 39, LDS
Church Archives. Robert Glass Cleland and Juanita Rooks, eds., “The Flood in Washington County,” A Mormon
Chronicle: The Diaries of John D. Lee, 1848-1876, 2 vols, Huntington Library, 1955, 2:4-7; Lyman Hafen, “That
First January: Town’s settlers received a wet welcome,” St. George Magazine, January 3, 2012. Todd Compton,
“The Big Washout: 1862 Flood in Santa Clara,” Utah Historical Quarterly, January 2009.
255 John D. Lee Harmony Ward Record, Cleland and Brooks, A Mormon Chronicle;
256 Ward Record at Harmony kept by John D. Lee;
218
Young. But Jacob Hamlin heard it coming. The “roar of the water awakened those around the fort.
And then they saw it—a Fifteen-foot tall “wall of water” bore down on the town, yanking up trees
along its banks as it moved. Cottonwoods and other trees flew “like arrows” down the raging Santa
Clara, a “spectacle of dreadful magnificence.”
257
Both man and beast” fled terrified from the
ripping Virgin and Santa Clara. Still, countless horses, mules, and cattle drowned in the surge.
The sound of the water rushing into their dugout awakened miller Solomon Chamberlain
and his grandson and granddaughter to the danger. They climbed a nearby tree where they endured
a treacherous night watching the rising river and the endless rain. The tree was becoming unsteady
in the current. They stayed up in that tree until the Friday afternoon the river began to recede
enough for the Chamberlain clan to clamber down and wade through the still dangerous current.
They relocated to “a high spot of the mill-race.”
258
Almost immediately, the current pulled their
savior tree into the river. As the day wore on, the “mad river” began again to rise, “slashing into
the bank” and sliding away “pieces as big as a house.” It undermined houses and stacks of gain.
Hamblin’s grist mill swept away. The flood overwhelmed the Paiute Village across the River from
Fort Clara, drowning their farms and fields.
The townsfolk packed into Fort Clara. Built of stone with twelve-foot walls and distant
from the creek, they “considered it safe from the flood.” But some like Priscilla, Jacob Hamlin’s
third wife, warned of the dangers. Later that night the rivers waters had risen to the southwest
corner of the fort, undermining the ground beneath the wall below where the Hatch and Stahelis
families were sleeping.
The rusty river rose until it flowed on both sides of the fort. Before long the river “swept
257 Jacob Hamblin letter to George A. Smith, January 19, 1862, from Desert News, “Floods in Southern Utah,”
February 12, 1862, 8.
258 John R. Young, Memoirs of John R. Young, The Deseret News, 1920, 119-20.
219
through the gate like a mill race, flooding the inside of the fort to a man’s armpits.”
259
The Saints
moved about quickly in the dark, a few torches and lanterns their only light. They organized teams
to evacuate the families to high ground. The river ran full bore at the threshold of the fort. The men
strung a rope from a post in the fort across the river to a tree on a hill. The women and children
clung to the necks or rode the shoulders of the men as they pulled through the swirling current. As
the rain continued to pour and the river continued its surge below, the Saints of Santa Clara began
building a “city of tents and shanties” around Hamblin’s “stone coral.” They returned to the
flooded fort for what supplies they could salvage. John Young held watch over the rising waters
with a lantern. While moving their wheat stores wheat, Young shouted a warning, and not long
after the northwestern corner of wall fell into the Santa Clara. Still, they were able to save one-
hundred-seventy-five bushels.
During the commotion, the Staheli children and their gravely ill mother Sophia were
overlooked and remained inside the fort. Their father George had been busy pulling wood out of
the river. Four and a half years old John Staheli, and his sisters Wilhelmina, Elizabeth, and Mary,
and little brother George stood by their “high window” and watched the flood “racing past.” The
western wall of Fort Clara had already collapsed from the rains, and the river carried “great trees
and boulders” that battered the fortress’s remaining walls. As the fort began tumbling “piece by
piece” into the river, Hamblin led the charge back into the fort. Hamblin, Judd, and the others
rushed to the children. Zadok Judd carried little George on his back through the river, almost losing
his footing, but they made it across alive. George led his wife through the rapids, but “the depth
and swiftness” of the river halted their escape. Hamblin went in after them. He put Sophia on his
back and climbed the rope through the river and towards the hill on the far bank. Sophia’s squeezed
259 Young, Memoirs, 119; Todd Compton, “The Big Washout: 1862 Flood in Santa Clara,” Utah Historical
Quarterly, January 2009, 115.
220
Hamblin’s neck so tightly that he was “nearly strangled,” but he held on tighter as the “water was
surging against” him.
260
As they neared the safety of the shore, the post in the fort gave way and
the rope ripped free. Someone, perhaps Brother Young pulled Sophia from the river to the “great
joy of her husband and children” but the flood pulled Hamblin back in. Albert, a Paiute man with
the rescue party threw a rope to Hamblin, and they pulled him to shore. They looked up just as the
entire southern wall fell into the river. The Saints looked on as the river took down Fort Clara
“stone by stone.”
261
Hamblin almost lost his life again soon after. While moving cordwood to higher ground,
the bank under his feet gave way, plunging him back into the torrent. Hamblin clung desperately
to the “snapping roots” against the “torrent of mud and water.” Luckily, Young and Joseph Knight
were nearby and lassoed him with a rope and pulled him up.
They spent the night on that hill. At three in the morning, the rain still fell, and the river
still rumbled. Mary Judd stared out at what “looked like the sea” as the flood came pouring out
from the canyon and “spread over the bottoms from hill to hill.” The fort was mostly gone. Not a
“single rock of the old fort to be seen but a channel where it once stood.” The nearby vineyards,
orchards, and Brother Dodge’s “prized nursery were gone. The schoolhouse and seven houses near
the fort were gone, and “in their place roared” the “wild torrents of the river.”
The Clara “overflew nearly the whole of the bottoms.”
262
Where the town once stood, the
Santa Clara River ran one hundred and fifty yards wide and twenty-five feet high. The rain
continued. The Saints persevered. Priscilla Leavitt Hamblin would later remember that there was
260 Little, Jacob Hamlin, 77.
261 “My brother George was carried away by the flood but was saved by a man called “Little Bishop,” Judd,
autobiography, “Life Story of Barbara Staheli Graff Stucki,” WPA biography, USHS. Todd Compton, “The Big
Washout: 1862 Flood in Santa Clara,” Utah Historical Quarterly, January 2009.
262 Benelli letter to Brigham Young
221
“no time for self-pity...there was work to be done and much of it, shelters were made, and the
mothers had to make them pleasant to live on.”
263
Most lost all of their clothing, bedding, and
belongings in the red Santa Clara. Some like the Hatch family lost even more. Hamblin's second
wife Rachael saved one of their young children from drowning.
Though the endless rains drenched them, the Swiss camp on the lower flat of the river
avoided as much catastrophe, though they did lose dams and irrigation ditches to the river.
264
Three
days after that, Hamblin and Ira Hatch crossed the river to rescue Chamberlain and his grandkids
and bring them to their encampment. The Fort Clara refugees salvaged what they could in the
following days. They gathered parts of Heamlan’s grist mill up to four miles downstream.
A mail stage arrived in Ventura, having “floated down the Santa Clara River” for miles,
soaking the mail matter. It had been raining across Southern California for eighteen days. After
another week of “incessant rain,” the hills around Los Angeles “luxuriated in all the garniture of
their springtime attire.”
265
By the 13th of January, the floods, landslides, and heavy snow blocked overland mail
routes throughout California for nearly two months. Five unidentified bodies were found in the
American River at Norris’ Bridge. A Chinese man was found drowned near Sutterville on the
263 Corbett, Jacob Hamblin, 202, from Compton.
264 Compton, 119.
265 Crane: This section (the Santa Clara Valley) had been visited with heavy rains in early September and seasonable
showers had followed. Consequently, here the scene was changed. The valley and the surrounding hills were clothed
in their finest robes of green, the herds were luxuriating in the richest pasture and everything pointed toward
prosperity…1and we were made captive to it.” (3)The Narrative of Jefferson Crane,” Ventura County Historical
Society Quarterly, Vol. I, no. 2; Storke, Yda Addis. A Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Santa
Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura, California ... Containing a History of This Important Section of the Pacific
Coast from the Earliest Period of Its Occupancy to the Present Time, Together with Glimpses of Its Prospective
Future; with ... Full-Page Steel Portraits of Its Most Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of Many of Its
Pioneers and Also of Prominent Citizens of to-Day. Chicago, The Lewis Pub. Co., 1891.
http://archive.org/details/memorialbiograph00stor; Charles Montville Gidney, Benjamin Brooks. History of Santa
Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California. Lewis Publishing Co., 1917.
http://archive.org/details/historysantabar00shergoog; “The Winter of 1861-1862” compiled by the Staff, Ventura
County Historical Society Quarterly, Vol IV No I, November 1958, 14-19.
222
15
th
.
266
Platt’s Music Hall in San Francisco was “fitted and arranged for receiving and providing
for the Sacramento sufferers, and others.”
267
Back in California’s Central Valley it continued to rain. By the 17
th
, heavy rains had
pounded down for fifty straight hours. From the sky it came down and from the mountains it came
down and from the trees it came down and ran it down across the low ground. Sacramento flooded
for the fourth time that winter.
268
The entire city of Sacramento was under between two and eleven
feet of water, and survivors hunkered down on the second floors, cold and hungry as they were
unable to build fires in the upper stories.
269
The night, a lunar rainbow spanned the sky above the
Sacramento River.
270
Figure 32: The floods and their effects spread in all directions from California’s capitol. “Sacramento during the flood. View
taken from Mr. Hamberger’s residence, on N St. between 4
th
& 5
th
.” California Historical Society
266 “Lives Lost by the Flood,” Daily Alta California, Vol XIV, Number 4356, 23 January 1862,
267At the same time as all of this is occurring, between December 1861 and June, treasure shipments of 1.2 million,
and $750,000, $873,000, 1.1 million, $827,000, 1 million, $603,000, $729,000, $923,000, $750,000, $829,000, left
San Francisco during the winter. Gives an idea of how much money was being generated in northern and Central
California, Langley, The San Francisco Directory…, 1868, 25.
268 From the New York Times: The Flood in California. Another Heavy Rain, and Another Rise of the Waters—
Sacramento Inundated for the Third Time. San Francisco, Friday, Jan. 17.
269 “Congressional.: Senate. The Great Flood in California. A Flood at Cincinnati.,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922);
Detroit, Mich., January 21, 1862.
270Langley, The San Francisco Directory…, 1868, 25.
223
To the north of Sacramento, the floods deposited “thousands of dollars’ worth of drift stuff”
that had traveled down the American River. On the high ground at Norris’s ranch alone, landed
the now usual trees of mammoth proportions, was mining machinery of all varieties, tons of
furniture and several billiard tables on the high ground of Norris’ ranch. The owner planned to sell
the debris if the “deposit is not washed away” by the continued floods—disaster capitalism in
action.
271
The rivers continued to run high. Dry Creek ran two feet higher “than ever before known.”
And the “great rush of water” came again. A flat-boat scow carrying Patrick Bannon, David Gray,
Mike Ryan, Oliver ----, and Indian Pete, along with three or four oxen and half a dozen horses,
disappeared after leaving Bannon’s ranch in American township. They were last seen drifting at
the “mercy of the waves” while the wind blew a “perfect gale.” They had a skiff, but it was too
small to survive in “such a sea.”
272
A Mr. Bomer traveled from Ione City to Folsom on foot, swimming across “four or five
swollen streams,” including one where he used a table to try and float across one of the largest
creeks on the journey. But the table floated him back towards where he started, when “Leander-
like, he swam to the opposite shore.” At Folsom, he rode the cars to Patterson’s, where he took a
steamer to Sacramento along with a cache of letters.
273
In Marysville, the story had become “disgustingly old, but we must repeat it: another
rainstorm! A shower or rather a pour, of rain continued all day” and a “little heavier than any of
its predecessors.” Whatever snow was left snow was “fast disappearing” under the “warm rain”
across the mountains, and “such influences are formidable in our floods.”
274
It was certainly an
271 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
272 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
273 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
274 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
224
educational moment. Someone broke into the office of the steamboat Young American while at the
Marysville landing during the night and stole five hundred dollars on Saturday the 18
th
.
Manuel, a Mexican man and deckhand on Captain Zimmerman’s steamer Visalia “was
carried overboard” and drowned across from Britte’s ranch, three miles above the city. When the
Visalia steamed past Knight’s Landing, “there was about four acres there that were not underwater.
The town people there had made a temporary water break, but it did not hold, and at least fifty
houses washed away. The current there was so “swift and strong” that it easily carried off the
“heaviest millstones from Hestres and Magendry’s mills.” Eleven miles downstream, the river
deposited a “large iron safe” that had been in one of the town’s hotels. When “millstones and safes
begin to float,” remarked one newspaper, “wooden houses will certainly sink.”
California’s Capital was again in the grips of disaster. For the fourth time that winter, the
streets of Sacramento filled with water.
275
Stockton and the greater San Joaquin Valley had
“nothing but storm and rain, and storm and rain” and the wind blowing from the south, east, or
west and even from the direct north.” There was almost no one who could “account for the
phenomena as you may properly call it—so everyone thinks the last shower the end of the rain,
but each evening they are disappointed by a fresh storm from some unexpected quarter. What
makes it worse is that the storms are so extremely violent and accompanied by heavy and lasting
rains.”
The great lake of California continued to grow. Water connected every riverway from
Poverty Flats in the north to Kern Island in the south with the discharge of the thousand miles of
275 Rev Jesse T. Peck, “Fourth Flood in Sacramento.,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, March
6, 1862. “Another Freshet in California,” Hartford Daily Courant (1840-1887); Hartford, Conn., December 31,
1861: “Another Freshet in California. San Francisco, Dec. 25.—Another sever rain has renewed freshets in the
interior. Sacramento is again partially overflowed, but not much damage done.”
225
mountain ranges encircling it.
276
All the dams were destroyed. All the expensive flumes, bridges,
and tunnels were destroyed. Riverbeds across the valleys shifted dramatically. Every elevation was
an island, where “men and animals sought and found a wretched refuge.”
277
Cattle in the Lancha Plana [in what is currently Comanche Reservoir] died by the masses.
One witness saw more carcasses than he could count, some mired down in the mud standing dead
in their tracks. In the tule lands, the town of Woodbridge avoided much damage, with “not much
water” in the houses as the river there did not run much over its banks. The loss of stock on the
lower Mokelumne was “universal” with no ways for the animals to escape “not even a mound,”
was visible for miles along the river. Some cattle wandered off into streams too deep to escape and
were pulled by the hundreds into the rushing current.
On the San Joaquin there were “three floating islands” and on each stood ten to 12 cattle
and horses. At Belcher’s ranch, the waters rose to the second stories and “up to the eaves” of the
houses on the banks. At Beaumont’s Ranch, the water too was up to the “edge of the upper story
windows” out of which a pair of dogs sat “wistfully looking” out. The sloop Maggie Burns was
on its way to their rescue.
278
Elsewhere along the San Joaquin, a large cattle firm lost 6,000 head of cattle. James
Atkinson reported that fourteen miles from Stockton, all the stock had been washed away.
Atkinson lost all his prize-winning swine and poultry. Ten horses survived on an Indian mound, a
mile and a half inland from the river. There was an acre of ground on the mound with a “circus-
like circle upon it” thirty-six feet across “as if some Indian dances had been held there.” During
the storm, a “brave Frenchman” Frank Willard, towed these poor animals behind his boat, at the
276 Roughly from Redding in the north to Bakersfield in the south.
277 Saxon, Five years within the Golden Gate, 1868, 126-7.
278 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
226
risk of his own life” to the mound. Willard’s house was flooded with water. Still, he had hay and
fed the horses on their island regularly. For two days, the storms “raged so furiously” that Willard
“could not get to them.” When Willard finally returned, the “joy” of the “starving brutes” as they
“swam out to meet him and their food. The waters there continued to rise rapidly. The Daily Alta
California worried that:
“Five years hard labor will hardly replace the losses and damages, but give us a fair
show—let this rain and storms cease and stop it must, sooner or later—and I am
positive everything will look up again, bright as ever; all will regain their former
cheerfulness, and we will once more commence with the advantage of knowing
smothering of the climate of the State in its worst feature, and everybody will have
learned to prevent like disasters as those of the present season. May such a one
never visit our State again.”
279
The stage roads in Bear Valley were all washed out, and it would be months and “a great deal of
labor” before regular stage communication could resume. At Osborn’s Ferry on the Tuolumne, the
stage company lost their granary and all the grain, though Osborn’s house and ferryboat survived.
At Loving’s bridge that spans the Stanislaus, the “stage stables, grain, and hay” were all saved, at
least temporarily.
Further south and east, the Tuolumne ran “higher than ever known before” bearing
sawmills, houses, barns, cattle and horses, everything “scattered pell-mell” across the flooded
plains. Some cattle were even “wedged between logs.” Some of the most fertile lands between the
Stanislaus and the Tuolumne was filled with over one hundred “fine large oak trees” that the
ranchers had refused to cut down. Not one was left. “Everything is swept off.” The land for miles
and miles was mired in four feet or more of water.” By ten o’clock, it was “storming and raining
fearfully” and if a “dark night is any sign of storm and rain” to come, there was enough to know
that the storms would last.
280
279 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
280 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
227
Mr. Gordon, traveling along the Mariposa Route on horseback to deliver mails and express
matter, reported “terrible scenes” at Snellingville, where a third of the town was washed away—
the hotel and “all the better buildings.” Where Snelling’s House had stood, the Merced River now
runs.” Charles Bloodworth, a resident there at Snelling’s, lost his safe and $2000 when it washed
into the river. All bridges on the Merced were washed away. On the lower river, “as far as heard
from” all fences and most of the farmhouses were washed away, and many lives lost, and the stock
“for the most part, destroyed.”
At Mariposa Town, the water rose to heights never seen by white Americans. In Mariposa,
Bruce & Brothers lost a $2000 machine shop, the old Express building valued at $1200m, Kerns
& McDermott’s storehouse worth around $900, and many “gardens, fences, etc. were all washed
away.” Mr. Fisher “of the stage company” lost his grain supply when the river washed his stable
away, which hung with “one end partly suspended” over the Merced. If not for an improvised dam
built by some responsive townsfolks, the town of Hornitos save a few houses high on the hillside
would have been swept down the river. They only lost one building.
The great lake of Sacramento reached its greatest extent during the second half of
January—over three million acres--and the fourth time that winter that rain and melting snow
flooded the vale. The cold and muddy water spread 500 miles long and 150 miles wide, connecting
the mountains on one side of the state to the hills on the other. Along the Sacramento Valley, the
telegraph poles were entirely underwater, and the course of the old channel could only be told by
the tops of the trees on Sacramento’s banks.
281
At the far southern end of California’s Central
Valley, at the head of the San Joaquin in and around Tulare Lake, and in Visalia, the farms in the
Four Creeks settlement were completely underwater.
281 Bishop, “Winter…”3.
228
The toll on livestock grew. One paper estimated that 4,500 cattle and sheep had already
drowned since the “unprecedented succession of tremendous storms” hit the state.
282
The
riverbanks were invisible, and “just as far as the eye can see, a vast inland sea spreads.”
283
“It was
no uncommon sight” to see entire villages “meeting houses and all, floating away from their
moorings on terra firma.”
284
Figure 33: “L Street, Looking East from the Levee, on the Banks of the Sacramento River. #30.” California Historical Society
In San Francisco, the “elementary war” continued. The “severe rains” were “so incessant”
and had caused a “large amount of suffering” across the city and surrounding peninsula. The
Mission Railroad could not warn the Mission that a tremendous amount of water was accumulating
just to the south threatening to wash away three hundred yards of the bank near the Protestant
282 “The Flood In California.: Another Heavy Rain, and Another Rise of the Waters Sacramento Inundated for the
Third Time.,” New York Times, 1862.
283 Newbold. “The Great California Flood of 1861-1862.” San Joaquin Historian, Vol. V, No. 4, Winter 1991, pp. 1-
8; “This year at Sonora, in Tuolumne County, between November 11, 1861 and January 14, 1862, seventy-two
inches (six feet) of water had fallen, and in numbers of places over five feet! And that in a period of two months.”
Description from A reporter for the Stockton Daily Independent took a cruise over the flooded area on the steamer
Bragden
284 J. T. H, “Our San Francisco Letter.: Effects of the Disastrous Floods--Immense Losses to City and Country--
Incidents of the Great Freshet--Immense Fall of Rain--Damage to the Mines--Death of H. A. Perry--John at Home,”
Chicago Tribune (1860-1872); Chicago, Ill., March 6, 1862.
229
Orphan Asylum. The Mission district, particularly a portion of Hayes Valley, was underwater. The
northern side of the city flooded next, submerging several houses. On Fourth Street below Mission
Street the water pooled on the flats. The floodwaters ran through the streets and over the hills. The
high water damaged the whole section of North Beach from G Street to the Bay and between
Stockton and Taylor Streets. The flooding spread south past Eighth Street, but the waters subsided
with the storm in many places. Concurrently, around three thousand passengers arrived on
steamers from Sacramento, most of them losing much, but “few their all,” Two steamers out of
San Francisco delivered abundant amounts of cooked food to the refugees of Sacramento City.
Police officers again traveled through the storm to Benicia to escort refugees there to that “ark of
safety,” Platt’s hall, “alias Charity Hall.”
285
The rains poured across the high desert just north and east of the San Gabriel and San
Bernardino Mountains. Mirages no longer, floodwaters filled ancient lakes across the Mojave
Desert deep enough to swim a horse.
286
Dormant dry lakes awoke across the Mojave Desert. [What
of Fort Mojave?] The Mojave River rose 20 feet above normal and washed away the town of Oro
Grande. It flooded across the eastern Mojave Desert at Topock. Waterways to the east of the
Colorado River in the northern part of Arizona overflowed at Angel, Bright, and Verde river
basins.
287
To the south, the Lower Colorado River flooded across its basin.
288
On January 2
nd
, on
285 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4351, 18 January 1852 – City Items
286 Hayes, Benjamin Ignatius. Pioneer notes from the diaries of Judge Benjamin Hayes, 1849-1875, 1929, 266 and
Crafts, Eliza Persis Russell Robbins, b. 1825, Pioneer days in the San Bernardino Valley. Redlands, Ca., 1906, 51.
287 Winchell Smith and W.L. Heckler, “Compilation of Flood Data in Arizona, 1862-1953,” USGS Numbered Series,
Open-File Report, 1955, http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/ofr55170.
288 “Early in 1862 a force of two or three hundred Texans, under Captain Hunter, marched westward from Mesilla,
and in February took possession of Tucson for the confederacy. There was of course no opposition, union men, if
there were any left, fleeing across the line into Sonora. Not much is really known of Hunter’s operations in Arizona
so far as detail are concerned, even the date of his arrival being doubtful. Besides holding Tucson, driving out men
suspected of union sympathies, confiscating a few mines belonging to northerners, and fighting the Apaches to some
extent, he sent a detachment to the Pima villages, and possibly contemplated an attack on Fort Yuma. But—to say
nothing of the recent floods, which had greatly increased the difficulties of the route, destroying Gila and Colorado
cities—the news from California was not reassuring,” 513.
230
the Arizona side, the Colorado annihilated the three towns all within a mile of each other at its
juncture with the Gila River. The Gila backed up and overflowed its valley, destroying Colorado
City, which was roughly halfway between Fort Yuma and Pilot Knob. It had one adobe house used
for a customs-house. Arizona City was washed away as well. It was larger, having half a dozen
structures, including a post office, two stores, and two saloons. Gila City, the largest of the three
had a stage station, two stores, two blacksmith shops, a hotel, and several houses. All were washed
away.
289
The destruction of Gila City and Colorado City, essential stopping points for the perilous
direct route between Los Angeles and Santa Fe and points east. The Gila River overspilled its
banks and covered the entire valley where it joins with the Colorado, which ran so high that the
hill Fort Yuma sat on became an island. The settlement across from the fort, Colorado City, was
overwhelmed and washed away. Overflow from the Colorado River Basin even meandered its way
into the Salton Sea.
290
The Colorado spilled across the borderlands between the Californias,
Arizona, and Sonora before pouring into the Sea of Cortez.
Meanwhile in Utah, though no one at Fort Clara perished in the flood, many suffered from
exposures during the following stormy weeks. Rachael Hatch’s child died during that period, and
Rachel never fully recovered from either affliction. Two-year-old John Terry Young, son of Joh
Ray and Albina Young died from the croup.
291
Sophia Staheli, who gave birth on Christmas day,
died from typhoid. Her son Frank remembered that she was “never well after the night of the
flood.” Several others suffered from health problems in the years after.
292
The Paiute villages and
289 Bancroft cites S.F. Bulletin Aug 9, 1859, 500.
290 Wheeler, G.M., "Annual report on the geographical surveys West of the one-hundredth meridian, in California,
Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, and Montana: Appendix JJ,” Annual Report of the Chief
of Engineers for 1876: Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1876.
291 Young, Memoirs, 121. Compton, 119.
292 Rachel Judd Hamblin died four years later. Reports indicate her health declined after the flood. Caroline Beck
Knight, eight months pregnant at the time of the flood, was chronically ill in the years after and died eight years
later. Frank Staheli, “Johann George Staheli,” in Whittaker, History of Santa Clara, 348-50.
231
their fields along the river flooded and the people there suffered greatly. Some recalled stories their
fathers told them of a similar flood many years past.
293
An Oregon merchant named Jagger froze to death near Deschutes on the 17
th
while
traveling to Portland. He was found with sixty pounds of gold dust on his back.
Yet another storm moved in around the 19
th
bringing winds and rain and rain mixed with
snow. On the 20
th
, the ice in the Willamette and elsewhere began breaking up as the temperature
rose slightly, giving some hope that the winter would break.
294
It was but a tease. Another storm
arrived that night on a gale from the south that brought rain and snow for the next four or five days.
It snowed again on the 26
th
and then again on the 28
th
and 31
st
and continued into February. Snow
covered the ground from six inches to two feet for the entire month of January.
295
January 22 marked the beginning of the lunar new year. Amid the tragedy, Chinese
California’s celebrated with fireworks.
Back in Utah Territory, the towns of Adventure, Rockville, Grafton, and Pocketville were
all leveled. In the town of Adventure, Bishop P. K. Smith of Adventure lost his house, blacksmith
shop, cane mill along with one hundred fifty gallons of molasses, and nearly all of his household
furniture and kitchen supplies. Bishop N. C. Tenney lost multiple homes with all their furniture,
and most tragically part of his family with them.
296
The storms continued across the Great Basin. On Monday, January 27, was yet another
cloudy day, and that evening it started to snow. It snowed through the night, leaving six inches.
Another 8 inches of snow fell on the 29
th
, and yet even more rain came the night of the 30
th
which
293 Duncan, letter to the editor, Janaury 19, 1862, Deseret News, “Flood in Southern Utah,” 8. Compton,
294 Bancroft writes the ice in the Willamette and elsewhere began breaking up and the cold relaxed but that is not
quite true as the Fort Vancouver Meteorological Register clearly shows. “Hubert Howe Bancroft, Bancroft’s Works:
History of Oregon Vol. 2, 1888, pp. 483-484.
295 Meteorological Register, Fort Vancouver, 1861-1862
296 Ward Record at Harmony kept by John D. Lee;
232
reduced the snow on the ground to four inches. On the morning of January 31
st
, the sun showed
for the first time in 29 days. At one that afternoon it started snowing again.
297
On the morning of Thursday February 6
th,
it began snowing again across Utah Territory,
and the evacuation of Fort Harmony continued. Snow piled up 10 inches. In the early afternoon,
the wind shifted from the southeast to the north and blew cold and cutting. William And Harvey
A. Pace, and George. M. Sevy drove three wagons with eight yoke of cattle each wagon and
evacuated nearly all the families from Harmony, “through the storms, women and children soaking
wet.” Lee moved most of his large family out of except one of his wives Sarah Caroline her
children. Sarah’s house had been the only sanctuary from the unabating storms and all the families
stayed there the previous night. The Harveys and George Sevy had their wagons and teams loaded
and ready to leave. Sarah Caroline insisted on staying a bit longer to finish up her spinning work,
surely believing it would come in handy as that disastrous winter continued to unwind. Since the
roof was already gone and the rain had mostly stopped, the dangers were low. Sill, Lee urged his
wife and remaining children to leave as soon as they could. By nightfall, Sarah Caroline had
finished. She was busy gathering her bedding and clothing when she was about to take Theresa
(baby?) and her two oldest children outside. Just a few steps from the doorway, a gust of northern
wind pushed down a partition wall that broke through the lower floor and landed directly on top
of little George A. and Margaret Anne Lee and just at the feet of the older two. George and
Margaret’s deaths were “shocking and sad occurrence” that the father and mother had both been
warned of.
298
Lee spent eight days in the same soaking wet clothes. He suffered severe financial losses
of horses, cattle, sheep and farmlands. The deaths of his children, combined with the extended
297 Ward Record at Harmony kept by John D. Lee;
298 Ward Record at Harmony kept by John D. Lee;
233
exposure to the weather and the overcrowded living conditions on the wagons, caused the
“degeneracy of family morale.” Lee and his ten wives and their surviving young ones fled as the
last of Fort Harmony melted into the river.
299
Back in Central California, William Henry Brewer, field manager for Josiah Whitney’s
Geological Survey team for the state of California who was quite actually “up and down” the state
and its mountains ranges during the Big Winter, recorded detailed reports on just about everything
he experienced during his time up and down the Slope and was on the ground during those epic
winter months. From the high ground east of San Francisco, he gazed out over the great Central
Valley underwater. To the north, he saw water spread for three hundred miles across the
Sacramento and to the south, he saw that San Joaquin river valley was filled like a lake that covered
at least three and a half million acres, blocking every road through.
Across the valley, Brewer saw traces of thousands of farms entirely submerged and
intermingled here and there the carcasses of drowned cattle. Floodwaters overlapped telegraph
poles across the Sacramento Valley, cutting off communication for weeks. The entire valley was
a lake extending from the mountains on one side to the coast range hills on the other. Steamers ran
back and forth over the ranches fourteen miles from the river’s normal channel, ferrying what stock
survived to the hills.
300
“Nearly every house and farm over this immense region is gone,” and
“many deaths had been reported during all this time” [into Jan]. Thousands of people were
homeless, “starving and stranded settlers” camped all along the riverbanks, on hills, and in the
“outlands” and they all continued to suffer terribly through the ongoing winter onslaught.
301
The rains slowed around the 17
th
but instead of ceases turned to heavy snowfall. It turned
299 Ward Record at Harmony kept by John D. Lee;
300 January 19, 1862.
301 Brewer, letters.
234
again to rain “again to snow, and again to rain, which continued to fall uninterruptedly for three
straight days with no signs of clearing up. The cold temperatures “nipped the grass” and many
cattle that had survived drowning starved to death instead. Across the Central Valley, cattle died
“in droves.” Three-quarters of the cattle is Sutter County alone were dead or dying.
302
For George
Kearsing the weather grew “colder than we have known it since we have been in the country.” On
the coast, the temperature in San Francisco dropped to 15 degrees.
303
The snowstorms were terrifying across the mountains and foothills of the Sierra, where
avalanches carried away roads and bridges and a “great many” houses. Several lives were lost. The
Cedar Creek bridge linking Placerville to Folsom was destroyed, blocking roads between
Placerville and everywhere else. Though weather-bound, the stockpile of “edibles in store” bought
them some time. “No material advance in prices has yet been made, though some produce dealers
are asking $8 per cwt, for flour. Rye & Stewart, the largest dealers, asked $8 but refused to sell
except to their regular customers. Potatoes are very scarce, and wood has advanced to $10 per
cord. Rice has almost given out entirely, but as this only affects the Chinese, nobody cares.”
304
Only one man attempted to pack out. Countless more straggled in from Washoe, dragging
themselves and their horses through great suffering to get to Placerville.
George Kearsing noted that the cost of provisions was very high in the valley, but that they
too had enough food to last until the roads would be usable.
305
Still, Kearsing and his family were
driven from their house three different times during the night and finally stayed on the high ground
in a “shanty” they quickly built in the rain. The Kearsing family had enough. They decided then
302 Peter DeLay, History of Yuba and Sutter Counties California with Biographical Sketches…,”Historic Record
Company, 1924, 101.
303 Saxon, Five years within the Golden Gate, 1868, 127.
304 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 “Letter from Placerville”, January 17, 1862
305 G.F. Kearsing letter marked received (New York) March 5th 1862, Kearsing-Diaz Family papers, Bancroft
Library
235
to move permanently from there come Spring.
306
Sacramento was a city doomed. Citizens who six weeks before were among the wealthiest
on the Slope were now bankrupt. The “ruin and desolation” in every corner of the capitol was
“heart-rending.” The “houses removed,” in many cases half a mile from where they stood and they
heaped up in a “confused and undistinguished mass” many of them “stood bottom up,” some on
lay on their sides, some with their “gable ends peeping” above the water. The State Legislature
passed a joint resolution to adjourn both Houses until the 21
st
of January due to the conditions of
the streets made it impossible for members to get to and from the capitol.
Figure 34: As the winter wore on, many buildings that had been safe, began to fall to the effects of the ongoing high water.
“Sacramento During the Flood. Taken from the top of Pavilion, 6
th
& M. St.”, Bancroft Library
306 G.F. Kearsing letter marked received (New York) March 5th 1862, Kearsing-Diaz Family papers, Bancroft
Library
236
Reverend Steven Chipman Thrall gave a fiery sermon on Sunday January 19
th
, 1862—right
amid the devastation of the Pacific storms. Thrall saw the devastation of floods as divine
punishment for his fellow Californians' pride and arrogance and greed. He references I Chronicles,
xxi:13 that tells of David’s arrogance and pride in counting his soldiers. Thrall tells us that God
offered David three options: “three years of famine; three months defeat in war; or three days
pestilence.” All of these “punishments” manifested themselves—in ways beyond Thrall himself
could even recognize—as of course, war, famine, and disease would attack communities in the
region and across the continent. Thrall argues that “natural events” are under God’s providence to
“punish moral and spiritual disobedience.” Thrall recognized the inequities of the relief effort as
some were left neglected where “relief was withheld.” [Author’s emphasis]
The human element, both in relief, and where relief was withheld, in the
suffering which would be chargeable to human neglect…The lesson of the
text is: that material calamities are of God's appointment, to chastise men,
in vindication of the honor of his law, and for our correction…. natural
events take place under God's providence, with reference and direct
application to human actions, to vindicate his law, and to punish moral and
spiritual disobedience in man. It is natural to expect it…I have not time,
now, to go into elaborate argument in reply to those who, from what they
call the immutability of the laws of nature, deny that God, either by direct
action, modifies those natural laws or has made them subject to the
operation of spiritual causes for human punishment.
Thrall continues to elaborate on the nature of natural hazards as punishment from God.
Moral transgressions are directly punished by natural calamities, either
through the divine will act on the laws of nature, or because of some relation
between moral and natural laws…predicted penalty is not a temporary
suspension of natural law, to be treated as some exceptional case; but a
revelation of some secret moral powers acting on natural laws…great
calamities are God's punishment of sin…" [author’s emphasis]
For Thrall, the sin deserving punishment was that US Americans were not thankful enough
in God for Manifest Destiny. The nation was too prideful and complacent over its
prosperity. And more importantly, the pride of US Americans in themselves and ignoring
237
the “providential causes” that “opened up a world of virgin soil, mineral, wealth. And this
pride Thrall says, brought about the Civil War.
…as a nation we were prosperous and happy, abounding in material
blessings, respected if not feared by all. No nation of modern times has had
such swift growth in power and material wealth. With what spirit has it been
possessed? Proud of our standing, we have credited ourselves wholly with
its attainment…we have proclaimed them as the remedy of all the political
evils of the world…and loudly boasted…we have ignored the providential
causes…the opening up of the world of virgin soil, mineral wealth,
commercial convenience, and manufacturing advantages…with self-
complacency the nation stood up to survey its own perfections, to display
them to the world, and I greater pride than David's…how hath our destiny
and state been read backward like a witch's prayer…God looked down in
wrath upon a people forgetful of his rich gifts….left no choice of evil, but
sent suddenly intestine strife, begetting war…"
The West Coast though had escaped the carnage of the War in the East. California’s
“shamelessly gloried” and “rejoiced” in their relative freedom from the horrors of war. And
because of this, Thrall believed, God brought a war from the sky to smite the Pacific Slope
with the “whole powers of nature as his artillery.”
Meantime, upon this coast, with almost heartless congratulation…We have
shamelessly gloried, not to say rejoiced in, not our freedom from the evil
only, but the many advantages we should reap from the calamity itself. He
who visited the nation with war has smitten us with flood. The windows of
heaven have been opened, and the richest portion of our land is desolate.
Almost no portion of this coast has escaped suffering, loss of life, loss of
property. He holds the whole powers of nature as his artillery. The loss of
life and property, by this visitation, has been greater on this coast, in
proportion to our population, than the loss among our friends at home by
war.[Author’s emphasis]
Thrall believed that the Big Winter’s “loss of life and property” was more significant in
proportion to the Slope’s population than the losses in lives to the battlefields and field
hospitals of the Civil War. And yet, there were still more storms, more rains, and more
winter to come.
Beyond the capital city, the destruction of property and the loss of life in the countryside
238
beyond the capital city were far more significant. The means for escape and rescue were more
limited. The entire Sacramento Valley was submerged. And the cod brought ice to the waters.
Everything upriver was nothing but a “wild waste of waters” in all directions stretching in places
fifty miles before touching the highlands. Countless houses remained, their tops just standing out
of the water. Everything transportable—cattle, horses, sheep, hogs were “swept to destruction
before the devouring element.” The loss of livestock was “incalculable.” Herds of cattle, “eight to
ten hundred in number have been seen lying in one confused mass all destroyed by the flood.” It
was a “sight to be seen once and to be remembered for life.” During one rescue effort on the
Sacramento River, a Mexican man named Manuel, a deckhand on the steamboat Visalia,
drowned.
307
Figure 35: The Pavilion became the hub of aquatic Sacramento. This photos was likely also taken from the Pavilion roof. “Flood
Waters in Sacramento,” A Camera in the Gold Rush, California Historical Society
Some in Southern California thought the destruction of the Northern cities would elevate
307 “Lives Lost by the Flood,” Daily Alta California, Vol XIV, Number 4356, 23 January 1862,
239
those in the South. Though it was wet and gloomy, and the waterways had run high, the south
Coast had thus far escaped the worst of the Big Winter. This “great calamity” which would
undoubtedly be felt for years, “will yet be of vast benefit to the Southern portion” of the state.
When the Spring opens, everything in the shape of cattle, horses, sheep, etc. now
so abundant in our own county of Los Angeles County, will find a ready and active
market here, and universal prosperity such as perhaps never been known before,
must spread over the entire Southern part of the State.
Los Angeles believed many,
“was hopelessly gone—that nothing but the discovery of rich mines in that region
could possibly bring back that prosperity which had so long departed. Now what a
change brought about it is true by such a calamity as every one must deplore yet
brought about by the wise decrees of an inscrutable Providence, to which all must
bow in submission.” “Truly may it be said that the ways of Providence are
inscrutable.”
For some in Southern California, the destruction across the Slope was also God’s work, but to the
benefit of the South Coast.
Indeed. Also, arriving from Camp Union on the Sacramento Boat came Companies D, H,
and L of the 5
th
Regiment of Infantry, under Colonel G. W. Bowie, where they proceed to San
Diego, where H and L will head to Los Angeles in anticipation of Secessionist rebellions there or
to reinforce on the Colorado River.
308
While the intensity of the rains lessened if only slightly,
they continued with “monotonous regularity for yet another week” of mire across the Southland.
The mud at Whiskey Point in San Bernardino was “up to their—well none of your business.”
309
An outbreak of smallpox hit Mexican and California Indian communities and they were
“dying so fast that it was difficult to find persons to bury them.”
310
Heavy rains and snow made travel difficult in northern Utah. A traveler making his way
308 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4351, 18 January 1852 – City Items
309 “The Winter of 1861-1862” compiled by the Staff, Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly, Vol IV No I,
November 1958, 14-19.
310 James Guinn, A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs: Also Containing
Biographies of Well-Known Citizens of the Past and Present (Los Angeles : Historic Record Co., 1915.
240
from Washington DC found the road was fine until about fifty miles east of the Great Salt Lake
when it became nearly impassable. At the Rocky Bridge, at the south pass of the Rocky Mountains,
the roads were so bad that it took twenty-seven hours to travel twelve miles. The road was fairly
good from there to Salt Lake City but the road out was filled with mud.
At Mineral Springs, the other side of Ruby Valley, the man passed through a “fearful
snowstorm” and they were snowed in all night just one hundred and fifty yards from the station.
Neither the traveler nor his companions suffered from the cold, but the stage driver Hank Harper
and the conductor nearly froze to death. They ten passed through the Carson sink stayed at Carson
City for several days thereafter. From there, the road grew “far worse than any that he had
previously passed.” The stage could only make it halfway due to the deeper snow and then had to
stake a sleigh. Not long after they had to switch again to horseback. The traveler’s horse faltered
and tumbled down a forty-foot hill, but the man managed to escape without major injury when his
rider was “quick enough to disengage himself before the animal began to roll.”
311
Back in San Francisco at Platt’s Hall, the H.F. Teschemacher, Esq. the chairman of the
Central Relief Committee of San Francisco worried if it was ready to “succor all who have
sustained loss.” The “wants of applicants are becoming daily more urgent,” and the Relief
Committee, “without further contributions are made, will speedily exhaust the funds” on hand.
Food and supplies were growing scarcer. The storms were so severe that “many milkmen could
not reach town,” causing a “scarcity of the lacteal fluid.”
312
On Sunday, the “masses and vespers”
collections were taken up for the “suffers by the flood” by the Catholic churches in San Francisco.
Officer Brown discovered a homeless family on Greenwich street, between Taylor and Jones. They
311 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862, “Letter From Placerville” “Storm in the
Mountains”
312 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4351, 18 January 1852 – City Items
241
were living in a “miserable shanty” and had sick for three weeks. There were four “young and
helpless children,” and they were without fire and had “scarcely a morsel of food.” After “making
application” at Platt’s Hotel, “food and blankets were dispatched to the needy family.” “If some
charitable person, who has the means, would send the poor fellow a stove, The Daily Alta reported,
the family could be “at least temporarily comfortable.”
There were seemingly instances of people trying to take advantage of the Relief
Committee’s charity, or perhaps examples of relief not being offered to the needy. There were
rumors of “from time to time” of people representing themselves to the Relief Committee as
“sufferers from Sacramento” and the newspapers advocated for the Committee to take “the most
extraordinary precautions” so they can “husband their means” for those who needed it the most
urgently.
For days, there was “no flood tide coming in through the Heads.” The tide at the wharves
continued to rise and fall. Still, the amount of the “immense body” of fresh water pouring down
from the interior of the state entirely covered the surface of the harbor and continued to flow out
to sea in an “uninterrupted current, while the tide still “flowed in at a greater or less depth below
the surface.” A shipmaster reported that the “water alongside his ship in the harbor is fresh.”
313
Dr. Logan noted that the rain Sunday and Monday was 1.650. “we have now had nearly
twenty-four inches of rain during the present season. In the mountains the amount has been very
much greater at various points. At San Francisco, thirty-two inches and half have fallen.”
314
The
body of Michael Donovan was found in Islais Creek.
315
The New York Times reported on January 21
st
of the disasters in California—with estimates
313 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4351, 18 January 1852 – City Items
314 “Rain,” The Courts, Sacramento Daily Union, 21 January 1862, CDNC
315 Langley, San Francisco Directory for the year 1861-1862, 1862, 25.
242
of property loss as high as ten million dollars. And still, the storms and their consequent destruction
continued across the Slope.
Contrary to the “prophesy and expectation of the ‘oldest inhabitant’” the main streets of
Sacramento continued to be filled with water. A change in weather and the falling of the waters
“produced a favorable change in the spirits of the people and led many to suppose that the troubles”
would recede with the floodwaters. But again, the rains “came down in torrents, the wind blew a
perfect gale, and everything presented a scene of the most disheartening nature.” The storms
pounded night and day. During the showers, an “extraordinary phenomenon” “not witnessed out
of California” occurred when the winds blew “alternately from all points of the compass, it seemed
to produce no sensible effect on the rain.” “It is true” than when the wind blows” steadily from the
North” that the “rain is more uniform and colder.”
316
Figure 36: Sacramento’s citizens tried to continue their regular activities, including drunken revelry. “Sacramento City Flood of
1862,” View of Flooded K Street, looking east from the levee. What Cheer House at right. Bancroft Library
316 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV Number 4345, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento;
243
Rescue efforts across the Central Valley continued as most of the region remained
underwater. The United States Revenue Cutter Shubrick under a Captain. Pease (a different Pease
than the Willamette steamer pilot), made two trips up the river, rescuing many persons from
danger.” Painted black with a white ribbon and waist and bright red paddlewheels with white
boxes, with its six inches of copper, “shining above the waterline,” the Shubrick pushed up the
Sacramento’s muddy waters towards the capitol.
317
Under Captain Pease, the “errand of mercy”
left from San Francisco at 4:30 pm on the 18
th
of January and proceeded up the bays to Benicia,
where they anchored overnight. At daybreak, the ship made its way to Rio Vista, where it delivered
food and supplies and took aboard seven men, one woman, and three children. Five miles upriver,
they picked up three men and two women, and after another twelve miles found, three more men
and a few miles further picked up a woman and three more children. They continued upriver picked
up survivors—including five more children. They rescued thirty-five in total and delivered
supplies to those without food.
318
Figure 37: The Shubrick was instrumental in rescuing stranded people and delivering goods to those in need. Public Domain.
317 White, Jr., Richard D. (1976). "Saga of the Side-Wheel Steamer Shubrick: Pioneer Lighthouse Tender of the
Pacific Coast". American Neptune. XXCVI (1): 47.
318 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – The Flood of 1862. The Trip of the
“Shubrick”
244
Another crew aboard the War Hawk went on a search and rescue for a family whose house
had ridden away on the river with them aboard. The Hawk found them and carried them and other
refugees from the Shubrick back to San Francisco. Captain William Pease did all he could to
“relieve those in need.” They “hailed every house” that still stood and “inquired if the refugees
there needed any supplies. Some replied “No,” while others those who said “Yes,” were quickly
supplied with what they had to offer. From the deck, crew and survivors alike starred “dreadful”
at the “suffering along the river” the “poor cattle lying dead along what were the banks.” “Nothing
during these long, dreary, wet months” remembered one survivor, “could be done in Sacramento
beyond laboring to preserve something from the wreck, provide subsistence for families, and
prepare for supplying the destitute and sick.”
319
Captain James S. Lawson of the United States brig
Fauntleroy loaned a whaleboat and fixtures critical for Howard’s relief efforts far inland.
Storms continued to barrage the Northwest in January. The ground was covered “deep
snow ever since Christmas. In the town of Olympia on Puget Sound, the winter had been very
severe with more “cold weather and snow than ever was known here by even the oldest settlers.
The weather allowed “good sleighing all the time.” All the lakes about were frozen thick enough
for skating, “something that does not happen one year in ten.”
320
The Willamette Valley overflowed again—the third time thus far that winter. Flooding hit
Portland's business potion and did severe damage to the State's valleys
321
Across Oregon, the
January wave of floods “washed off bridges with liens and heavy mortgages on them, rented farms,
319 “Flood Anniversary,” Sacramento Daily Union, Vol 24, number 3656, 9 December 1862.
320 Writing from Olympia, Puget Sound January 22, 1862 to her “Dear Mother and Lizzie”
321 “News From San Francisco.: Union Convention at Sacramento Floods in Oregon, &c.,” New York Times, 1862.
245
razed crops of potatoes, and rushed the bottoms out” of all the roads, and did more “cleaning out”
than the miners.
322
The storms had finally taken their toll on Southern California. After twenty-five days of
nearly nonstop rain, every gulch and arroyo came alive with rivers and streams rushed down every
hillside across Southern California.
323
Snow fell at Tehachapi and across the valley there, more
than two feet deep. Tejon's road was washed out, blocking overland connections between the
Southland and the rest of the Slope to the north. The San Fernando mountain could only be crossed
by the old winding trail that wraps around and over the mountains, a long, arduous, and dangerous
route. The rains continued, and stormwaters rushed down every declivity, streams shifted in their
beds, gouging the plains open with deep gulches.
324
On the night of Friday, the 17
th
of January, a “terrific” avalanche struck at Curtis’s Sulphur
Springs, in the mountains roughly four miles beyond the town of Santa Barbara. Three people
camping in a tent near the spring awoke to the falling of trees and made a frightful and desperate
escape, “bursting through the canvas,” the first man out leaped into the water chest deep. The two
others followed, but the flood carried them more than a quarter-mile downriver. One of them,
Henry Miller, was found dead a few days later, a gigantic boulder rested on one of his legs. Before
his body could be recovered, amputation was needed. Rocks “over a ton weight” passed over him,
“fracturing his skull and mangling his body terribly.” Crawford [Cromford in one version]
322 University of Oregon Library Knight, “Oregon Sentinel. (Jacksonville, Or.) 1858-1888, February 01, 1862, Image
2,” no. 1862/02/01 (February 1, 1862), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn84022657/1862-02-01/ed-1/seq-2/.
323 Los Angeles Star, vol. 11, no. 35, January 25, 1862; The Star reported that “hat the plains had been dissected by
gulches and arroyos during the storms. An arroyo over 15 m deep was cut at San Luis Rey [modern day Oceanside,
north of San Diego] and some streets in Ventura were eroded to a depth of nearly 5 m. Also see Gumprect, The L.
A. River, on page 145, he recounts the story of “Elijah Moulton, one of the first persons to settle on the east side of
the river . . . lost everything he owned--his house, vineyards, and orange groves. T. J. White watched as five
thousand of his vines on the west bank of the river were uprooted and carried downstream. At least four people
drowned.”
324 Cleland, Robert Glass. The Cattle on a Thousand Hills: Southern California, 1850-1870. The Huntington Library,
1975.
246
survived, though “terribly bruised and maimed.” Mac escaped unscathed. The rain and flood were
so powerful that it took two days before the neighbors could reach the scene. The Rains, floods,
and debris flows churned over acres and acres of land, carrying off rock and timber and carving a
new branch of the mineral springs. The entire surrounding countryside suffered.”
325
The swollen streams “swept out channels through bolsas—miry lagoons—where they
usually only drained. The rivers changed their beds and moved vast piles of debris, filling in
estuaries. Before the Big Winter, the estuary at Goleta was a small harbor only “accessible by
small boats and might have eventually become a more used harbor for refuge from storms, but the
floods and landslides filled it with gravel and sand. The storms triggered landslides and debris
flows that “much changed” the appearance of the countryside. Landslides came down with
regularity and sometimes moved “half of the soil” in some places great distances. Chunks of earth
were displaced in patches of an acre or more.
The floods extended down into the town of Santa Barbara.
326
The floods destroyed the
Mission’s seven-mile irrigation system—both ditches and stone masonry—built by some
Chumash between 1805 and 1815. The Santa Clara River billowed to a “raging torrent, which,
washing, swirling, and seething, swept away everything from its path.”
327
Streets in Ventura were
eroded to a depth of nearly 5 meters. Elijah Moulton, who homesteaded on the east side of the
river, lost everything his house, vineyards, orange groves, and possessions. T. J. White watched as
five thousand of his vines on the west bank of the river were uprooted and carried downstream. In
the town of Ventura, numerous houses were immersed or physically carried away. The town of
325 California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences’, Volume 166, Number 17, 31 January 1862 – State Summary.
Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4363, 31 January 1862 – San Francisco Friday, Jan. 18.
326 The aqueduct at Canada Larga Road is two surviving sections of viaduct about 100 feet long and made of cobble
stone and mortar. No. 114-1 San Buenaventura Mission Aqueduct; Location: 234 Canada Larga Rd, Ventura, Listed
on the National Register of Historic Places: NPS-75000497
327 W. A. Sadler, “The Great Flood of January 22, 1862,” San Bernardino County Museum Association Quarterly 39,
no. 1, 1992, 49.
247
Ventura was abandoned. Mr. Hewitt of Santa Barbara drowned while prospecting on Pirn Creek.
328
Above San Buenaventura, where the former mission’s six-mile water delivery system waterworks
ran, a landslide “along almost the whole face of the hill” came down destroying parts of the canal.
At least four people drowned.”
329
The losses the “hard winter of 1861-’62” brought to Southern California’s cattle economy
were immense. All the land around the rivers was flooded to a “great depth” and the ground was
“saturated and reeking.” The surviving animals there were starving and died in great numbers.
Countless cattle died. And countless more were killed intentionally. Because of the long-distance
drives from the southern counties and the countryside without grass, the cattle would lose too much
weight on the long journey, reducing the quality and amount of the beef and the value per head.
This led to a matanza, a “species of wholesale slaughter.” The slaughter-works were on the
seashore between Santa Barbara and Carpentaria so that the waste could be washed away by the
tide. After the cows were culled, their carcasses were then put into steam baths until the flesh fell
off the bones and reduced to a “mass of jelly and fat.” Workers put this gelatinous mass into a
giant press to extract “every particle of tallow.” The jelly was used to make glue. They shipped
the horns east to made into expensive hair combs and other consumer products. The pressed mean
“cake” they fed to the hogs. They culled at least 100,000 head of cattle at the price of five dollars
per animal. The increase in the number of cattle in Southern California depressed beef to a price
328 Yda Addis Storke, A Memorial and Biographical History for the Counties of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and
Ventura, California; Lewis Publishing, 1891, 184.
329 Water depths greater than a meter were reached in both Los Angeles and Anaheim from Newmark, 1970, 309; and
Guinn, 1890; Floodwaters spread westward from El Monte toward Los Angeles from Reagan, 1915, 272, 488; also
see Gumprecht, 145 and Juan José Warner, Benjamin Ignatius Hayes, and Joseph Pomeroy Widney, An historical
sketch of Los Angeles County, California: from the Spanish occupancy, by the founding of the Mission San Gabriel
Archangel, September 8, 1771, to July 4, 1876 (Louis Lewin & Co., 1876). Brewer, William (Edit. Francis P.
Farquhar) and Brewer, Up and down California in 1860-1864. See also Harris Newmark, Sixty Years in Southern
California 1853-1913. Reprint. Zeitlin & Ver Brugge, 1916. Los Angeles Star, vol. 11, no. 35, January 25, 1862;
Also see Gumprect, The L. A. River, 145.
248
that “hardly repaid the killing.”
330
Further south, the storms swept into Southern California and continued with little
interruption for around thirty days. Los Angeles Star: “As a matter of record, it may be as well to
state, that from the 24
th
day of December to the 5
th
day of February, except for two days, rain more
or less, has fallen every day and night,--sometimes in torrents.” Some feared that the endless rains
in the West would outlast the war in the East. The Santa Monica, San Gabriel and San Bernardino
mountains were already saturated by weeks of rain and snow. Los Angeles’s Star noted on the 4
of January that there had “been one shower since has lasted all this time morning, noon, and
night—day in and day out—rain, rain, rain.”
El Río de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula already brimful,
overflowed its banks and became a violent, devastating flood. Gushing torrents rushed through
every gulch and arroyo. The city had recently built a barrier for the waterworks, but the river's
force melted it with ease. The Arroyo Seco discharged a colossal volume of water down its
weathered course that poured into the Los Angeles River. The “fretting and boiling drove the water
beyond all control.” It poured down rain in troughs for more than twenty-four straight hours.
On Saturday night of the 18th, the river’s “work of destruction” began. Chocolate froth
buried vineyards in silt and gravel. Entire fruit orchards uprooted. The floods poured out across
the eastern banks and buried ranches and farms along the River and its arroyos for miles. The
flooded Los Angeles River tore across the region for days. Mrs. T. J. White’s vineyard, washing
away 5,000 vines in an instant and inundated her pasturelands beyond. It washed away great
chunks of land that had been covered in orange groves and other orchards of the “most valuable
330 The low price paid--$5 per head—the enterprise [ultimately] was unprofitable.”] Yda Addis Storke, A Memorial
and Biographical History for the Counties of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura, California; Lewis
Publishing, 1891, 184.
249
fruit.” Mr. E. Moulton lost his entire thirty-acre property. Nothing was left. His house and all of
his possessions, his vineyards, his orange orchards, everything was carried away by the river. Mr.
Wolfskill’s vineyard adjoining Moulton’s went similarly. The torrent on the Los Angeles then
spilled across the west bank and into the settlements there. While it only did minor damage to the
Sansevaine property, it eradicated Hammel and Messer's properties, washing away their house and
cellars and acres of vines. They did manage to save their large tanks of wine.
331
Mr. Huber’s
vineyard went next, several acres destroyed. The river’s high waters filled the vineyards of Mr.
Frobling and Mr. Colonel, and in some places, like at Hammel and Messers, the river left thick
deposits of sand that nearly buried some of the vines entirely.
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles sat at the mouth of the canyon.
Highlands buffered the town on both sides but many of the vineyards were exposed to the racing
current. It did not take long for the city dam to fail, and the flood raced through The Pueblo of Los
Angeles. Countless old adobe buildings collapsed.
332
Scott’s ranch house and everything there
were washed away. The yawning river sprawled past Alameda Street to the west and beyond
today’s Boyle Heights to the east carving its way westward into its old course through Ballona
Creek. The river there rushed along kaleidoscopic, a confetti of debris, allsorts trampled, tumbling,
and hurried from sight. Much of the coastal plain from the sea to where the center of the city is
today was one great lake. El Pueblo de los Ángeles was underwater. Most of the agricultural
development that lay along the rivers was ruined. Buildings in low-lying areas were submerged.
The Los Angeles papers estimated the damage at $25,000.
One daring man tried his luck at a quickly flooding street with his horse and buggy, but the
331 Los Angeles Star, Volume XI, Number 38, 25 January 1862 – “The Rain—The Flood.”
332 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 436, 31 January 1862 – San Francisco Friday “Anaheim Not
Destroyed.”
250
cart began to float and was upended almost immediately. He saved the horse and wagon but lost
his entire load, saving a keg of liquor that remained afloat.
333
Los Angeles's streets were rivers of
mud, the roads in and out of town a quagmire, and every field a lake traversable solely by
“amphibious creatures.”
334
The city received some fifty inches of downpour during the series of
storms.
335
To the east and southeast, the San Gabriel ran dangerously high. The river momentarily
dammed itself where it met the plain before forcing its way through. Parts of the river flooded to
the east, while parts spread westward of El Monte. It discharged across the land, submerging the
entire town and there, causing grave damage. Several houses here were destroyed. San Gabriel
Valley's Plains were cut into “gulches and arroyos, and streams are rushing down every declivity.”
Four or Five very old adobes here were ruined. The flooded landscape blocked all travel to the San
Fernando Valley except by the old trails through the Santa Monica Mountains, though those too
were dangerously wet.
Below El Monte and the narrows, the San Gabriel interlaced with the gorged Los Angeles
River. The wayward streams carved fresh gulches and widened existing arroyos across the Basin
and the San Gabriel Valley. Both the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers cut new channels
carrying runoff to the sea. Gorging waterways emerged nearly everywhere, flooded valley floors,
and formed a spreading system of lakes and streams that meandered their way across the basin and
beaches. The plains of greater Los Angeles were nearly entirely underwater. F. P. F. Temple and
his family escape their house on Rancho La Merced on a raft [today’s Montebello and Monterey
333 Los Angeles Star, vol. 11, no. 35, January 25, 1862
334 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4347, 14 January 1862, 2, California Digital Newspaper Collection,
http://cdnc.ucr.edu/.
335 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4347, 14 January 1862, 2, California Digital Newspaper Collection,
http://cdnc.ucr.edu/.
251
Park].
336
Further to the east, in the inland valleys of Southern California, the Santa Ana River ran
high through San Bernardino. It surged southwest through the inland valleys and towards the
beaches south of Los Angeles. Cucamonga Creek overflowed around Red Hill, a lonely island
standing above the waterline.
337
Lytle Creek rushed down through the Cajon Pass, across the plain,
spilling into D Street before it crossed over Third, and joined with Warm Creek, itself an
overflowing mess, inundating the entire west side of the city.
338
The Santa Ana broke over its
banks, ran together with City Creek from Old San Bernardino, and both waterways poured into
Warm Creek, inundating the valley in all directions. The flatlands from the usual Santa Ana
riverbank to Pine’s Hotel (the corner of present-day Third Street and Arrowhead Avenue) were
underwater for miles up and down the river valley. Men worked through the downpour trying to
cover their adobe walls with wood to deflect the rain but to little avail.
Adobe houses across the San Bernardino valley collapsed in the constant rain. Still, the
sun-hardened bricks melted into the river. Families across the San Bernardino Valley fled to higher
ground during the night, leaving behind their belongings and winter stores. So many were
homeless that every building left standing sheltered multiple families.
339
Nearly every property in
the San Bernardino Valley was “destroyed.” The “destruction of property” was “incalculable.”
Hundreds of families were without homes, their dwellings have been carried away by the flood,
and the rainfall kept coming. The best farming district in the valley has been destroyed.” The
damage across San Bernardino was “considerable,” “farms washed away, houses destroyed, and
336 “The Rains—The floods”
337 Joe Blackstock, “Deluge of 1938 left a flood of memories of death, destruction, and some fishy tales,” Inland
Valley Daily Bulletin, November 27, 2011.
338 This corresponds to a water level higher than Barton road to the south of the Santa Ana River in the region of the
Montecito Cemetery.
339 Crafts, Pioneer Notes, 71.
252
grain carried off.” Travel throughout the region was blocked due to the high water and quicksand,
especially on the Santa Ana.
340
At Camp Carleton on the northern bank of the Santa Ana River south of San Bernardino
“a most fearful” flood had been “raging in this valley” for four days. Camp Carleton was the
biggest of several military encampments in the vicinity of San Bernardino. James Henry Carelton
and William McCleve established the camp in the fall of 1861 for a detachment of the 1st
California Cavalry to check secessionist activities in the county. A battalion of five companies was
organized, and Carlton was Captain in what eventually became the 1st California Cavalry
Regiment. The runaway rivers eventually overwhelmed the Camp. After the camp was inundated,
they relocated the garrison to El Monte, where they founded New Camp Carleton.
341
To the southwest of San Bernardino, the twin towns of San Salvador and La Placita faced
off at the intersection of two main trails—the Santa Fe Trail from New Mexico to Los Angeles
and the route connecting Mission San Gabriel to its Estancia in San Bernardino.
342
But in the early
morning hours of January 22, the Santa Ana River peaked. The river stretched from bank to bank,
barreling down towards the towns of Agua Mansa and La Placita de los Trujillos. Floodwaters
billowed fifty feet high, filled the Santa Ana River beyond her banks, and came upon the towns.
The river spilled across the plain, creating a giant lake above the Santa Ana Mountains This inland
sea lingered for over three weeks with water at least four feet for more than four miles from the
340 Los Angeles Star, Volume XI, Number 35, 4 January 1862 – Business Notices,” “The Rain”, CDNC Gerald Kuhn
and Francis Shepard, Sea cliffs, beaches, and coastal valleys of San Diego County: some amazing histories and
some horrifying implications, California Press, 1991, 31-32
341 “The Great Flood of 1861,” The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, December 14, 1861, Image 2,”
no. 1861/12/14 (December 14, 1861), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83025129/1861-12-14/ed-1/seq-2/.
342 (Quart Vol. 47, Number 3&4, 2000, p.61, 69; “William Brewer wrote a series of letters to his brother on the east
coast describing the surreal scenes of tragedy that he witnessed during his travels in the region that winter and
spring.
253
river’s typical channel, a slumgullion of mud and debris.
343
The floods wrecked “much property”
across San Bernardino County.
344
Below the Santa Ana Range on the south coast, the Los Angeles, Santa Ana and San
Gabriel Rivers tangled and flowed together.
345
The Santa Ana spread so vastly below the Chino
Hills that the water had little current and did not move as much soil or sand as it did on the river
above.
346
The floodwaters rolled towards the German village of Anaheim but it avoided the
substantial damage of settlements higher up the river. Some houses were beat-up but most of the
town and its vineyards survived. The German immigrants founded the town on some elevated
ground in the heart of an immense plain, and the worst of the flood parted around the town and cut
a wide outlet 10 miles to the sea.
A massive lake covered the entire coastal area for over 20 miles between Signal Hill and
Corona del Mar. The Alamito and Bolsa Ranchos near the coast were almost entirely washed away,
and their pasturelands were buried in mud and sand. John Temple’s house on Rancho Cerritos sat
on the bluff above the gorging San Gabriel River and survived, though a canal and waterwheel
were swept away, a nod to the knowledge of longer-tenured inhabitants of the Slope. The willows,
oaks, and sycamores that lined the banks of the rivers far upstream lay strewn about uprooted,
343 Historian Jim Sleeper “wrote that the peak flow through the Santa Ana Canyon that year was ‘320,000 cubic feet
per second, compared with 100,00 “ in the great flood of 1938. From Chris Jesper, “Answer Man: The Flood of
1938 killed more than 50 people. But was it O.C.’s worst disaster?” Orange Coast Magazine, January 2,
2015.Hayes, Benjamin Ignatius. Pioneer notes from the diaries of Judge Benjamin Hayes, 1849-1875, 271. Los
Angeles Star; a report from a San Bernardino correspondent which appeared in the Los Angeles Star. “The Agua
Mansa, a beautiful and flourishing settlement, is destroyed and no vestige is left to denote that such a place even
existed.” (SBC Museum Quart Vol. 47, Number 34, 2000. p. 61; To what degree the Santa Ann River was at flood
stage in the Inland Empire during this later period apparently is not recorded.... New York Times: From San
Francisco. Beattie, Heritage, 106-7; and Harley, “Agua Mansa,” 41-48, Sidler, 1966; Sidler, W. A. 1968.
Agua
Mansa and the flood of
January 22,
1862 Santa Ana river. San
Bernardino,
Calif.: San Bernardino
County
Flood
Control District. Crafts, Pioneer days, 191.
344 California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences’, Volume 166, Number 17, 31 January 1862 – State Summary
345 The San Gabriel River also abandoned its course east of El Monte to assume a new course west of that settlement;
from Troxell et al., 1942, 389.
346 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 436, 31 January 1862 – San Francisco Friday “Anaheim Not
Destroyed”
254
some partially buried in sand, some entombed in the crumbling affluence of the San Gabriel and
San Bernardino Mountains as the waters swept across the landscape in waves.
The rains would continue to fall over Southern California for four weeks with little pause.
No mail would run for more than a month.
347
Thousands and thousands of cattle drowned across
Southern California.
348
Rumors spread that the entire towns of Jurupa and Anaheim were washed
from the face of the earth. Near the Middle Santa Ana. “Utmost consternation” prevailed, many
fearing the “loss of life” to be “undoubtedly great.”
349
Twelve dead bodies washed up within a
short distance of former the 1
st
California Cavalry detachment camp. The bodies of thirteen dead
Indians were found downriver, also apparently drowned in the flood.
So many trees were uprooted and flushed downstream onto the plains that survivors had a
ready supply of firewood for years.
350
The ranchos were flooded across the countryside, the roads
were impassable, and the mail had not run for weeks, the steamers instead shipping correspondence
up and down the coast through stormy seas. An earthquake capped the week’s events.
The heavy rains continued south towards San Diego. Floodwaters cut across the coast at
San Luis Rey [near what is currently Oceanside] carving a new arroyo fifteen meters deep. In
347 Engstrom p.121
348 The rain commenced falling about two weeks ago and continued, almost without cessation, until” the morning of
January 20th since when the “water has been gradually subsiding, and hopes are entertained that we may yet be
saved.” Los Angeles Star, vol. 11, no. 35, January 25, 1862; The Star reported that “that the plains had been
dissected by gulches and arroyos during the storms. An arroyo over 15 m deep was cut at San Luis Rey [modern day
Oceanside, north of San Diego] and some streets in Ventura were eroded to a depth of nearly 5 m. Also see
Gumprect, The L. A. River, on page 145, he recounts the story of “Elijah Moulton, one of the first persons to settle
on the east side of the river . . . lost everything he owned--his house, vineyards, and orange groves. T. J. White
watched as five thousand of his vines on the west bank of the river were uprooted and carried downstream. At least
four people drowned.”
349 “The Great Deluge. A correspondent of the Alta, writing from Camp Carleton, January 21, says”
350 Water depths greater than a meter were reached in both Los Angeles and Anaheim from Newmark, 1970, 309; and
Guinn, 1890; Floodwaters spread westward from El Monte toward Los Angeles from Reagan, 1915, 272, 488; also
see Gumprecht, 145 and Juan José Warner, Benjamin Ignatius Hayes, and Joseph Pomeroy Widney, An historical
sketch of Los Angeles County, California: from the Spanish occupancy, by the founding of the Mission San Gabriel
Archangel, September 8, 1771, to July 4, 1876 (Louis Lewin & Co., 1876). Brewer, William (Edit. Francis P.
Farquhar) and Brewer, Up and down California in 1860-1864. See also Harris Newmark, Sixty Years in Southern
California 1853-1913. Reprint. Zeitlin & Ver Brugge, 1916; also
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/weatherman/content?oid=6374045
255
San Diego, severe winds and intense storm surge joined the heavy rains. San Diego recorded
rainfall amounts three hundred percent above average. New waterways incised canyons and
gullies while earthflows slid down the faces of formerly rounded hillsides and dramatically
changing their appearance.
351
The flood levels stayed at their peaks for over twenty-four hours.
The storm surge from the ocean pushed the gushing floodwaters back up into the San Diego
River. The river instead sliced its way into the harbor and backed up into the bay, remaking the
contours of the channel and harbor. Mission Valley filled with water, drowning the houses in Old
Town. Only one house on the river’s flood plain is recorded to have survived the inundation.
Some who were fortunate enough to make it to the second story were later rescued by boat. It
was so wet and overcast that “there was not sunshine enough to dry a handkerchief,”
remembered Martha Swycaffer
352
The Tijuana River flooded the coastal plains on both sides of
the border with Baja, California.
353
In eastern southern California and Arizona, the Colorado and Gila Rivers overflowed.
The immense flow of the Colorado pushed back into the Gila destroying the hamlet of Gila City.
The winter that coincided with Arizona joining the Confederate States of America prohibited
both Union and Confederate troops' movement in the Pacific West. The storms and floods
thwarted the plans of an ambitious Confederate Captain Hunter to capture Fort Yuma.
354
Fort
351 35 inches of rain fell in LA. In San Diego over 7" fell in January alone. The Santa Ana River in Anaheim ran four
feet deep and spread in an unbroken sheet of water to the Coyote Hills, three miles beyond the banks (in present-day
Fullerton). The mouth of the LA River shifted from Venice to Wilmington. 20 died in Orange County. The worst
flooding to date in San Diego County occurred after six weeks of rain. All of Mission Valley was underwater and
Old Town was evacuated. The tide backed its waters into the San Diego River and cut a new channel into the bay.
NWS Hanford, Reno, San Francisco/Monterey, & San Diego
352 Swycaffer immigrated to San Diego in 1854 remembered the winter of 1862 was “greater than any other within
her time.” The “rain began in the Fall of 1861 and the rainy season lasted until June of 1862. Beginning Christmas
Day a rain set in which lasted six weeks during which time there was not sunshine enough to dry a handkerchief.
Harry Deyoe McGlashan and Fred Charles Ebert, “Southern California floods of January 1916,” USGS Water
Supply Paper, 1918.
353 Engstrom, “Storms,” Kuhn & Shepard Sea cliffs, Beaches & Coastal Valleys of San Diego County, 1984
354 Hubert Howe Bancroft and Henry Lebbeus Oak, History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, 1889, p 513.
256
Yuma on the California side of the river was transformed into an island. Federal troops stationed
Fort Yuma to protect the longstanding ferry at Yuma along with the steamers that continued to
travel the Colorado, the overland stage that passed through there, and the conveyance of supplies
and ores to and from the copper mines in Papaguería and the silver mines along the Gila River
Route.
355
The storms also thwarted the movements of Colonel Carelton’s planned expeditions
towards Fort Baker and Fort Mojave. The pause allowed a contingent of “worshippers of Jeff
Davis” and his “apostles of aristocracy” to depart the state for a “more promising and congenial
country.” For two weeks, over a dozen traveled from Mariposa to Mojave by way of Los Angeles
and the Beale road en route to “way to Dixie.” The Bulletin teased that the Dixieites were taking
advantage of the storm to escape and that more in El Pueblo were “bound that way,” but none
dared to sing too boisterously or flaunt their “colors too glowingly,” in fear of being seen or heard
by the troops at Camp Lathan.
356
Carelton directed Company A and founded Camp Carleton before
heading into Arizona, where Sherod Hunter and his Arizona Rangers would capture him on March
06, 1862.
357
355Fort Yuma is on the California side of the River. Bancroft notes: “…there seems to have been no permanent
settlement until 1854, though temporary structures may have stood there at times in connection with the ferry. In
1854 a store was perhaps built, and a site for Colorado City was formally surveyed; but in 1861 there were still only
one or two buildings…the real growth of the place, later called Arizona City and finally Yuma, seems not to have
begun until about 1864…In 1858 gold placers were discovered on the Gila some twenty miles above the
jurisdiction, but extending for several miles along the river; and a new town of shanties sprang into existence, under
the name of Gila City. Five hundred miners or more were at one time at work there, some of them very successfully;
but there was great difficulty in getting water, the richest diggings being several miles from the river, and before
1862 the glory of these placers had departed…” Also See Id., S. Diego, i. 192-200; Yuma Sentinel, May 23, 1878;
Hinton’s Hand-book, 246; S.F. Alta, Aug. 25, 1857; May 27, 1859; Feb. 11, 1862; Sac. Union, April 9, 1856; S.F.
Herald, Dec. 18, 1857; Arizona, Hist., 245. The receipts of the ferry in 1857 are given as $2,000 a day.”] See also
on Gila City, Hayes Scraps, Mining, v. 78; S.F. Alta, Dec 27, 1858: Sac. Union, Feb. 12, 1862, according to which
Gila City was also destroyed by the flood. Conklin, being in 1877 a stage station, with stable, corral, ‘Gila Hotel,’
and kennel, and containing by a census made at the time 9 inhabitants, including 3 dogs, squaw, and papoose.”
356 “The California News.: The Sold,” The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio, March 12,
1862.
357 “The California News.: The Sold,” The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio, March 12,
1862.
257
On January 20
th
, the Sacramento River rose to 23 feet above its normal flow. Even though
the capital was underwater, California’s state legislature reassembled in Sacramento on the
twentieth of January. While the rains continue to pour down, the Legislature traveled to and from
the Capital building in small boats, where they debated a proposition to adjourn the session to San
Francisco, which eventually passed.
Figure 38: “Sacramento during the flood. Taken from top of Pavilion, 6
th
& M Sts.” California Historical Society.
A cold storm rolled into California. This initiated the “coldest snap ever recollected” in the
state. The ice was about three-quarters of an inch thick in “pools of water about town, and an
injunction was put upon some of the Bensley water pipes by their freezing up. The thermometer
was supposed to mark about 25 degrees. Monday night was a brief shower, which was snow on
the surrounding hills, and on Tuesday night, we had an actual snowstorm in San Francisco.
Wednesday was a little rain through the day, and most of the night, it poured down in a style it has
got used to. Thursday it faired again, and very pleasant it was. The cold has been severe ad
258
considerable snow has fallen in the Interior.”
358
At Clear Lake, the river's extreme height was roughly eleven feet above the low level on
January 22. The lands surrounding the lake were flooded from an inch to as deep as five feet, and
farms in all the valleys surrounding the lake were underwater.
359
On the 22
nd
, the Sacramento River rose near Shasta more than 3 inches higher than it had
up to any point that winter. The next day it rose further to 34 feet above water. Back in the capitol,
the raging river pushed the Steamboat Gem through the break in the levee at Rabel’s Tannery. The
wayward steamer damaged the river gauge before the river deposited the Gem a half a mile into
the city. Backwater from the Sacramento River spilled into the Delta from the north. Mokelumne
City was under the still-rising river. The was no current around Stockton, though a short distance
west of the port a stout current ran past the city from the north, and running south, six miles below
the Stockton, where it met the waters of the San Joaquin, where the current again changed its
direction to the northwest. The floodwaters reached their highest levels of the winter in Stockton
and the greater Delta—twelve feet, one inch—on the 24th of January. Fifteen miles northwest of
Stockton, water levels fourteen feet higher than the “summer low tides” inundated [Township 3,
North Range 5, East]. Twelve miles southeast of Stockton at the San Joaquin's forks, the water
level rose to twelve feet above average on the 24
th
of January and five feet higher than the highest
flood levels of 1852. More than two-thirds of Stockton and the agricultural and grazing lands
adjoining were under two feet of water.
360
San Francisco rapidly filled with the “homeless and destitute.” Most were farmers and
358 California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences’, Volume 166, Number 17, 31 January 1862 – State Summary
359 Joel Willard, County Surveyor for Lake County reported on July 3, 1862 California et al., “Journal of the Senate
and Assembly,” Journal of the Senate and Assembly, 1863; California, Legislature, and Assembly, Appendix to
Journals of Senate and Assembly of the ... Session of the Legislature of the State of California., 1862;
360 George E. Drew, the County Surveyor of San Joaquin County from Stockton on December 3, 1862 to J. F.
Houghton the state Surveyor General reported
259
ranchers along the rivers of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys.
361
Fear grew that “private
charity” could not keep up with the increasing pressures brought by the surge of refugees to the
city as the “widespread want” had thus far been a “heavy tax on the benevolent of all parts of the
State.” The Daily Alta California advocated a movement to push the Legislature to grant the
Supervisors of San Francisco the authority to appropriate funds to “meet the crisis” and that if
constitutionally legal, the Legislature itself should “take action” and “grant State aid.”
362
The Legislature arrived in San Francisco that same night and the next day held their first
session in the City by the Bay. San Francisco was still flooded, but not as severely as the interior
of the state. That night John Hettrick shot special policeman Michael McCarty.
363
On January 24
th,
1862, California’s legislature assembled in San Francisco at the Federal building opposite the
Custom House.
364
It became the acting capital of California during the siege of Sacramento, where
they would stay throughout the session.
365
Not all were in support. The editor of the Stockton
Independent colored it a dereliction of duty, kin to captains abandoning their sinking vessels, and:
“reprehensible’ the “adjournment of the Legislature for a week at an expense to the
State of no less than 8,000…is a matter for just complaint against the
representatives of the people. In a city afflicted with such general suffering as
Sacramento, where helpless children and tender women are submitted to “cold, wet,
hunger” and all sorts of inconvenience, it looks like heartless cowardice on the part
of members of the Legislature, strong men, who are supposed to have hearts inside
of their jackets beating in sympathy with the people of the State in this, the hour of
general calamity, to be the first to run away from danger and distress, and seek
places of confrontable enjoyment and good living. The captain should always be
the last to leave his sinking ship, but these tender skinned gentry are the first.”
366
A correspondent for the Tribune reported optimistically that the weather had been “pleasant for
361 J. T. H, “Our San Francisco Letter.: Effects of the Disastrous Floods--Immense Losses to City and Country--
Incidents of the Great Freshet--Immense Fall of Rain--Damage to the Mines--Death of H. A. Perry--John at Home,”
Chicago Tribune (1860-1872); Chicago, Ill., March 6, 1862.
362 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 4354, 21 January 1862 – State of Affairs in Sacramento.
363 Langley, San Francisco Directory, 1862, 25.
364 Langley, San Francisco Directory, 1862, 25.
365 Los Angeles Star, Volume XI, Number 39, 1 February 1862 “The Removal”
366 Sacramento Daily Union. Volume 22, Number 3374, 21 January 1862, “The Court”; “Reprehensible”
260
two days, and if it continues for two weeks, stages may again commence running to the interior
counties. The break in the weather would not continue, and the heavy rains returned.
In San Francisco, the weather was “still rainy,” money was “universally tight,” and
commerce was “suspended” because of the severe weather.
367
The “highest tide in this country”
landed across the Bay to the north, in San Rafael in Marin County, rising to eight feet above low
water at its most extreme. Flooded waterways continued to spill in from all around the Bay. The
water on marshes was three and a half feet deep. The flood flows dumped stone and gravel and
sand at least two feet deep where the streams met the marshes. The lightest soils bled out into the
bay.
368
In the town of Downieville, the storms washed away “several houses and all the bridges
and miners’ machinery” in the vicinity of the town. In Nevada County to the south—home to Grass
City, Nevada City, and other key mining towns east of Yuba City—the storms brought
unbelievable rainfall. The heavy rains caused devastating flooding and “great damage and loss of
life.” The floods devastated Chinese communities in the mining districts. Two hundred Chinese
Californians drowned on the Yuba—one hundred on one bar alone.
369
The deep cold that had been devastating the Northwest continued to descend deeper into
California. On January 26
th
, Ice an inch thick was found in various parts of San Francisco. On the
29
th
, the temperature in the Bay dropped to 22 degrees Fahrenheit and snow began to fall in the
city of San Francisco.
370
The San Lorenzo Paper Mill near Santa Cruz thought to have been
367 Chicago Tribune January 30, 1862: Letter from California. Legislature in Session at San Francisco—Continued
Flood in the Upper Country.
368 A.D. Easkoot, Surveyor for Marin County reporting from San Rafael on November 15, 1863; Journal of the
Senate and Assembly,” Journal of the Senate and Assembly, 1863; California, Legislature, and Assembly, Appendix
to Journals of Senate and Assembly of the ... Session of the Legislature of the State of California., 1862;
369 “Condensed News from California Papers.,” The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio,
January 20, 1862.
370 Langley, San Francisco Directory, 1862, 25.
261
destroyed, remained standing. Its flume and dam are long gone, but the building and machinery
remain.
371
Back in Sacramento, a woman fled her home as the waters rose inside. Her kitchen had had
two feet of standing water on its floor and her cow had taken refuge there too as it the driest spot
the cow could find. On her journey to San Francisco, the woman passed by the Governor’s mansion
on the way. Inside, she watched the “ladies of the house” standing at the second-story window and
“contemplating the widespread lake.” In the Governor’s hall stood Leland Stanford’s best cow,
who also was transfixed, “looking out of the front door, as if wondering when it would be safe to
venture aboard again.”
372
The damage the floods did to the Sacramento Valley Railroad was thought to cost at least
$50,000 to repair. The company [which company?] prepared to repair the tracks and get the cars
running as soon as the weather cleared. The repairs would, of course, be of a “character to defy
future floods.”
373
Time would tell.
One landowner returned to survey the wreck of his property and found two new houses
with “all the latest improvements in construction” resting on his lot.
374
From the Mokelumne River on January 28, Antonio Diaz Peña wrote his “Dear Sisters”
that it had been a long time since they have received a letter from him. Diaz Peña wrote to assure
his sisters that he and his family had “not been entirely washed away.” Even though the last few
days of “fine weather” “cheered their spirits,” it had rained “almost incessantly for 73 days
371 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 436, 31 January 1862 – San Francisco Friday “Still Standing”
372 “Condensed News from California Papers.,” The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio,
January 20, 1862.
373 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 436, 31 January 1862 – San Francisco Friday “Sacramento Valley
Railroad”
374 Saxon, Five years within the Golden gate, 1868, 125.
262
swelling the rivers to a degree unknown to the whites the loss of life and property has been
disastrous throughout the country.
375
As the rivers slowly receded, the deep cold continued to creep down the Slope. At Stockton,
at around 3 in the afternoon on the 27
th
, the waters of the San Joaquin fell two feet from the level
of the wharf, and the water level on the Sacramento River fell to twenty-one feet above low-water.
The weather continued cold. Farmer’s fed their horses chaff.
376
Figure 39: “Nash & Fogg Boots & Shoes, During 1862 Flood, Stockton, CA,” Bancroft Library
The cold deepened in Northern and Central California. On the 28
th,
an arm of the Napa
which had been flowing in a current of five miles an hour froze over so solidly that cattle crossed
to the other side over the ice.
377
North of the Bay at Napa, six inches of snow fell. At San Jose on
the south side of the Bay, it was 32 degrees at 11 am. On their way from Butte to Marysville, E.C.
Ledyard and Mr. Keppell walked over ten miles of ice. while the waters of the San Joaquin receded
375 The rain commenced on the 11th of Nov and continued up to the 24th of Jan. Letter from George Kearsing/Letters
from Antonio Diaz Peña, January 28, 1862 from Mokelumne River area, describing recent rains and flood]
376 California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences’, Volume 166, Number 17, 31 January 1862 – State Summary
377 California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences’, Volume 166, Number 17, 31 January 1862 – State Summary
263
two feet at Stockton, snow began to fall across the Sacramento Valley.
378
Snow fell fifteen feet
deep on the summit of the Sierra Nevada on the 27
th
blocking all travel. The Overland Mail was
temporarily “embargoed.”
379
The snow was seven inches deep at the town of Columbia in the
foothills of the Sierra Nevada. On the 27
th
of January, the temperature in Marysville was 32 degrees
at 2 in the afternoon. Several inches of snow had fallen at Marysville, Sacramento, and other places
in the Central Valley.
380
Over the final two weeks of January, every waterway in California was again near high
water, and many froze, some solidly on the surface. “Yesterday it was clear and cold with snow
on the ground,” George Kearsing recorded, and “Today it has been snowing and looks quite
stormy, and now it appears to be turning to rain. Whether we shall have another rise, no one can
tell
381
.” “So here endeth,” Kearsing wrote without foresight, “this chapter of troubles up to this
date, Jan 29. 1862.”
382
In Oregon, many “washed out of debt” chose to leave the county for the “fabled” mines of
the Cariboo and Salmon Rivers.
383
A letter from the mines to the Sentinel read: “I am here, dead-
broke, and can’t get away; nothing to eat and plenty to eat; everybody snowed in, and hard times
growing harder, etc.” The Oregon press reported that amidst the storms that “everybody and his
378 Daily Alta California, Volume XIV, Number 436, 31 January 1862 – San Francisco Friday “Much Ice,” “Snow in
Napa,” “Stockton,” “Snow in Sacramento”; Also mentioned here “A Chinaman was caught at Eliza, after a chase
from Middle Ferry, Yuba county, where he robbed a house on Tuesday last.”
379 California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences’, Volume 166, Number 17, 31 January 1862 – State Summary
380 The Forrest Hill Courier reported the “most bloody and savage fight occurred at Grass Valley…between Cornish
and Irishmen, and about thirty men were killed! The fight is said to have originated about the ownership of a mining
claim.” California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences’, Volume 166, Number 17, 31 January 1862 – State
Summary
381 Letter from George Kearsing/Letters from Antonio Diaz Peña, January 28, 1862 from Mokelumne River area,
describing recent rains and flood]
382 Letter from George Kearsing/Letters from Antonio Diaz Peña, January 28, 1862 from Mokelumne River area,
describing recent rains and flood]
383 University of Oregon Library Knight, “Oregon Sentinel. (Jacksonville, Or.) 1858-1888, February 01, 1862, Image
2,” no. 1862/02/01 (February 1, 1862), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn84022657/1862-02-01/ed-1/seq-2/.
264
friends are excited, and off they go.”
384
In Salt Lake City, the great rising of streams across the territory there began to subside.
And though the winter there had been mild, the weather turned cold, and hoar frost reigned. Snow
began to fall on the 30
th
. And those “caught in a snowstorm, or some elevated divides which
separate our mountain valleys, is no pleasant or safe affair.” A father and son and their team of
oxen got caught in the storm crossing from Provo Valley to Weber Valley. The oxen succumbed
to the weather, so the two “unyoked and abandoned” them. Having little food, the two grew hungry
and fatigued until the son “gave out.” The father carried his son, but when the youngster grew
unresponsive, his father left him in the still dropping snow and “made his way to the nearest
settlement.” The next day a search party found young Norton’s body, but he was nearly a mile
from where his father had left him. It seems he had recovered and trying to “make his way” only
to “succumb entirely to the severity of the elements.”
385
Another unknown man also died of
exposure trying to take the mountain road from northern parts of [Salt Lake City Valley] into
Cache Valley.
386
By the end of January, almost all the overland mail between California and the rest of the
States had ceased for at least three weeks.
387
Many letters were sent across the Slope that winter
that were never delivered. One correspondent in San Francisco noted that he had mailed two letters
384 University of Oregon Library Knight, “Oregon Sentinel. (Jacksonville, Or.) 1858-1888, February 01, 1862, Image
2,” no. 1862/02/01 (February 1, 1862), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn84022657/1862-02-01/ed-1/seq-2/.
385 “Affairs In Utah.: Preparations for Changing the Territory into a State Brigham Young to Be the First Governor
Stoppage of the Overland Mails by the Floods, &c.,” New York Times, 1862.
386 A tracing prepared by Lynn Crandall, Idaho Falls, showing the annual flow into the Great Salt Lake. Although this
does not show 1862 as the highest year of record, it shows it as one of the highest, exceeded only by 1868, 1864, and
1907. The information from these two sources does seem to indicate that the 1862 was a year of unusually high
runoff throughout the entire intermountain area, thus confirming the statements of the early settlers along the Boise
River. In fact, there is little doubt in my mind that the flood of 1862 was at least four times the amount of the flood
of 1943 and probably much greater (100,000 second feet or greater); “Affairs In Utah.: Preparations for Changing
the Territory into a State Brigham Young to Be the First Governor Stoppage of the Overland Mails by the Floods,
&c.,” New York Times, 1862.
387 “Affairs In Utah.: Preparations for Changing the Territory into a State Brigham Young to Be the First Governor
Stoppage of the Overland Mails by the Floods, &c.,” New York Times, 1862.
265
during January, “mainly descriptive of the severe floods that have devastated” the coast that has
“doubtless been lost.” The mail that did arrive in San Francisco was reduced “to a mass of pulp.”
388
Soaking rains continued to trample the South Coast through January. The wet weather had
ended its fifth consecutive week with only a minor clearing spell between the 23
rd
and 24
th
of
January. The sun made a surprise “appearance in the heavens,” but it was just a brief cameo for
the star. The momentary interlude brought scolding winds and deep frosts at night.
On Thursday, a cold wind “set in from the west, which chopped round to a nor-wester” the
skies cleared, and for a moment the “stars came out brightly in the heavens, Venus shining with
almost lunar effulgence.” That night there was a slight frost. The next sat the sun “shone bright
and warm all day, under whose influence the earth has assumed her wonton appearance.”
389
At least one Angelino was not glad for the reprieve of the storm as it meant the end of his
own. Convicted of murder, Syriaco Arza had endured that soggy winter “languishing in the city
jail.” Sheriff Tomas Avila Sanchez had been awaiting a break in the weather to send Arza’s to the
gallows. Since the 24
th
was the clearest day that Los Angeles had had in over a month Avila
Sanchez wasted no time, hanging Arza in the jail yard. Onlookers gathered on the nearby hills to
watch. In the morning the rains resumed.
390
As information continued to come on, newspapers across the Slope printed column after
column of the losses of property and life. One remarked that California “lost more by the floods
388 J. T. H, “Our San Francisco Letter.: Effects of the Disastrous Floods--Immense Losses to City and Country--
Incidents of the Great Freshet--Immense Fall of Rain--Damage to the Mines--Death of H. A. Perry--John at Home,”
Chicago Tribune (1860-1872); Chicago, Ill., March 6, 1862.
389 Los Angeles Star, Volume XI, Number 38, 25 January 1862 – “The Rains—The Flood.”
390 After one week of extraordinary cold though clear weather, yet another storm poured down across Southern
California. Diaries of Judge Benjamin Hayes precipitation from the 25th to the 27th of January Wayne N. Engstrom,
“The California Storm of January 1862,” Quaternary Research 46, no. 2 (September 1996): 141–48, and Wayne N.
Engstrom, “Nineteenth Century Coastal Geomorphology of Southern California,” Journal of Coastal Research 22,
no. 4 (2006): 847–61 (Engstrom, 1966, 145. “The Floods—California Assumes Her Portion of the Direct Tax,”
Friday, Jan. 31, 1862; Los Angeles Star, vol. 11, no. 35, January 4, 1862.
266
than Missouri has by the war” yet another comparison between the devastations of the Big Winter
and the Civil War.
391
While some seemed to sensationalize, others appeared to deny the true extent
of the catastrophe. Some newspapers reported that the mass death of livestock was exaggerated.
This may have been true in Stockton, where the “loss but little exceeded the number that would
have died of starvation in the ordinary winter course, owing to their owners' improvidence.”
[Another example of how the damage of the floods around Stockton, though affected by flooding,
may have been comparatively less severe than elsewhere in the Central Valley due to the extensive
wetlands around the port town. Also, Stockton seems to be an outlier regarding losses in cattle.]
But elsewhere the numbers of dead and dying animals were staggering.
Figure 40: “View of Stockton from Photographer’s Studio During 1862 Flood,” Wm M. Stuart, Bancroft Library
On January 28
th
, a record cold fell upon Northern and Central California. On the 29
th
, two
inches of snow fell in San Joaquin Valley.
392
On January 30
th
, the temperature in the mining town of Florence in Idaho County,
391 University of Oregon Library Knight, “Oregon Sentinel. (Jacksonville, Or.) 1858-1888, December 28, 1861,
Image 3,” no. 1861/12/28 (December 28, 1861), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn84022657/1861-12-28/ed-
1/seq-3/.
392 Barkley Notes.
267
Washington Territory dropped to minus 34 degrees Fahrenheit. The “coldest winter in the history
of Idaho” claimed the lives of at least one hundred men.
393
The great floods of Central California wore on. On the first of February 1862, the
Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys were “more completely underwater” than any time since
“California became part of the Union,” and the continued storms caused widespread anxiety that
the waters would continue to rise. At its widest parts, the San Joaquin stretched 25 miles. The
overlapping freshets devastated over one thousand farms and battered more than one hundred
thousand people living in every valley along the “various watercourses of the state.”
394
The Union
published for the first time news of the devastation across the Southern parts of the state. By the
fourth, works in Sacramento had mended the North Levee at Seventh Street.
395
Figure 41: Many children endured that winter’s hardships. “Sacramento: Fires & Floods: Flood Jan 1862,” California History
Room.
On the northwest Slope, the Big Winter deepened. On the first of February, thirty inches
393 Merrill D. Beal and Merle W. Wells, History of Idaho, Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc. New York
(1959)
394 University of Oregon Library Knight, “Oregon Sentinel. (Jacksonville, Or.) 1858-1888, February 01, 1862, Image
2,” no. 1862/02/01 (February 1, 1862), https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn84022657/1862-02-01/ed-1/seq-2/.
395 Barkley
268
of ice encased the Columbia River at Fort Vancouver.
396
Across Puget’s Sound in the lowlands sat
two feet of snow. In Victoria, British Columbia: it was “extraordinary winter all down this
coast.”
397
For six weeks solid, the weather was “very severe” and gave “strong reminders of the
winters of Canada.” And it continued. The endless snowing and freezing belied the “merry jingling
of sleigh bells in the streets” and crowds of skaters on the Bay [quite a feat for a saltwater bay]
since the first of the year. The Frazer River was frozen hard as far as Chilliwack, cutting off
navigation and communication from New Westminster, where the ice was sixteen inches thick.
The settlers there would have “starved out” save for an “arm of the sea called Burrard’s Inlet” to
the north of the settlement “runs up within a few miles of it.”
Inland, though the snow only fell three inches deep, Lillooet Lake froze over, locking in
the steamboat Marzelle.
398
The roads connecting Douglas, where the snow was four feet deep, to
the north were impassable for wagons, and only one or two pack trains continued their runs. At
Beaver Lake, eighteen inches had fallen, and the snowstorms continued. Miners continued their
work on the North Fork of the Quesnelle River and the Williams Creek, and Bonaparte and Canoe
Creeks seemed to avoid the worst of the storms.
Horses and cattle died in droves across British Columbia and Washington Territory. The
“unprecedented fall of snow” prevented the cows from “reaching the herbage.” The cattle that
survived December’s floods could find “sufficient subsistence without being regularly fed,” but
the ongoing freeze covered and killed vegetation. Fears spread that every pack mule upcountry
396 Meteorological Register, February 1862, Fort Vancouver
397 “British Columbia: Letter from a Canadian in Victoria the Latest Loss of Cattle the Prospect for Farmers
Emigrating to British Columbia the Prospects Ahead,” The Globe (1844-1936); Toronto, Ont., April 8, 1862.
February 1, 1862 from the Oregon Sentinel: “Josephine County Correspondence –Kerbyville, Jan. 27th, 1862
398 The British Columbian has received some late intelligence from Cariboo:-- “Lillooet Lake is frozen, and the
steamer Marzelle, is frozen in. The cold at Lillooet has been intense. An expressman(sic) from Cariboo says the
weather there was mild. From The Globe, “British Columbia. Letter From a Canadian in Victoria. From Victoria,
Feb. 2, 1862.
269
had frozen or starved. While the Harrison River and Lake remained unfrozen, Mr. Ballou came by
way of the Harrison River that was covered in ice from its mouth down to the town of New
Westminster. Along the route he saw countless cattle, horses, and mules dying on the Sumas River
Boundary Commission and the Gold Escort lost at least half their livestock. Vast numbers of
animals died at New Westminster. Mr. McRoberts, for example, lost eighty-five of one-hundred-
five cattle. One-third of the livestock along the Frazer above and below Lillooet. Mules in Douglas
were left without “hay or barley and living on flour.” In the Thompson River country, where much
of the settler stock was wintered, the snow had been less intense, but heavy snowstorms set in on
the 5
th
of February. The snow fell “even with the tops of houses” in the Frazer river town of Yale
at the entry to Frazer Canyon and the gateway between the coastal and interior regions of British
Columbia.
399
Mr. F. Fulford took twenty days to travel from Lillooet Flat to Victoria. He lost thirty of
his animals along the way. At Port Anderson on Anderson Lake, the snow was three feet deep, and
the lake was frozen for two miles out, freezing in the lake steamer, and the snowstorm barreling
through the Fraser Valley. The Harrison-Lillooet road was blocked and travel suspended. Snow
on the Douglas and Pemberton portages were five and six feet deep. And by the 11
th
of February,
half of the animals were dead in Frazer Valley. The Fraser was still solid on the 18
th
when Her
Majesty’s gunboat, the Grappler, arrived from Bullard Inlet after dropping supplies at Semiahmoo.
The Yaleites though had run out of flour and sent runners to Hope in hopes of resupply. The Forks
of Quesnelle experienced “unusually mild” temperatures, and no cattle there succumbed to cold or
hunger. Some “Old Settlers” claimed that the winter of 1852 was like this. They claimed the cold
399 “British Columbia: Letter from a Canadian in Victoria the Latest Loss of Cattle the Prospect for Farmers
Emigrating to British Columbia the Prospects Ahead,” The Globe (1844-1936); Toronto, Ont., April 8, 1862. The
Colonist of the 28th of January
270
was so intense that Victoria Harbor was completely frozen over.
400
The “oldest Indians” said that
they had never experienced a winter so severe.
401
The Columbia River remained “frozen up” and scattered with islands covered with starving
cattle waiting to die. The farmers had sold off all their feed in the fall, not anticipating the direst
winter in generations. Frozen snow would cover the ground across the region for the entire month.
A light rain began on the Lower Columbia on the 21
st
and it rained or snowed for the next ten days.
By the 28
th
, there was still at least about 6 inches of snow even down to the coast.
402
On February
5
th
, news of gold on “Nez Perces mines” on the Salmon River hit the Bay.
403
Everything east of
the Cascades remained deeply locked in ice and snow. On February 6
th,
“Nearly every Cayoosh
(sic) pony” was dead.
404
As the Indians at the Klamath Agency continued to suffer through the winter,
Superintendent Hanson tried to find a new location for a reservation. Hanson negotiated and
purchased five thousand acres along the Smith River without getting clearance from his
supervisors. Hanson then tried to remove the groups from the Klamath Reservation, but the
Yurok refused to leave. The Peoples of Eel River and Mad River though were content to relocate
near the Tolowa. Five hundred walked through the continuous rain and snow and mud for over
forty miles, “where they were hoping to find something to eat.” Two women gave birth along the
way to Crescent City, but that did not stop them from getting back on the trail the next
morning.
405
400 “British Columbia: Letter from a Canadian in Victoria the Latest Loss of Cattle the Prospect for Farmers
Emigrating to British Columbia the Prospects Ahead,” The Globe (1844-1936); Toronto, Ont., April 8, 1862.
401 “News from California,” The Sun (1837-1992); Baltimore, Md., February 6, 1862.
402 Meteorological Register, February 1862, Fort Vancouver
403 Langley, San Francisco Directory, 1862, 25.
404 “News from California,” The Sun (1837-1992); Baltimore, Md., February 6, 1862.
405 Commissioner Dole would later sanction Hanson for his actions, but still establish the Smth River Reservation on
May 3, 1862. Hanson to Dole, Feb. 14, 1862, NA, RG 75, 01A, Ltrs. Recd., Calif. Supt. Humboldt Times, "Jubilee
Edition," Dec. 7, 1904.
271
The steamer Nevada snagged its bottom on the Sacramento River on February the 7th,
indicating that the great lakes of California had begun to recede.
406
The Howard Society kept its
impromptu stations in Sacramento’s hinterlands running weeks. Four closed after only a couple
weeks, but several remained in service to the needs of the survivors into February. Howard hoped
to close the “Fort” and the Pavilion by Saturday, the 8th of February, “this time finally for such a
purpose” as disaster relief.
In Santa Barbara, the effects of the winter storms were disastrous. The roads leading to Los
Angeles, “as on all the other lines of travel” were so cut up and washed over by the floodwaters
that the only way of travel around the area was with “great difficulty” of using the hillsides. The
floods were equally devastating in the town of San Buenaventura, washing away the street to the
depth of fifteen feet, carrying away houses, and forcing people to abandon the town for the local
hillsides. In the valleys below, floodwaters destroyed the “grass, timber and lands” with eight out
of ten houses “knocked to smash.” The gardens “so famous in the locality, were washed away”
not a vestige left. One brave man risked his life wading back and forth through waist-deep water
as he carried his wife and children to the safety of the high ground. A man named Hewett and his
companion Moore were in route to the new mines, but the river was impassable, and so they
decided to return home. Hewett drowned near the mouth the Cayetano Creek, a tributary of the
flooded Santa Clara River, leaving his large family to “deplore his loss.”
Back in Southern California, Mr. B. Dryfus, of Anaheim, announced to the citizens of Los
Angeles that was “not dead yet” having survived the flood at Anaheim disputing the rumors of his
demise. Mr. B. Dryfus went to work building a breakwater against the “destructive element.”
Back in southern Utah, the Swiss Saints began to rebuild on February 17. Zadok Judd
406 The “well known scenic artist” John Fairchild died on the 9th, Langley, San Francisco Directory, 1862, 25.
272
found some of his peach trees, which he replanted and eventually they rewarded him with fruit.
Swearing to avoid the flood risk, Hamblin began building a new home on a hill above the Santa
Clara.
407
Back in Lebanon Oregon, just northeast of Eugene, Catherine Blaine wrote her mother on
February 16
th
1862. There had been much rain for weeks, and on the day Catherine wrote her
mother arrived a “warm rain” “without intermission,” that she expected would again raise the
streams. After catching up on family news, Blaine described the Big Winter “in almost every
respect a singular one, as to weather and our situation.” The temperatures during the “great storm”
were “warm, and despite the lack of sunshine, many of the deciduous trees had begun to bud out.”
The “cold winds and heavy night frosts” followed, along with bursts of heavy rain. These patterns
predominated for sixty days—"cold winds, heavy frosts at night, and a generous rain” at least once
a week. It is noteworthy that Blaine notices the “warm” rains. She connects warm rains and rising
streams, evidence of her own growing knowledge of the landscape.
She had heard little news outside of Lebanon, and though she had sent out several letters,
only one had reached her in months, and it was dated from November. With the Willamette spread
across the valley, the mail to and from Portland was throttled. “I presume you have wondered and
perhaps felt some anxiety because you did not hear from us,” Catherine wrote her mother, “as you
justifiably have not known the reason.”
408
Blaine continues I write of the freshet which had caused
such immense loss and damage to the country, and if I am not mistaken when I wrote last we were
having severe cold weather.” Snow had covered the ground since the end of December. Then
407 Compton, 119.
408 “One very unpleasant feature has been that we do not get any letters from home. Only one has found its way to us
in these months, that dated Nov 17th, I think, came some time last month. I do not remember how often I have
written to you, not often as usual I know, partly because my time has been so occupied, but principally because we
have had no mails. A part of the time we have not even had a mail from Portland.” Catherine Blaine Letters, Knight
Library, University of Oregon Special Collections.
273
almost two weeks of warmth melted snow in the lowlands, but it was still piled high on the hills.
The stormy season surprised the farmers. Most did not have shelter for their animals, nor had they
stocked winter fodder. They ran through their grain and “burned through their straw.” Blaine goes
on:
It is estimated that with the freshet, the cold, and scarcity of feed nearly…a third of
the stock in this valley will have died before the grass shall have started in the
spring. And now that the snow has left the ground the hard freezes we have every
night are destroying the wheat…I know not what to anticipate for Oregon. The
reports from the country east of the Cascade Mts are terrible. The Columbia River
has been frozen for weeks so that boats cannot run, and the stories that reach us are
us are rumors, exaggerated we hope, but the conditions of affairs must at best be
bad enough…Thousands of head of cattle have been driven from this valley up
there during the last two or three years, and such has been the unprecedented cold
and snow there, far worse than we have had, that a large portion of it has died, and
many men have perished.
Blaine assumed that Californians were also suffering through “high water” as the whole coast was
swamped. She feared that “thousands who have lost their all there will flock to our gold mines as
soon as Spring opens.” Blaine worries that if too many men left the valley for mines, there would
not be enough workers to produce crops to feed there will hardly be men enough to take care of
their families and for regular consumption let alone for commerce or for immigrants from
California. “How are these thousands to be fed?,” she wondered. Her fears were legitimate. The
entire Slope’s food supply system was imperiled. Widespread, devastation, particular the shredded
and flooded roads and the ongoing rain and snow, caused supplies to be limited and prices for
essential goods in Oregon to skyrocket, which especially hurt the poor. Blaine elaborated on the
near immediate inflation in prices:
When pork was killed in the fall, it sold for 4 cents per pound, it is already 25 cts
and the prospects are it may be .50. Wheat was .40 to .50 now it is $2.00, oats that
could not be sold at .20 a day(m) are now held at $2.00—potatoes that in the fall
would not pay for digging have been selling at $2,00, but will probably be cheaper
when people open (?) their potato holes. I engaged there bushels yesterday at ,75
per bush. But don’t know what condition they will be in. Very few vegetables and
274
but little fruit escaped freezing. While all classes feel the pressure of the hard times,
none suffer from them more than the Ministers (?) Mr. B.s preachers (?) are writing
to him of their short supplies.
The Blaines had income from their boarders, helping them to meet these immense expenses.
Catherine wondered though how long that would last.
409
Californians were in fact, as Blaine assumed, arriving by steamboat to Portland. C. H.
Woodard wrote to Bion Kendall that the people across Oregon were living a “miserable existence.”
“Try to imagine,” he went on, “happy Portland” “full” and “overflowing” with Californians joining
the rush on the Salmon. Every hotel and Boarding house and office and filled with boarders. There
was “hardly a bed to be had in town.” (Total Tonnage or Capacity 250 souls).” The Columbia was
frozen solid from Fort Vancouver on up with “no prospect for thawing unless old Mt Hood sends
out a stream of red hot Lava.” Pedestrians and horses walked across the river. Every day arrived
horrid reports of mass starvation of livestock. “I think the Devil’s reign of a thousand years
commenced with the nomination of Bucheridge (sp?),” Woodard, perhaps jokingly, blames the
overlapping disasters on politics.
410
East of the Cascades the great freeze continued. On February 24
th
there was sad news at
the Dalles. Even though it had begun to thaw, some groups that had recently left by stage were
dead or badly frozen. Still, more set out for the so-called Nez Perce mines. They would have just
409 “We have thus far, and the year is more than half gone rec’d $75.00 It probably would have been more but there
were f????? meetings which he could not get to on account of bad weather and impassable roads. He went away on
Thursday and will not come home till after next Sabbath on account of the distance to the meetings and the bad
roads.” Catherine Blaine Letters, Knight Library, University of Oregon Special Collections.
410 C.H Woodard to Bion Kendall, Bion Freeman Kendall papers, 1812-1870, collection 4801, Special Collections,
University of Washington Libraries. In the National Research Council, American Geophysical Union Transactions
of 1941, prepared by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1941,
there is an article entitled “A Hundred-Year Record of Truckee River runoff Estimated from Changes in Levels and
Volumes of Pyramid and Winnemucca Lakes,” by George Herdman and Cruz Venstrom. On page 74 is found this
statement: “One of the greatest floods in the history of Nevada occurred in 1861-1862.” On pages 85 and 86 is a
table showing for the period 1839-40 to 1929-30, among other things, a Truckee River Basin precipitation index
which shows an index for 1861-1862 of 215, considerably the highest shown for any year. On page 88 is a graph
showing the estimated runoff of Truckee River, also with 1862 as the highest year on record.”
275
as difficult a journey on the Salmon River.
411
And so, like the Northern Slope, the South suffered
through one of the coldest winters in centuries.
Reports spread of a “great hurricane” wreaking destruction across Carson Valley.
412
The
floods devastated the mines of the great silver lode. Mines caved in at Ophir and Little Gold Hill,
and houses washed away. The Carson damaged or destroyed most of the Comstock’s seventy-six
mills.
413
The press's response to publish positive, fun, even comical episodes to counter the
deepening disaster's forbidding experiences. “At one of our hotels, yesterday morning, a border
called for mackerel for breakfast, with the remark: -“I am darned sure they were not drowned by
the flood, but I don’t feel so certain about beef and pork.” He had been around town considerably
and had seen so many cattle and hogs lying around that he concluded to be on the safe side.”
414
In another: “How high did the water get on your floor?” inquired a correspondent for the
New York Tribune of a resident of one of the more favored localities of the city. “Just high enough
to take the starch out of my shirt collar,” said he. But, as if anxious to maintain the good standing
of real estate in his neighborhood, he added, “But then you know I am a very short man.”
In yet another news anecdote told of Someone was battering citizen Caulfield about the
significant waterscape which his ranch presented, to which he promptly responded;--“I wouldn’t
give a copper for a man that couldn’t have a lake of his own.”
415
Some accounts in the press: A correspondent of the Lockport Journal, describing the
terrible scene, says: “On Monday morning—the Monday morning—a man, with his wife and child,
411 Kimball, B W 4 Folder 1-15]
412 Langley, San Francisco Directory, 1862, 25.
413 Hinkle, Sierra Nevada Lakes from Grant H. Smith, “History of the Comstock Lode 1830-1920,” University of
Nevada Bulletin vol 37, 24-40. 48-79.
414 “The Great Floods in California,” The Globe (1844-1936); Toronto, Ont., February 7, 1862.
415 The Globe out of Toronto reported on Dec. 21, 1861: “Great Flood in California. (Correspondent of the N.Y.
Tribune.) San Francisco, Dec. 21, 1861.
276
might have been seen clinging for life to the roof of a frail wooden structure, while the frigid and
turbid waters surged and roared about them, and momentarily leaped rather than crept upward to
their last precarious foothold. The husband hailed a passing boat:--
“Help! For God’s sake, help!”
“I’m not on it,” said the boatman.
“What will you charge to take us off?”
“Now you’re talking sense. Twenty-five dollars a head.”
“I haven’t got so much money about me,” said the man on the housetop.
“Hold on,” said the husband and father.
“Well, speak quick—time is money.”
“And life!” said the other. “What will you take me off for?”
“Fifty dollars.”
“I will give it.”
The boat was backed, and the husband embarked. The boatman gave a few
strokes of the par, and then stopping asked for his fare. The passenger put
his hand in his pocket, nut not withdrawing it immediately with the coveted
gold, the boatman said, angrily:--
“You’re long enough about it! I’ll be blowed if I believe you have any
money!”
“No; but I have what is better in cases like this,” said the other, drawing and
levelling a cocked Derringer pistol. “Now, villain, turn back and get my
wife and child.”
Moral.—There are worse things in the world than cocked Derringers.
“I think I did wrong in calling that thing a “boatman.” I should have used
the term “pirate,” had it not been for a fear that the first of that fraternity I
met might call me to account for the implied insult.
“Here is an incident related of a true boatman—one of the many who
achieved noble and heroic acts that day:--
“Hallo! boatman.”
“Halo! Yourself, and see how you like it.”
“I want you to take a load of furniture.”
“Can’t do it till the women and children are safe.”
“I’ll give you your own price.”
“Human life before money.”
“A hundred dollars for a load!”
The boatman shook his head, and every vigorous stroke of the oar said
“No.”
“Two hundred dollars!”
“Not for a thousand!” was the reply wafted back from the receding boat.
In another blithe account:
“Mike did you lose your house?”
277
“Yes,” said he, as if proud of the locomotive qualities of his hitherto staid,
well-behaved domicile. “Yes, she was the second through the gap. She went
off in grand style, passed the break more smoothly, sailed off more
gracefully, made better time, acted more ship-shape generally, and broke
into smaller pieces than any house going.”
“Literally a fine house, eh?”
“A heap.”
“Did you save your furniture?”
“No. Not only is the furniture lost, but the entire family wardrobe—and a
bottle of capital brandy.”
“Why, you have lost everything.”
“That is my impression, too.”
Had he been a millionaire, he could not have lost more, and yet the buoyant-
hearted fellow, when advised to apply to the Howards for the relief which
would have been freely given declined, saying there were poorer ones than
he. We believe him. There are rich poor men, poor rich men, the world over.
Another tale of rescue, hope, and love:
A lady, while endeavoring to walk on one of the sidewalks on Seventh-
street, which footway had a sideward slope of some forty-five degrees, and
was covered with an unctuous coating of mud, slipped and fell into the mud
and water in the street, which reached her waist. She then, as Tom—we will
call him Tom—expressed it, “canted over,” and was drenched from head to
foot, Tom is bashful, very—especially towards ladies—but this was no time
to stand upon ceremonies. In the exigencies of the times the lady had
fortunately discarded hoops, so Tom was enabled to approach sufficiently
near to proffer assistance. Extending his hand, he asked in the blandest
manner:
“Will you allow me, Miss, the pleasure of helping you out?”
In liquid tones she answered:
“Yes.”
“It was the first time a pretty woman ever said ‘yes’ to me,” said Tom, “and
it nearly paralyzed me with surprise and pleasure. However, I got her safely
landed; and with her classically close-fitting drapery and disheveled hair,
she came fully up to my beau-ideal of a mermaid….
“I have just seen her safe at home,” said Tom, with a gratified air, “and have
a standing invitation to call soon and often.”
Tom is good looking, and the lady is fair, and something may yet come of
that little duck—for love, like hope, often commences on a very small
capital.
416
As the press circulated lighthearted tales of flood life, the temperatures plummeted. Saying it was
416 “The Great Floods in California,” The Globe (1844-1936); Toronto, Ont., February 7, 1862.
278
as “Cold as Greenland” would not do the weather across the Slope “full justice.” Up and down the
slope, it was “‘nip-and-tuck’ between Jack Frost and the Floods” but by the end of January, Jack
“had the advantage.” It was as “piercing cold” as the “charities of the world.”
By February, a widening scope of the size of storms and their impacts up and down the
Pacific Slope was becoming more and more apparent. Since late November, every river valley
from southern Canada to Northern Mexico was flooded, and the loss of life and property was
immense. Some predicted the Five million dollars could fail to replace all that was lost.
417
San Francisco had received thirty-six inches of rain in seventy-three days—and the rainy
season was only halfway through. But this was “trifling” when compared to the amount of water
falling in the interior. For December and January, Thomas Logan's hydrograph suggests a
minimum of four distinct extreme high water periods. Logan noted important details hydrologic
and metalogic details he had gained from his observations. One particular observation echoes
previous reflections of warm winter winds that bring heavy rain and high water:
“There is a tidal flood and ebb of from one to two feet, according to the course and
force of the wind and the stage of the river. If the wind blows strongly from the
north…this fall is still greater, especially during spring tides…the warmer the rains,
the less snow falls on the mountains, and the sooner that which has already fallen
there is melted, and consequently, the more sudden is the rise of the river.”
418
A plaque near his grave in Sacramento calls Logan California’s first meteorologist.
419
Regardless
of his "first" standing, Logan's two decades of records helped form the baseline for U.S. Weather
Bureau established by the federal government in 1870. His wide-ranging data collection
417 Saxon, Five years within the Golden Gate, 1868, 127.
418 Thomas M. Logan M.D., “Hydrography, Meteorology & Hyetography of Sacramento, Cal,” from California et al.,
“Journal of the Senate and Assembly,” Journal of the Senate and Assembly, 1863; California, Legislature, and
Assembly, Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly of the ... Session of the Legislature of the State of
California., 1862
419 Logan "collected necrological records from undertakers form 1850 to January 1858 to establish a baseline for
comparisons with the weather, climate, and topography…he published both the meteorological and the necrological"
data "after the end of each month in the Sacramento Union.”
279
contributes to our growing knowledge of atmospheric rivers and the extreme winter conditions of
61-62.
420
Logan recorded 8.66 inches of rain in Sacramento.
Logan was not alone. Other weather observers across Central California corroborate the
extreme amounts of rain and snowfall of the winter of ‘62. William Henry Brewer recorded San
Francisco’s rainfall as 9.54 inches in December, 24.36 inches in January, and 7.53 inches in
February.
421
In January 1862, lawyer Thomas Tennant recorded 24.36 inches in San Francisco. At
Downieville on the north fork of the Yuba River northeast of Sacramento, Dr. T. R. Kibbe noted
37.79 inches. According to Mr. Atwood's records, at Grass Valley near the foothills east of Yuba
City, 33.79 inches fell. S. R. Dunham logged 42 inches of rain along with fifty feet of snow—
roughly another 50 to 60 inches of water—at Hennes Pass at the summit of the Sierra Nevada west
of Reno. Mr. Richey documented snowpacks 34 feet deep and more rain than he could calculate
near the summit of Sierra Nevada near the Big Tree Road. From Echo Summit near Placerville
California, William Henry Brewer also recorded fifty feet of snow.
422
From November 1st, 1861 to the first of February 1862, these men recorded an average of
five feet in rain and snow across the Sierra Nevada's western slope, 37 inches of rain in San
Francisco, 75.69 inches in Grass Valley, 79.28 inches in Downieville, 101 inches in Sonora, and a
dumbfounding eleven and a half feet in Red Dog Nevada County.
423
According to the statistics in the surveyor general's report, the average precipitation in
California for December 1861 was 9.54. In January 1862, it was 24.36 inches, for February 7.53
inches. The average December rainfall they had recorded to that point was four and a half inches.
420 Guy P. Jones, “Thomas M. Logan, M.D., Organizer of California State Board of Health and a Co-Founder of the
California Medical Association,” California and Western Medicine 63, no. 1 (July 1945): 6–10.
421 Brewer, Up & Down California; Brewer Papers
422 “I presume that all of these figures are correct save those of San Francisco; and while I admit the care and
accuracy of Mr. Tennant, I must suspect that somebody played tricks with his gauge, upon which he could not keep
a constant watch.” Theodore H. Hittell, History of California, 1898, 404.
423 Bishop, “Winter of the Floods…,” 6.
280
An average January according to these same numbers was three and a half inches. An average
February, 3.67 inches.
424
These totals were premature. Though meteorological winter was winding
down, the Big Winter was not.
424 Note: "the Sacramento rainfall total for January 1862 reported in this document on PDF page 22 does not match
Dr. Logan's data published in other documents. The author raises doubts about the San Francisco rain totals, but he
seems to have an incorrect rain total for Sacramento. Maybe the Sacramento is a typo?
281
Part 3: February – Fall 1862
The great lakes of California stood well into February. The “Association,” as President
Mowe called it, continued commissioning boats to rescue survivors, deliver necessities, and help
“the poor” try to recover what things they could from the flooded landscape.
425
The Howard
Society’s relief network extended in a twenty-mile circuit around Sacramento city to those whose
“cases were known” or “applications made by or for them.” The Association’s boats searched from
the Coast Ranges west of the capital to the Sierra Nevada's foothills on the east. They searched as
far north as Fremont to Rio Vista in the South.
426
Most of the volunteer boatmen came from San
Francisco. The work was dangerous and arduous.
One of the most critical fleets of boats belonged to The California Steam Navigation
Company. Their President, R. M. Jessup, Esq., “tendered any and all of their boats to the Society
on Sunday, the 12
th
, to convey sufferers up or down the river.”
“The numbers that availed themselves of this most liberal offer, as well as the large
number rescued by the humane efforts of the officers of the various steamers, who
stopped at every place on the river where a house was to be found, entitle them to
the lasting gratitude of the people of the entire valley. The amount in passage money
thus donated we estimate at $10,000. We further acknowledge their kindness in
furnishing the steamer Sam Soule to the Society to rescue families without further
expense than the cost of wood. All the freight shipped to the Society has been
delivered without expense.”
The steamers Nevada and Cornelia delivered 462 boxes, barrels, and packages, and
“provisions of all kinds.” There were 94 packages of cooked meats, 29 packages of clothing, 91
sacks of coal, and 248 boxes, barrels, and containers of breadstuff.
427
The owners of the Nevada
and Sacramento made these deliveries free of charge.
425 George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862
426 “Flood in California,” Hartford Daily Courant (1840-1887); Hartford, Conn., February 28, 1862.
427 by South Park Market, Deeth & Starr, J. L. Sanford, Mr. Williams, A. P. Bessey, Swain, and Brown, Mr.
Shelland, C.D. Elliott, Mr. Brockwood, from Howard street, between Third and Fourth, Mr. Simpton, J. J. Haley, C.
J. Halley & CO., Crane and Allen, Third Ward Committee; Dodge and Austin, Fifth and Sixth Ward Committee;
282
The Howard Association continued to collect donations. For fifty-eight days, winter storms
taxed the Society's energies and resources to reach every case of distress whether far or near. Since
January 6
th
, Howard collected from the Committee $3000 of provisions including clothing and
bedding plus an additional two thousand dollars cash. Likewise, the Ladies’ Relief Committee of
Petaluma collected and donated one thousand pounds of flour, eight packages of provisions, and
eight cases of clothes. An Anonymous Benician contributed a sack of clothing. The Pupils of Miss
Atkins’ Seminary of Benicia donated women’s and children’s clothing that they made had
themselves. R. J. Walsh of Colusa contributed fresh beef and mutton. Mr. Simmons and others at
Mare Island sent four hundred, Dutch Flat sent $736.50, and Clay Lodge F. and A.M. of the same
place sent $100. Wheeler and Wilson of San Francisco donated the time of workers, two sewing
machines and materials, which rendered us efficient aid for several days. The California Steam
Navigation Company, the Sacramento Valley Railroad Company, the owners of every stagecoach
line, the Telegraph and Express companies, Wells, Fargo & Company, and the medical fraternity
responded to Howard’s appeal for donations and volunteer services.
428
The Commander of the
Navy Yard offered three hundred rations for fifty days.
429
All of Howard’s requests for aid were fully met. The city made the Society the distributor
of all the public donations sent to Sacramento. The contributions from the Catholics of San
Masten and Smiley, Second Ward Committee; Nash and Taylor, Pacific Bakery, Fourth Ward Committee, J. M.
McDonald & Co., International hotel; C. J. Dempster, Hildebrand & Shultz, Wheeler & Martin, Platt’s Hall
Committee, Pierce & Co., Marks & Gove, Mr. Fell, C. A. Hunt, W. E. Brown, personally and for Committee;
American Exchange, Ninth District Committee, Butler and Chenery, Committee; William M. Blossom, O.B. Crary,
R. G. Sneath and Hayton, Tenth District Committee, Mr. Sather, Sum, Cerf & Stein, and James Donahue. Since
which we have received from: J.T. Pennell, San Francisco, provisions. Cutting Co., San Francisco, Pickles and
vinegar. Pollack & Brothers, San Francisco, clothing.
428 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 24, Number 3602, 14 October 1862, “Fifth Annual Report of the Sacramento
Benevolence Society.” George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862 The annual meeting of the Howard
Benevolent Society
429 Ibid.
283
Francisco were dispersed by the pastor of St. Rose Catholic Church.
430
The relief efforts were
significantly aided by the Relief Committee in San Francisco who took charge of those who fled
from the capitol city and valley. The total amount disbursed by the Central Relief Committee at
Platt’s Hall, and elsewhere in San Francisco, was unknown.” This “spontaneous” and “truly
California response to the wants of sufferers of this valley imposed most onerous labor upon the
Society, which has been performed with a cheerful zeal, and “none have been refused aid unless
we had undoubted proof of their ability to provide for themselves.”
431
In their work to distribute
money and other articles of relief equitably, the Association, “in pursuance of its constitutional
requirements,” did not know “either creed, nativity, color or sex, but supplied all who were
destitute and without available means of support.”
432
There was no mention of aid directed towards
Chinese Californians injured during the winter’s disasters or Indigenous peoples in Central
California.
In Sacramento alone, at least sixty houses were destroyed or so damaged they were unsafe
for occupation. The Howard Benevolent Society helped to provide seventy-five families with
housing in the northern part of Sacramento, paying in advance a month’s rent, food, and fuel for
each family. The Society hoped that would be enough time for them and the larger region to return
to being “self-supporting.” At the same time, the hotel owners had opened their rooms to the
430 Ibid.
431 The annual meeting of the Howard Benevolent Society was held at Rev. Mr. Benton’s Church. The meeting was
called to order by the President G. W. Mowe. the Secretary R. T. Brown, J. F. H. Forbes, C. T. Wheeler, W. H.
Blauvelt and L. Williams were elected members of the Society to fill vacancies caused by the removal N. A. H Ball,
J. E. Perkins, J. R. Seldon and L. A. Booth from the city. Mowe was [again] elected President but declined on the
ground that he had already served four years…President J. H. Carrol; Secretary, R. T. Brown; Treasurer T. M.
Lindley; Directors—J. McNeil, R, Dale, Rev. W. H. Hill, Edgar Mills, E. H. Russell and W. P. Coleman.” From the
Report: “The events of the floods of December 9, 1861, and January 10, 1862, so far, as they properly are of record,
were fully set forth in our monthly statement of January and February, 1862…” Sacramento Daily Union, Volume
24, Number 3602, 14 October 1862, “Fifth Annual Report of the Sacramento Benevolence Society.”
432 “Our success is a matter of gratulation, and the people who, from all sections of the State, have sent us donations
of money and food, are assured that they have been applied with impartiality, a strict regard to justice and the
demands of humanity. It is proper to state that neither officer nor member can receive compensation for labors
performed under any circumstances.” George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862.
284
homeless and doing everything in their power to make their guests as comfortable as possible for
the remainder of the winter, “no matter what wind blows.” [I think some of these guests are state
assemblymen] But it was the Pavilion that emerged as the new hub of aquatic Sacramento. It fed
on average 500 hundred people every day. Some days more, someday fewer.
433
President Mowe hoped that if the rains stayed at bay, and there were no more floods, the
refugees could be sustained by the Society’s regular income through March 1
st
. There were still
“large numbers of farmers and persons living at a distance” that continued to need temporary
assistance and aid. At least half of the donations Howard’s collected over the past month were
redirected to those expended upon those living beyond the city limits.
434
Mowe also claimed that twelve died in Sacramento during the floods. It was at least that
many. Countless died across California alone. Newspapers noted many deaths by droning. A.J.
Reid’s body was found in Shasta County. Nicholas Kline drowned near Downieville. At Nevada
City, the heavy rains led to Calvin Cleveland's death when a tunnel cave-in crushed him. William
Wood died at Half-Moon Bay. A man and two women, all unknown, drowned in Jajas Creek in
Santa Cruz. The body of an unknown boy was recovered in Santa Clara. Horace G. Bagley
drowned on the San Joaquin. In Deadwood, Charles A. Tryer and William Taylor lost their lives
in the floods.
435
The body of a man named Anderson was found floating in San Francisco Bay.
Charles H. Walker was found dead in the San Francisco Bay at pier twenty-four off Stewart St.
The body of Peter Keenan was found floating under the Jackson Street Wharf.
436
Barney
Maquire died in Stockton
437
An unknown soldier drowned at Camp Union near Sacramento.
433 George W. Mowe, President February 4, 1862
434 “We have buried twelve persons since the flood of December 9
th
…Our estimate for the closing up of all cases
dependent upon us, to March 1st, is $6,000 of which we have $1,500 on hand.” George W. Mowe, President
February 4, 1862, The annual meeting of the Howard Benevolent Society.
435 “Lives Lost by the Flood,” Daily Alta California, Vol XIV, Number 4356, 23 January 1862,
436 Langley, San Francisco Directory, 1862, 25.
437 “Lives Lost by the Flood,” Daily Alta California, Vol XIV, Number 4356, 23 January 1862.
285
Michael Donovan died at Islais Creek on the San José Road. James Morgan, the steamer Golden
Gate assistant engineer, was found floating dead in the Bay. The body of A. Collivan was
located in the Bay. The body of sailor Jas. Lalor was found in San Francisco Bay. Captain J. P.
Bagley of the brig Energy drowned. The corpse of Patrick Lawler was found in the Bay.
438
Sacraemnto’s coroner reports also mention the deaths of several by drowing.
439
The Society has been regularly Incorporated under State Law,” and “will ever be ready to
aid in the furtherance of charitable objects” and to “aid the destitute and sick poor within the city
limits, but will always in time of general calamity, extend its benevolent designs wherever its
means and ability will permit.”
440
To honor the Society and help them raise additional funding,
Max Zorer composed the “California Flood Mazurka,” a spirited polka-esque tune.
438 Langley, San Francisco Directory, 1862, 25.
439 Sacramento City, Coroner Records, Center for Sacramento History.
440 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 24, Number 3602, 14 October 1862, “Fifth Annual Report of the Sacramento
Benevolence Society.” George W. Mowe, annual meeting.
286
Figure 42: Max Zorer wrote a musical piece in memory of both the floods and the efforts of the Howard Benevolent Society.
Poster for "California Food Mazurka,” Huntington Library.
The Sacramento press also began advocating for flood control infrastructure to protect the capitol
from future floods. The Bee advocated for a new levee that was seven to ten feet taller than the old
highwater mark. In a nod to the knowledge they earned from the floods of 1861-62, they also
proposed a canal that connected the American River near Smith’s garden and ran in a straight line
behind the city, to the Sacramento River that would transport the extra water through the city
without flooding it.
441
441 The great flood of 1861-62 inundated the city and ruined the foundations of the capital. San Francisco made a
vigorous effort to get the capital removed to that city but was unsuccessful. Work was resumed on the building, the
plans were changed, the edifice enlarged, and finally after many delays, it was ready for occupancy in December
1869…. its costs when competed had reached a million and half” dollars. James Miller Guinn, A History of
California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs: Also Containing Biographies of Well-Known
Citizens of the Past and Present, Historic Record Co., 1915, Daily Alta California, Volume 13, Number 4330, 27
December 1861 – The Second Flood of 1861”; CDNC
287
The deep freeze continued in the northern Slope. In western Washington Territory and
Oregon, from the 12
th
to the 15
th
the snow on the ground thawed during the day and froze
through the night. On the 16
th
it began to snow again. On February 18
th
“dense wet snow” fell on
the lower Columbia.
The Los Angeles Star praised San Francisco’s “unselfish energies in flood relief activities.”
“Long may that noble city continue prosperous, indicating by her munificent charities, the proud
title of “Queen of the Pacific.”
442
Though the rains had paused for nearly two weeks, water still
stood in scattered pools and expansive lakes across California. Boats still took short-cuts across
farms and ranches and over houses, orchards, and telegraph poles. The rain returned on February
19
th
and would continue for over a week, with the hardest fall on the 22
nd
. On the 26
th
of February,
amid seven straight days of rain, the city of Sacramento flooded for the sixth time since December.
The Sacramento River rose to nineteen feet above its regular level. By the 28
th
, it had climbed
almost another foot to nineteen feet nine inches,
The Sacramento Daily Union remarked on what for newcomers was the unusual
“meteorological phenomenon of the Pacific slope” that is of “vast importance to California.” The
Union argued for the study of the phenomenon’s “varying phases” of “seasons of unusual drouth,
or an excess of humidity”. It should be known by “all classes of our people.” Other observers
believed other factors were also at play, besides the ultra-wet weather. One twelve-year resident
claimed it was a “well-authenticated fact” that the rainfall flowed down the mountains and into the
valleys faster than it did during the “first years of gold discovery.” The combined influence of
mining, logging, farming, and grazing had undoubtedly changed the waterways of the Slope,
especially in California’s Central Valleys. In the mining districts in particular, the topsoil of
442 Daily Alta California, Volume 13, Number 4330, 27 December 1861 – The Second Flood of 1861”; CDNC
288
“roughly a million acres” was wiped clean from the bedrock. When the rains come, the runoff goes
straight into the channels and into the lowlands instead of soaking into the soil and aquafers.
443
California’s Legislature voted to relocate from Sacramento to San Francisco for the
duration of the session. Some, particularly in the Senate, wanted to make the move permanent.
Appropriately, San Francisco suffered severe flooding during these late February storms. Most of
its streets were only “navigable by small boat.”
444
The storms and floods wore on into March. The snowstorm that moved in on the 21
st
of
February brought more snow with intermittent rains to the Lower Columbia and the Willamette
Valley. On the second there were two feet of snow at Fort Vancouver. On the 5th, a new storm
turned the snows and morning frosts to rain. It would rain or snow for the next sixteen days.
The excessive precipitation caused massive landslides in the mountains across the Slope.
Entire mountainsides, thick with trees, “peeled off” and slide downhill. At the Big Tree and
Carson Valley Road near Black Springs, one slide moved debris three miles down the mountain
and across the river between the Big Tree Grove and Black Springs. Twenty-five feet of
boulders, fragments of houses and ferryboats, giant pines, pickets from fences, ferry cables of all
lengths, and faded and damaged furniture of all kinds buried a ranch where the Stanislaus Rivers
exits from the mountains.
445
Most of Sacramento remained underwater. Lowlands were still full. Not one road leading
in and out of the city was traversable. Toppled houses blocked still flooded streets. Yards “were
ponds.” In the capitol, houses that still stood were soaked inside and out, muddy and slimy, and
443 “formerly it soaked into the alluvial surface and penetrated to the gravel strata overlying the bedrock” and
“becoming lost in subterranean caverns, rivers, and lakes, or rose in after a time and on lower elevations in springs
and gushing fountains.
444 “Flood in California,” Hartford Daily Courant (1840-1887); Hartford, Conn., February 28, 1862.
445 These slides are still visible today. Bishop, 5.
289
“everything was uncomfortable.” Sofas, and tables, and dressers, and beds bobbed around inside
flooded basements. In towns across the Central Valley, small boats were still the main modes of
transportation as water surrounded everything. Floating in the muddy sea were motley sets of
furniture and debris from the wrecks of countless houses. Dead animals were everywhere. By the
3
rd
of March, the Sacramento reached 21 feet above low water.
It drizzled on the 7
th
of March, and the Sacramento river still flowed twenty feet above low
water.
446
By March the 8
th
, the stage carrying the mail arrived from San Francisco. It had been
sixteen days en route. The Star's editor had long since mellowed his remarks concerning the mails'
coast route, for the Tulare route would have been wholly impossible on such a winter.
On March 9, 1862, William Henry Brewer looked out upon
“such a desolate scene I hope to never see again… Most of the city is still
underwater and has been for three months… The new Capitol is far out in the
water—the Governor's house stands in a lake… I left the city and, as I came down
the river, saw the wide plain still overflowed, over farms and ranches—houses here
and there in the waste of waters or perched on some little knoll now an island.”
America had “never before seen such desolation by flood” Brewer opined, and
“seldom has the Old World seen the like [author’s emphasis].” “Nearly every house
and farm over this immense region is gone.
There was still a body of water—"250 to 300 miles long and 20 to 60 miles wide.” In the afternoons
the winds blew so hard they made “high waves which beat the farmhouses” into pieces. Before
long, nearly every flooded building out in the valley went down, though some held on for weeks.
447
It rained again, dropping over two inched between March 10 and March 14
th
.
On March 13, 1862, John D. Lee opened his house for the 11 o’clock meeting of the new
446 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 22, Number 1414, 8 March 1862, “City Intelligence,” CDNC.
447 Chart of rainfall (gives 9.54 as December rainfall and 24.36 inches as January, 7.53 as February) Here’s the intro:
1. A table of the monthly rainfall in San Francisco for the five years, 1860 to 1864, will be useful for reference here
and throughout Professor Brewer’s Journal. The figures are from Alexander McAdie’s The Clouds and Fogs of San
Francisco (1912). Rainfall varies between different parts of the state, but the San Francisco figures may be taken as a
general index of conditions throughout central California at least. Up and Down California in 1860-1864; The
Journal of William H. Brewer: Book 3, Chapter 1, “The Rainy Season,” Brewer, Up and Down California,
290
Harmony Church. He would hold services there regularly for the rest of the year.
Another smallpox epidemic erupted in San Francisco on March 13. The disease had spread
to British Columbia along shipping lanes and among traveling miners. On March 14
th
, the waters
of a reservoir in St. Ann’s Valley broke over its banks and into the settlements there. The floods
made a ruin of the residences and outbuildings of F.L.A. Pioche. On the 14
th,
a 25-acre pond in
San Francisco dunes breached an impromptu dam and destroyed L’Hermitage, the home of
Francois Pioche. Pioche owned the Market Street Railway and the Willows Resort, which were
also damaged again. The storms and floods of December and January had injured both.
448
Like Peck, Reverend Thomas Starr King reflected on the disasters. King’s piece, “The
Great Flood in California,” appeared for eastern audiences in the Saturday Evening Post on March
15, 1862. Part sermon, part history, part rallying cry, and 100 percent boosterism, King spins the
events and their meanings: “In the interior of the state there has been scarcely any sunshine since
the tenth of November, and the rain that has fallen since the first of January…Our average of rain
in San Francisco for the year is about twenty inches. Already in a little more than two months, we
have had thirty-four…and the clouds” are “dark as ever” and “more than two months of the rainy
season were still to come, which were the “months, too, in which the freshets usually come.”
449
King continues [emphasis author’s]:
Seventy-one days ago, the rainy season set in, and fifty-five of them have belonged
to the Baptist persuasion. The interior, near the base of the mountains, receives
much more rain than we do on the coast but never has anything been known there
like the outpouring of the last month. At several points in the foothills, where
measures have been kept, “seventy-two inches of water have fallen since the first
week of November.” I believe your supply in Massachusetts is about forty inches
in twelve months. You can judge, then, of the freedom of utterance of clouds over
the Sierra, and their copious delivery, if they furnish nearly twice the amount in two
448 Langley, San Francisco Directory, 1862, 25. Carleton Watkins photo, “Lone Mountain from the Orphan Asylum,”
may depict the site where the Pinoche mansion once stood. Note by Joel Pomerantz.
449 Rev T. Starr King, “The Great Flood in California.,” Saturday Evening Post (1839-1885); Philadelphia, March
15, 1862.
291
months which your storms supply in twelve…. “You have no conception in New
England of what a flood is [author’s emphasis].” Your ideas of mountain wrath and
river ravage have been formed by the freshets of the Saco, the Connecticut, the
Merrimac, and now and then the accounts that reach you of the anger of the
Mohawk and the Hudson. Those only give “little ribbands of disaster.”
450
Aside from citing the incredible precipitation statistics, King’s comparisons of each region's
waterways and their potential for flooding are astute and perhaps subversive to his eastern readers’
perceptions of the weather and waterways of California.
And in a state configured as ours is, you can calculate the effect. We have an
immense central prairie between two mountain ranges. The Sacramento flows from
the north southward, and the San Jaskin [Joaquin?] from the south northward, and
pour their burden of waters together in the center of the state, to rush out through
the Straits of Carquinez into the bay of San Francisco, and then through the Golden
Gate into the Pacific. In the spring, when the snows melt of the great mountains,
these rivers find as much as they can do to run off the torrents that plunge into them;
but this winter, the clouds among the Sierra have been “on the rampage,” and the
state presents “a spectacle to-day equally wonderful and pitiful.” All the forks and
feeders of the two great central streams have filled the Sierra's gorges with the roar
of their fury and converted the rich plains of the state into an inland sea.
451
This geographical overview of the Great Central Valley and its hydrology reveals the keen
understanding, at least superficially, that King had of the Slope’s special relationship with water
and weather. Along with describing the general devastation across the region, King also adeptly
describes the processes that created the series of disasters in California.
But here, one mountain bulwark, from seven to twelve thousand feet high, along a
line of five hundred miles, has been “hurling cataracts for six weeks,” through the
wildest gorges, down toward one river-system, through an immense plain that has
no levee on its banks. “The result is an imperial devastation.” The two great
interests of the state, mining and agriculture, are already frightfully scourged, and
as we are only midway of the wet season, we know not when or what the end may
be. So far as we get word from the interior, it is a monotonous account of wild
spoliation. The branches and sources of the Yuba, the Feather, the American, the
Mokelumne, the Stanislaus, the Merced, have risen to incredible heights and nearly
cleaned the chief mining districts of the bridges, sluices, tunnels, dykes, ditches,
mills, and implements which represent the toil and capital of years.
452
450 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
451 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
452 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
292
As King continues to describe what he fears is the implausible devastation across California, he
personifies “Nature” as feminine and dangerously powerful.
“Nature has taken the hydraulic washing this season into her own hand, and given
a specimen of her power of moving the hills, gold and all, down into the Sacramento
[author’s emphasis].” And with the remorseless torrents have been borne splintered
houses, machinery, cattle, the wrecks of gardens and orchards, the supports and
ruins of aqueducts (sic), the embankments of skillful roads, and we know not yet
how many human bodies, to be whelmed in the turbid tides of the vast trunk rivers
below. The rise and fury of some of these streams in the wild ravines cannot be
conceived, even when the audacious figures are reported. Sixty or eighty feet may
be stated, with a Bible near at hand on which the pen is ready to vouch for its
veracity.
In one canon (sic) of the Klamatte river, in the north part of the state, which
Mount Shasta looks down upon, a suspension-bridge, ninety feet above the usual
current, was swept away, and the water rose fifty feet above that,--making a tide a
hundred and forty feet above the low water mark. The story looks large, doesn’t it?
but you can’t know what truth is till you visit California, and my pen is as ready to
make oath to it as a secessionist in jail is to swear allegiance to Abraham. Don’t
send out here, however, to test my veracity. As soon as the sun comes out, the river
goes down as fast as the secessionists' loyalty.
453
Again King compares the destruction wrought by the Big Winter to floods in New England. King
also compares the floods across the Slope to the deluges of Genesis and how the events have made
deeper believers of his fellow congregates.
Each of the subordinate streams on the slopes and on the passes of the
mountains has wrought as much damage as one of the New England freshets on a
whole river. In some counties, every bridge is swept away, and the roads about
ruined. But after all the destruction in the gorges and among the hills is summed
up, we have the desolation on the plains to take into account. The interior is a lake.
A week ago, every street of Sacramento, the capital, was underwater, some of them
ten to fifteen feet, and from the coast range to the Sierra, there seemed to be an
unbroken sea. The steamboat from Marysville to Sacramento sailed over the stage
road, nearly a bee-line between them.
454
It is thought that, in some directions, diagonal lines might have been chosen
in which one could have rowed two hundred miles, sometimes passing over the
roofs of houses and the tops of telegraph poles. We have had a conception, I assure
you, of what the earth looked like in pre-adamate ages, and no skeptics need
hereafter attempt any criticism on the account of the flood in Genesis. Our minister
453 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
454 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
293
read it in church yesterday, and I noticed that the congregation listened not only
with evident and undoubted faith but with symptoms of grim joy that California
can beat the “fifteen cubits upward” which the waters are said to have “prevailed.”
Already we boast that no country can get up a freshet and a desolation on such a
mighty scale. [author’s emphasis]
455
King’s descriptions of the disasterscapes of the central Valley are stark, and some of the most
detailed contemporaneous accounts of the suffering and ruin:
But it is pitiful to think of the ruin. An area as large as Massachusetts's has been, if
it is not now, underwater. And it is the rich agricultural region of the state. The land
should now be plowed and sown for the harvest due in May and June. But over tens
of thousands of acres, the fences are wiped off; barns and stacks of grain are
annihilated; cattle have been drowned, or chilled, or starved; farming implements
are floated away or ruined; houses are soaked, if not destroyed; orchards are buried
under debris, or killed by the cold tides and sleet; sand is washed upon the fruitful
soil, waiting to burst into the green of wheat or the beauty of vineyards; confidence
in the valley as a fit home for human beings is broken down in many of the energetic
colonists; and hundreds of them, after they have seen their cattle killed, and their
homesteads ravaged, have been saved from the upper rooms of their houses, and
sometimes from the tops of trees, by boats and little steamers that have cruised on
Samaritan errands of rescue, and brought away paupers that two months ago were
independent.
456
Last week, I visited Sacramento, sailed in the rain through streets alive with
boats, and lined with houses half-buried in the slimy tide. But the aspect of the city,
partly drowned as it is, was cheerful compared with the vast lagoons over which
we steamed, that should now be green with the peeping grain. A cold north wind
blew the sleety storm over the muddy waste that was relieved only by trees here
and there or the roofs of a few houses, or now and then a mound just swelling above
the yellow expanse, on which huddled and starving cattle were shivering in the wet
blasts. We overtook one relief steamer and took from her over a hundred people,
some of them children with naked legs and feet, who had been rescued from homes
in which they had suffered for days from lack of fire and scanty food. Most of them
had lost everything.
457
King describes San Francisco's charity and the work of the Howard Benevolent Society in trying
to meet the task of disaster relief in the relative absence of government assistance.
The charity of San Francisco, and the cities of the interior, has been unstinted and
glorious. In Sacramento, the city's largest hall is a hospital, under the control of an
admirable Benevolent Society, to furnish beds, clothing, and food for the homeless.
455 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
456 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
457 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
294
Thirty thousand dollars were contributed from San Francisco in money and supplies
to the treasury of that Sacramento organization. A week ago on Sunday morning,
word came to us of the higher rise of the water in Sacramento and the difficulty of
getting any provisions there. Collections were taken at once in many of the churches
before service; a committee was in session in our great Music Hall; wagons were
sent through the city to collect cooked food; bakeries were set at work; the cooking
apparatus of halls and hotels put in requisition; and in the afternoon tons of food,
ready to be eaten, were sent by steam to the capital, and distributed early Monday
morning. Strong men in Sacramento cried like children when they saw the unloaded
bounty so speedily and thoughtfully supplied. Now our Music Hall is turned into a
Receiving Home for the destitute that come to the city; the steamers bring them
down free, feed them too on the passage; and homes are provided for them by the
bounty of our citizens who open their houses to the sufferers.
458
King continues his instant history with a question about the future of the state in the aftermath of
a series of disasters of this magnitude. Settler communities across California and the greater Pacific
Slope were at a particularly vulnerable time, and the largest state was ostensibly in financial ruin
with no clear path of rescue and recovery. There was no guarantee that any of the major cities
would recover. Many towns in fact did not. And King encourages more easterners to come, despite
the history he has unfolded. Most provocatively, King compares the devastation to the carnage of
the battlefields of Virginia.
But what will the result be to the state? “It still storms furiously as I write. The bay
from my window is yellow with soil from the Sierra.” Through the Straits of
Carquinez the downward rush of water is an “enormous tide, it overspreads the bay
with a fresh lake,” and pours out at the Golden Gate at the rate of eleven knots an
hour continually,--for there is no flood-tide on the surface coming in from the
ocean. The downward stream beats it back, and the sea's swell must come in
underneath the fresh water that pours out. I do not know that the state can be injured
much more if the rain and flood continue. But the loss and damage are already
fearful. In the mines an immense deal of capital is ruined. In the great agricultural
districts the hopes of the next harvest are dim. “You suffer from the war; we are
ravaged by water almost as badly as Virginia by the rebellion [author’s
emphasis].”
459
It is estimated that a third of our permanent capital, or rather of the taxable
property, in the state is canceled. The effect on business in this city must be soon
very severe. More sad is its effect on the state's progress in educational and moral
enterprises and prosperity. The future was never so bright for California as two
458 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
459 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
295
months ago.. I hope that persons who propose to leave the East, expecting to do
better in California, will consider the question of coming for a few months very
seriously. Let them wait till the books are posted after the disaster. Two months
will enable us to report what our needs of emigration are and what our welcome
can be.
460
Amid the gloom and the persistent rain, King continues his sunshiny depiction of postdiluvian
California. His rosy comments regarding the death in livestock would end up being incorrect.
And yet our people are wondrously cheerful. There is no shining, no despair. They
have seen cities sprung up anew from charcoal in a year, and they do not mean to
let the flood drive them from the state of which they are so proud. Many are
calculating already the advantage of the flood in drowning out gophers, and
squirrels, and locusts. Others sympathize with the farmers who have saved stock
and have fellowship in their joy over the good prices that will reward them for the
pains of bringing them to market. They insist that cattle were too plentiful and that
we needed a flood. Others rejoice that the land will get a drenching necessary to
prevent it from baking, and they foretell a grazing paradise. Others still have visions
of diggings such as -49 offered and insist that the flood is a mercy since it carries
off the “tailings” of years, bringing down nuggets, and pays, even at the cost of our
bridges and roads. Yet, all this while, we are underwater and are but halfway
through our season of deluge. And it still storms.
461
Finally, while comparing the “ravages” of the Sierra to those of the East, this time the “trifles” of
the Mississippi, King claims that the people of California would rather die than return East. King’s
vision of sink or swim culture of California reads more chillingly with the backdrop of the many
across the Slope that did die that winter.
But whatever may come, thousands would rather drown here than walk on the
driest land east of the Alleghenies. They are jubilant, hundreds of them; that Nile
inundations and Mississippi freshets are trifles to the sweep of the watery ravage
which the Sierra can inflict; and “sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish,” they
are for California [author’s emphasis]. Whether or not I go all lengths with this
party, I will not now imitate; but I am proud of the spirit with which this people
bears misfortunes and the energy that is eager for the opportunity to begin to repair
the devastation of the elements. May the hills of Boston and San Francisco ever
keep their heads above water!
462
460 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
461 KING, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
462 King, “The Great Flood in California.,” 1862.
296
King compares the ravages of the Big Winter to those of the Civil War. But his comparisons also
imply that the sacrifices made during that “elementary war” to hold California—ostensibly for
the Union—parallel the sacrifices of soldiers on the battlefields of the east fighting to preserve
the Union there.
King was not alone. Newspapers in the East compared the Big Winter to the Civil War. On
March 28, 1862, The Israelite out of Cincinnati Ohio wrote that until this winter the Pacific coast
had been “spared the worst consequences of our terrible civil war” and its “grim front and bloody
hand,” its “cruel desolations,” its “crushing weight of sharp sorrows.” Some westerners had even
had “gathered some benefit” from the “dreadful contest.” Many had migrated to the “Pacific
paradise” to escape the “bloodshed,” the “hard times.” The Slope was singularly exempt from the
“scourge” upon the rest of the US. But not anymore. The winter brought California’s “scourge,”
“not war, but floods have burst upon” them. California’s “volunteers and martyr-heroes” did not
“stand aloof” against the water usually “hailed as a blessing by its abundance,” had become “a
curse.” The capital city is submerged, and its people “forced to plead piteously for very existence.”
The “distress is heart-rending,” the “losses incalculable.”
463
The Slope had “escaped civil war, but another evil, perhaps as great, had befallen” it. “God
has a controversy with this whole nation,” the Israelite scolded, and as such “He has scourged us
all.” The paper explained that nations have no souls, so they must “be punished in this world.”
“God’s judgments are sure to fall, sooner or later, on impious lands. And when they fall, it is high
time to bow before him.”
464
Up and down, “these Pacific States floods” did “sweeping work.” Both valleys and
mountains have suffered, and farmers and miners alike have met “unprecedented disasters.”
463 “The Whole Land Scourged,” The Israelite (1854-1874); Cincinnati, Ohio, March 28, 1862.
464 “The Whole Land Scourged,” The Israelite (1854-1874); Cincinnati, Ohio, March 28, 1862.
297
Reverends Stephen Chipman Thrall, Thomas Starr King, Jesse Peck, and The Israelite’s
comparison of the Big Winter’s war of the elements to the slaughter of the Civil War is startling.
War metaphors abound during disasters, but these comparisons are not metaphorical. The amount
of devastation to the landscape, to settlements, to the infrastructure, to the economy was in their
estimations on par with the destruction of those things in the east from the Confederate
Insurrection. “Our brief national history shows enough to merit yet worse disasters, yet severer
judgments…Let the public heart be stirred to penitence…These calamities will turn to blessings if
they help to make us truly and thoroughly a God-fearing people.”
465
Back at Wau-Kel on the Klamath Reservation, little remained of the “once beautiful
residence.” All that was left standing at the agency was a single, white “cottage-like looking
building,” a barn, and the remains of the mill standing sadly on a “barren sandy bar.”
466
Further north in Washington Territory, the Big Winter dragged on. Owsley, McCormich,
and Jake Hybarger held out at Kimble’s near Walla Walla until about the 20
th
of March when the
snow crusted over solid enough for mother and Belle to walk out. They hiked across the top of the
frozen snow down to Forsythe’s, further below Dayton. Jack Hybarger lost the front half of both
of his feet. They had come off “all but the sinews” and Owsley had to cut what remained off with
a razor. Hybarger’s suffering was immense and he begged the others to shoot him to no avail. He
then begged Owsley for the pistol so he could do it himself. Owsely refused.
On March 24
th
another storm pushed across the northern Slope, bring light rains, hail, and
snow for the next eight days to the lower Columbia. On the last day of March, they all went to
Florence. By then, the snow was gone on the Tucanon and Pataha, though four feet of snow
465 “The Whole Land Scourged,” The Israelite (1854-1874); Cincinnati, Ohio, March 28, 1862.
466 Rogers, "Early Military Posts of Del Norte County," California Historical Quarterly, 26, 3. See also,
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/redw/history8d.htm
298
remained on the Alpowa Ridge. It snowed the day they crossed harder than Owsely had ever seen.
That winter Dead Man Gulch earned its new name. Three men froze to death there. Cayuse George
and John Turner found their bones the next spring. They buried their remains on the property sold
by Art Whitmore to E. L. Sanford. Their names were unknown. They left Florence with twenty-
five pounds of gold dust which was never found.
467
Late in March, another week of rainfall began, although now the lower temperatures
resulted in heavy snowfall in the mountains and less flooding in the valleys. These showers were
not as continuous as January's rains, but they appear from the Star's descriptions to have added
considerably to the rainfall totals. The snowfall in the mountains was described as particularly
heavy.
468
From March 24
th
through April 2
nd
, light rain, hail, and snow fell across the lower Columbia
and Willamette Valley as well. On April 5, 1862, Oregonians were “glad to say” that the weather
“promises well at last” after the “most disagreeable, gloomy winter ever known on this coast.
“Since the great flood in December, which ruined hundreds of our citizens, there has been little
else since then a continued series of cold snaps, driving snowstorms, and cold rain, with occasional
hail.” The winter’s storms and freezing temperatures killed over half of the stock in the Willamette
Valley, and many cattle were still dying.
Along the Columbia River, the hilltops bordering on either side of the channel were in
many places still covered in snow. The “air was chilly,” and we had “occasional snow squalls”
that “whitened the tops of the evergreens” that lined the banks of the river. It was a “gloomy day,”
with snow tumbling in large flakes and “so thick as to give the whole country the appearance of
467 Ambrose Owsley Account of Winter 1861-1862; Washington State University
468 “The Winter of 1861-1862” compiled by the Staff, Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly, Vol IV No I,
November 1958, 14-19.
299
midwinter.” The grasses which usually had started to grow thick by that time of year had barely
begun to show, though in some places, like Polk county, the grass sprouted up enough to feed
steers and young cattle. Still, livestock across the region continued to die from lack of food. Also,
because the earth “too wet and heavy to be stirred, the people did almost no gardening. Light
showers peppered the lower Columbia from April 7
th
to the 10
th
and then again from the 12
th
to the
16
th
and a “blazing fire is comfortable yet.”
469
The physical destruction and financial devastation across the greater Sacramento region
continued into the Spring. Within the twenty-mile city circuit, the losses were estimated at an
additional 200,000 in livestock, buildings, fencing, and farming tools. The railroad tracks were
extensively damaged and would need repairs that would take months for the Superintendent to
organize the repairs required to get the cars running again. Months passed before Sacramento’s
merchants could reach their customers. The lack of goods tested the “endurance and energy” of
Sacramento’s citizens more than the floods themselves. It was adding to a loss of millions, a
“perfect stagnation of business.”
470
News reports claimed that the stagnation of business caused
the losses of millions. Some estimated at least $700,000 in losses in Sacramento alone, not
including the losses from disruptions of business or deferred debt payments. The Assessor’s books
indicate a reduction in property values in the city alone was of over two million dollars.
469 University of Oregon Library Knight, “The Oregon Argus. (Oregon City [Or.]) 1855-1863, April 05, 1862, Image
2,” no. 1862/04/05 (April 5, 1862).
470 “Flood Anniversary,” Sacramento Daily Union, Vol 24, number 3656, 9 December 1862.
300
Figure 43: The damage to transportation and communication networks was immense. The railroads would be sure to build above
the floods of 1862. “Sacramento City. Central RR Works at China Slough,” Bancroft Library.
One Sacramento landowner returned to see how bad the damage was to his property if his fence
had been washed away. The floods indeed washed his fence away but marooned on his land was
“a fine two-story house” with “all the modern improvements.”
471
Disaster capitalism in action.
On Wednesday April 12
th,
Los Angeles was hit by “one of the severest rain and hail
showers of the season.” Considering what had been going on all winter, this was quite a statement.
As if to make amends for all the water poured on the region, the weather started to heat up, perhaps
a hint of the devastating droughts of the coming years.
472
471 “Condensed News from California Papers.,” The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (1852-1872); Cincinnati, Ohio,
January 20, 1862.
472 “The Winter of 1861-1862” compiled by the Staff, Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly, Vol IV No I,
November 1958, 14-19.
301
Light rains swept across the Central Valley in early May. There were still immense pools
of water across the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. Roughly another inch fell from the 9
th
till the 11
th
.
The influences of the Big Winter were felt in Oregon well into May. The rapid melting of
the large body of snow in the upper country caused high water and more floods across Oregon.
The waster rose at the Dalles several feet over the main thoroughfares. Back-water from the
Columbia spilled into the lower portion of Portland, flooding the city again. By the fourteenth, the
river was twenty-eight feet above low-water. Damages along the Columbia River for this flood
alone were estimated at the time to be in the range of one hundred thousand dollars. The winter
had been deadly for miners and travelers in the upper country. The thaw revealed the bodies of the
dead, strewn across the plains and on hillsides. Some of their remains washed down with the
summer floods. Others would have to wait until the next hard rains.
473
The challenges of that
winter were enough to send many to other, drier parts of the Slope. Many crossed back over the
Cascade to farm the arid plains of eastern Oregon. Others headed towards Idaho's and British
Columbia’s goldfields.
474
In Sacramento, the city agreed to the first contracts on June 21
st
to begin constructing an
improved levee system around the capitol. They began building soon after. To help finance
raising the levee, the city gave the land on the waterfront to Union Pacific Railroad.
475
For miles
around the capitol, the ground was covered in sand, in some places deeper than 18 inches.
473 Bancroft claims that at least twenty-five thousand cattle died that season in California.
474 The flood covered more than 500,000 acres and rose up to 20 feet above normal in some places. Dresbeck.
Oregon Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival. 2006, 90.
475 “July 1862 San Francisco sent $1.4 million in gold for the Civil War. Raising Sacramento. There seems to be a lot
of conflicting information about raising the city. I have found definitive proof of raising "Old Town" but I have
definitely found conflicting info on raising the State Capitol. I have the 1972 Seismic Study of the Capitol and it
mentions the flood, but not that they raised the land, but that they just added feet to the foundation.” Note from Joel
Pomerantz
302
Near Fort Vancouver, the Columbia River began to fall on the 1
st
of July amid light but
sustained showers. The Columbia finally receded below its banks on July 13, 1862. It was warm
and clear that day.
476
In eastern Washington Territory, the Boise River stretched two miles wide from its
“southern bench” all the way to the northern foothills. From locations of trees and snags left on its
flood banks, some speculate the water surpassed 100,000-second feet. Runoff poured out from the
Cascades' backsides across the Boise Valley and across Yahandeka and other Shoshonean country.
The flooded Boise “obliterated” a vital route of the wagon trail into Oregon and destroyed what
was left of Fort Boise. The Boise's high water lasted into the Summer, as George Grimes and his
band of gold seekers found on their way from Jordan Creek in the Owyhee’s on their trek through
Boise Basin to get to Fort Boise on the Snake River. The flooded Boise was so deep and wide,
Grimes and company used three July weeks to build a boat to cross the river where the migrant
wagon trains usually traversed in a day.
I. N. Coston, who homesteaded on a ranch near the Barber's present site, arrived in Boise
Valley in 1862. Just in time to witness the great flood. On the 4
th
of July that year, all “land in the
river bottoms extending from bluff to bluff” and from the present site of Boise “westward to the
canyon near the present site of Caldwell” was underwater.
477
When the Union Army founded the
new Fort Boise in 1863, they chose a site away from the new river channel the Great Flood of 1862
had cut into the earth. When the townsite of Boise was established a year later, they did the same.
478
476 Fort Vancouver Meteorological Register 1861-1862.
477 “A mile west of Star and then north more than one-half mile from Highway 44” is a “ridge where a log was found
by the first settlers of the Boise Valley (who came in 1864); all believed that the only way this log could have gotten
there was to have floated in by high water from the Boise River.” While precipitation records for the town of Boise
date back only to 1864, indications from old-timers’ stories are that the flow in 1862 probably exceeded the high
water on any year since that time. “From a report by William E. Welsh, Watermaster, June 26, 1944:
478 Present day Boise Avenue is where Boise River flowed from 1862 to 1876. “William E. Welsh, investigating it a
century later, attempted without success to compute how many second feet flowed by during its peak discharge, but
from reports of locations of trees and snags left on its flood banks he concluded that it exceeded 100,000 second
303
In the Fall of 1862, the McConnell immigrant party traveled from the Boise Valley to the
Payette Valley. They descended into the Payette Valley along the ridge to the east of Freezeout
Hill, a name that perhaps carried more weight in the aftermath of the Big Winter.
479
Before they
headed across the desert, they camped for three weeks near the bluff on Dry Creek, north of today’s
town of Eagle. During that time, they burned what seemed a nearly endless supply of driftwood
that was left on the bluff from the high waters of the great flood on the Boise River.
480
In October of 1862, a contractor named Smith and several teams of workers were still
reconstructing Sacramento’s I Street levee. They were in the process of building an embankment
between Fourth and Sixth street and used earth they pulled from north of the slough and west of
Sixth street.
By December, the Sacramento’s contractors had rebuilt the levees around the city four feet
taller than the high-water mark of the past winter’s floods. Four miles of new levees stretched from
Y Street to Thirty-first Street. From there it stretched another four and a half miles near Brighton
and the railroad. Another levee stretched three miles south to Sutterville and another three miles
south from there almost nine miles to Munger’s Ranch. In total, the levee system's length measured
around twenty miles.
481
The Union bragged that “No such levees surround any city on this continent.” “No man
yet” doubted it “amply sufficient to defend the city against a higher flood than that of January
feet, and probably was much greater…never been matched since…From “Boise River’s 1862 Flood,” Idaho State
Historical Society, number 878, 1987
479 as indicated by the monument by the side of the highway.
480“Fred McConnell, now deceased, a civil engineer and graduate of the University of Idaho, who was born on
McConnell Island near the mouth of the river and who spent his life in engineering practice in Canyon County, was
a profound student of the Boise River and the various problems involved. He was firmly convinced that there was
extremely high water many times during the early days of settlements of the valley; and as further indication of the
high water in 1862, he stated to me that his father was with the first emigrant train to travel from the Boise Valley to
the Payette Valley.” 3
481 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 24, Number 3656, 9 December 1862 – Flood Anniversary, CDNC
304
1862.” The city of Sacramento collected money from its citizens, raising over two-hundred
thousand dollars, to fund the building of new levees hope to be so wide and tall as to be
“astonishing for this country.” That they were able to raise this money in six weeks shows that at
least some Sacramentans were not as financially broken as has been understood in the years
since.
482
Sacramento also raised money to straighten and clear the American River where it flowed
past the capital. The work was ongoing in December of 1862 at a running cost of 133,600 dollars.
California also “promptly paid” its National Tax and “the delinquent list for State and county
taxes” was less than “ever before.” Some predicted a slower recovery for California’s capitol. “A
long time will pass,” wrote one reporter, “before the city will recover from the injuries inflicted
upon it by the flood of 1861-’62.” California’s county surveyors reported evidence that the floods
of 1862 were “without a parallel in centuries past.”
483
Boosters though continued to mythologize the Big Winter. On the anniversary of the floods
in Sacramento, the Daily Union remarked on the stark contrast between the “first nine days of
December 1861 and the first nine days” of December of ’62. The year prior was “rain, mud, and
floods” and the “ground was so wet it could not be plowed.” A year later the season was dry and
“as pleasant as an Italian Summer,” though the ground was so hard it made plowing “impossible.”
Another example of how in this part of the continent, “extremes almost invariably follow each
other.”
484
The Union was also already misrepresenting the events of the previous winter. The Union
tells how the storms and floods “came upon the people as sudden as a tornado” when in fact, it had
482 As assumed by those “not conversant with the resources of Sacramento” and assumed “complete impoverished by
the floods.” From “Flood Anniversary,” Sacramento Daily Union, 9 December 1862.
483 Hittell, 404. Appendix, 1862, p 43.
484 “Flood Anniversary,” Sacramento Daily Union, 9 December 1862.
305
been raining for several days, the rivers had been rising for several days, but still, the water flowing
into the valley did not alarm the Sacramentans to the mounting danger. [It’s probably true that the
no amount of advanced notice could have prepared the Valley’s residents for the amount of
precipitation that fell in 1861-1862, but to frame the disaster as coming out of the blue is untrue as
there were signs, both in previous seasons and the winter of 1862 itself.]
The Union also deemed the loss of life “small” considering the conditions. This is largely
true as many more could have perished in the months-long disaster. But the Union claimed that
only two drowned during highwaters, but contemporary accounts indicate more were lost in and
around California’s capital. It is possible that the paper was referring to the two deaths by drowning
in the Sacramento City coroner’s reports for that year.
485
During the “days of her tribulation,” some citizens “abandoned the city,” while the “mass
of her citizens” “bore up bravely,” their “faith in the future” “fully justified.” The “sun of
prosperity” again appeared in Sacramento. The merchants claimed since 1852 they had never
experienced a “more prosperous Summer’s business.” Sacramento, at least in the way of business,
is “more than herself again.” For months, her streets lined with long columns of teams loading up
for trips to the state's interior. Sacramento’s levee was congested with goods stretching from the
steamboat landing to the railroad. Steamboats loaded with passengers and freight come into port
in from San Francisco, and the railroad was nearly at capacity. The southern and eastern parts of
the city continued to suffer from the ravages of the winter’s overlapping disasters. “It will require
time,” the papers wrote, “even with a prosperous trade to restore those sections to the inviting
condition” of just a year ago.
In western Oregon, optimism was amplified. The Weekly Oregonian boasted that in that
485 “Flood Anniversary,” Sacramento Daily Union, 9 December 1862.
306
“elastic country” things would soon stabilize and in “two months all will be forgotten” and
commerce would be “better than ever,” for we will have a wonderful mining year” with a “great
influx” of people from the “disturbed States” and Europe to the British Columbia mines. Even
though the disastrous conditions the storms left in their wake “made it near impossible” to reach
the diggings without significant risks to their lives, miners continued to go daily for the promise
of the goldfields of the Salmon River and the Boise Basin. The settler population centers of the
Pacific Slope were still open for business. Few seemed deterred by what the recent storms revealed
about the volatility of the Pacific West’s waterscapes.
486
While rumors swirled of Indian uprisings, Confederate insurrection, and impending war
with England, people were already doing the work of forgetting the Big Winter. Some Californians
responded with a sunshiny vision of recent events, the fight over the memory of the Big Winter
already at hand, even as the Civil War dominated the continent’s bandwidth. That “American
affair” was an international political and economic concern. But it was also a local one, as some
felt the need to “be very polite and guarded” because of California’s “peculiar position” of being
“propelled by North and South, East and West, by the slaveholder and the abolitionist.” The
damage across the city, state, and Pacific Slope contrasted with the Daily Union’s optimism. Those
“days of gloom, sadness, and hope deferred have gone down the stream of time, we trust, never to
return.”
487
For years after, folks found farm equipment and other wreckage lodged high up in the forks
and branches of trees, reminders of that season’s high waters. In some places in California, “old
lodgments of driftwood” dangled high up in trees, fifteen feet above any flood in hundreds of years
486 From the Weekly Oregonian on December 7, 1861. Following the destruction of the winter of 1861-1862, so many
immigrated that Bannock (later renamed Idaho city, and for about 8 years until the end of the biggest rush since
1849 ended in 1870) became the largest city in the Pacific Northwest over Portland and Olympia
487 “Flood Anniversary,” Sacramento Daily Union, 9 December 1862.
307
In Santa Barbara in 1864, surveyor Mr. Sprague measured “flood wood” wedged in trees sixteen
feet from the ground.” A newly arrived U.S. American immigrant remarked that the white
Californians “used to talk among themselves when they first came and wonder why the Mexicans
were such fools as to build their houses on the hills and pack their water, instead of building close
to the water” but the survivors of the Big Winter of 1862 remembered why.
488
488 “Floods in California, Rev. L. D. Stebbins, The War,” Christian Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago,
April 10, 1862; Hubert Howe Bancroft, Bancroft’s Works: History of Oregon Vol. 2, 1888, 483-484; Apr. 10, 1862.
“Rev. Uriah Health, Union Chapel Cincinnati, French and English Sympathies, -- Force of the Enemy.-- Lay
Representation.-- Dr. Floy, United States Senators, Floods in California, Rev. L. D. Stebbins, The War,” Christian
Advocate and Journal (1833-1865); Chicago, April 10, 1862. Jefferson Crane, “The Narrative of Jefferson Crane as
Told to E. M. Sheridan in 1921, Part 1,” Ventura Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 1, no. 2, 2-19; From the
Christian Advocate and Journal on April 10 1862. Quoted in Engstrom’s “Storm,” from Reagan, 1915, 521.
308
309
“Murdoch was like almost every other Californian: he had conceived the most zealous attachment for the spot he lived
in and could not endure to think that anything could be produced against its comfort and perfection.”
—Margaret Kerr Hosmer, You-Sing, 1868
1
Chapter 4: Disaster, literature, and memory of the Big Winter
The hazards produced by the parade of extremely wet storm systems of winter 1861-1862 were
unlike anything that European and U.S. Americans had ever seen. For Indigenous Peoples too, the
endless rains and expansive floods were exceptional, if familiar occurrences. For many
newcomers, they were reminiscent of Abrahamic legends of global floods and the divine judgment
and apocalyptic imagery of death and destruction. This apocalyptic imagery surely fed newspaper
readers' minds across the country for months as the storms rolled down the Pacific Slope like a
cavalcade of tidal waves.
The American West's environmental hazards usually elicit images of earth-rending quakes,
withering drought, and wayward wildfires. Europeans and Euro-Americans first encountered the
West, detailed, sometimes fantastically, the landscapes and the climates that confronted and
confounded them. Some of the best and most detailed images of the Indigenous Pacific West and
the consequent changes to those ecozones appear in the travel accounts, diaries, journals, and
correspondence of surveyors and settler-colonials like Crespí, Clark and Lewis, Fremont, Brewer,
and so on. Detailed depictions of the Pacific West’s landscapes and environmental hazards also
appear in popular literature in the nineteenth-century American West. The natural world's
challenges, the weather, and the climates of a “new” and strange West appear in nineteenth-century
writers' works and offer some of the most explicit descriptions during those decades.
2
1 Margaret Kerr Hosmer, You-sing: the Chinaman in California: a true story of the Sacramento flood, 1868, 31-32.
2 Andrew Wilton, American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820-1880, Princeton, 2002; Richard
W. Etulain, “The American Literary West and Its Interpreters: The Rise of a New Historiography,” Pacific
Historical Review 45, no. 3, 1976, 311–48; Robert Chianese, “Avoidance of the Sublime in Nineteenth-Century
American Landscape Art: An Environmental Reading of Depicted Land,” Amerikastudien / American Studies 43,
310
In the immediate years that followed, fictionalized accounts of the winter of 1862 appeared
in popular works by Margaret Hosmer, Bret Harte, and Mark Twain. And while the era of
writing—the use of local tales, local color, regional dialects, popularized the kind of writing that
became synonymous with the tall-tales of the frontier fantasy past. This in part may explain why
the floods and other effects of that winter have been forgotten. These fictionalized accounts contain
specific details that show that these writers based their narratives on first-hand experiences during
their times in Pacific West. They have clues to the events of the winter of 1861-62 that help us
understand better atmospheric rivers and the storms they can produce but they might also tell us
something about the floods and historical time.
The disaster stories Harte, Hosmer, and Twain have left offer hints of the social worlds of
Anglo-American society in California and Nevada and essential pieces of specific ecological
information about that world. Written in the era of tall tales, their fantastical accounts may have
been overlooked as exaggerated tales of local color, in part explaining how an event as
extraordinary as the Big Winter, an event memorialized by the popular content creators of their
day, an event "long to be remembered" has until recently been almost entirely lost to the past. Was
the winter of 1861-62 so extreme, so awe-inspiring, such an "act of God" that it became a tall tale
before eventually being forgotten? Embedded in their fictionalized accounts are scraps of evidence
of a storm season that was greater than even they could have invented. Although ostensibly
fictional narratives, these tales contain clues to the hydroscapes around Sacramento, San Francisco,
no. 3, 1998, 437–61. Salmose quotes Martin Guinard-Terrin “The Apocalyptic Sublime: Anthropocene
Representation and Environmental Agency…, 2018, 1419; Guinard-Terrin goes on: “this peculiar aesthetic regime
was formulated at a time when the overwhelming spectacle of ‘nature’ was seen as a separate and remote
phenomenon form its observer,” from Guinard-Terrin, Martin. “Which Sublime for the Anthropocene?” from Bruno
Latour’s Reset Modernity!, 2016.
311
and Carson City before flood control. They provide clues to the events of that historic winter and
clues to how certain peoples understood the disasters and how they fit into their larger cosmology.
In each of these tales, extreme weather changes how people navigate class, race, gender,
and geography. There are clashes over property in some tales. The storms and floods either obscure
or clarify these issues, and each contains commentary that links ecological disaster to human
displacement. While there are selfish characters in the narratives, many more characters embody
charity, resilience, and community. And each story recounted here discusses the storms and their
effects as “acts of God.” Humans react to disasters in different ways. Some adapt. Others try to
bend the weather to their plans, sometimes with deadly costs. In each of these stories, the disasters
mark a boundary where the world can never be seen the same in the aftermath. The storms produce
a world in the aftermath that can never be as it was before.
Bret Harte: “Notes of Flood and Field,” and “The High-Water Mark”
Imagine Bret Harte sopping wet. Imagine him toting his soaked carpetbag through the
flooded Valley of the Sacramento. Comparing him to a sickly tree, Andrew Carnegie called Harte
a “whispering pine of the Sierras transplanted to 5
th
Avenue.” Carnegie also said that "America
had in Brett Harte, its most distinctive national poet."
3
Twain was not quite so impressed, even if
they were once friendly or even friends. Twain called Bret Harte the “Immortal Bilk.” He called
Harte’s work “insincere.” He felt Harte’s dialects were inaccurate.
Harte may have been Gotham’s captive Californian, but he was originally from the Empire
State, born in Albany in 1836. He moved to Union, California, in Humboldt Bay in 1853. Like
young Sam Clemens and thousands of other westering hopefuls, Harte worked many jobs as a
3 Andrew Carnegie, Round the World, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1879.
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miner, schoolteacher, and a Wells Fargo messenger and strongbox guard. Harte became editor of
the Golden Era in Spring of 1860 and cultivated its readership with satirical imitations of famous
writers like Dickens, Fennimore Cooper, Hugo, and Conan Doyle. His outspokenness against local
militias and the business and social elites that supported them after they murdered two hundred
Wiyot elders, children, and women in 1860 earned him death threats, so he left town.
4
Harte would
have a prolific publishing and lecturing career, and at one time was more popular and more widely
read than Twain.
Harte’s 1870 short story "Notes of Flood and Field" presents California's Central Valley in
the weeks leading up to the devastating winter of 1861-62. In the tale, the narrator is a United
States surveyor journeying through the Sacramento Valley, a passage through what Harte describes
as “recurring stretches of brown and baked fields, the gaping fissures in the dusty trail, and the
herds of slowly moving cattle, seemed like features of some glittering stereoscopic picture that
never changed,” all beneath the “flinty blue heavens” and “the sincerest of natural phenomenon”
a “California Sky.” It was late October 1861, and the precipice of the wettest winters to hit the
west coast since the Anglo-American occupation of the region. Harte explains to his Atlantic
readership, this is not the autumn familiar to those on the east coast, but the “sharply defined
boundary” between the “wet and dry seasons.” Seasons that were “prefigured in the clear outlines
of the distant hills,” the “dry atmosphere,” and the “too rapid” “decay of vegetation” compared to
the “slow hectic which overtakes an eastern landscape.” Harte has keyed into some of the distinct
weather and climate patterns of the Slope and the differences of decay, though the aridity slows
deterioration, where wetter conditions accelerate it.
4 Ben Tarnoff, The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature,
2014.
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Harte’s Surveyor was seeking out the Rancho Espíritu Santo to “correct” the boundary
lines between townships and private grants. But it was getting dark, and the winds picked up as
the “shadows deepened on the plain.” He came to a “fringe of alder” that undoubtedly marked a
watercourse and with it a broad, squat house seemingly “half-buried in the earth,” or better still,
like it had “grown” from the soil “like some monstrous vegetable.” Inside was an old man with a
face etched like “ground sluicing”—hard lines with even harder ones beneath. The surveyor asks
about a Mr. Tryan and some unauthorized changes to the old survey. The old man explained that
the “boundary line of the old Spanish grant was a creek, described in the loose phraseology of the
deseño as beginning in the valda or skirt of the hill, its precise location long the subject of
litigation.” The elder Tryan asks one of his sons to take the Surveyor to the Altascar house on the
neighboring property. His son George agrees to go in the morning. At dinner, Mr. Tryan
complained “bitterly” about the “greasers” and their “system of ranch holding.” Harte channels
the racist and colonialist sentiments of many Anglo-American immigrants to California during this
period through the elder Tryan:
“Look at ‘em holdin’ the finest grazin’ land that ever lay outer doors?
Whar’s the papers for it? Was it grants? Mighty fine grants…most of ‘em
made arter the ‘Merrikans got possession. More fools the
‘Merrikans…Didn’t they oughter have suthin’ out of their native country?
Wot for? Did they ever improve? Got a lot of yaller-skinned diggers, not so
sensible as niggers, to look arter stock, and they a-sittin’ home and smokin’.
With their gold and silver candlesticks, and missions, and crucifixes, priests
and graven idols, and sich? Them sort things wuren’t allowed in
Mizzoori…God never intended gold in the rocks to be made into heathen
candlesticks and crucifixes. That’s why he sent ‘Merrikans here. Nater
never intended such a climate for lazy lopers…”
To Tryan, God and nature will set the universe right and put the gold country and finest grazing
land that ever lay outdoors into the hands of the Americans who will properly utilize the earth.
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The Surveyor and George Tryan started to the Altascars in the morning. On the way, he
noticed a raised elevation of land off in the distance. As they drew closer, he saw that it was an
Indian mound, which Harte describes as an “island in the sea.” From its elevation, the Surveyor
collected a grander view of the valley's expansive grasslands, the "far-off mountains, like
silhouettes, against the steel-blue sky, the crisp, dry air, and the expanding track” before them. The
mound is a stark reminder of the Indigenous civilizations that had long occupied the valley and
stood as a temporal boundary in California's layered history. They continued along with the trail
of alder that outlined the creek that cut through this side of the valley. It was "dry and baked with
summer's heat," but Harte notes evidence in the landscape that the creek overflowed its banks in
the winter. Cattle “scattered over the plain, grazing quietly,” “banded together in vast restless
herds.”
5
As they rode closer, he saw them as "wild, devilish-looking beasts," "lean and hungry
Cassius-like bovines, economically got up to meet the exigencies of a six-months rainless climate,
and accustomed to wrestle with the distracting wind and the blinding dust.” They came eventually
to the Altascar house on the “lower bench of the foothills.” The adobe and its enclosing
whitewashed wall “baked with the solar beams” of countless summers. They left their horses with
some “peons in the courtyard” and entered the home's welcome coolness. There, Harte’s Surveyor
meets Señor Altascar, an “old man with a black silk handkerchief tied about his head," whom he
must, with embarrassment and maybe even shame, explain that he had come to dispossess Altascar
of most of the lands he had just ridden over.
Altascar escorts them back to the Indian mound where the bearing point of the new
boundary would be. The senior Tryan was already there waiting for them. The Surveyor sheepishly
5 In Harte’s tale, the surveyor asks George how many head, to which George replies 3,000 worth about 30,000 dollars,
which would make the Tryan’s well off. George also notes that the old man “must keep movin’, for he built the
“Shanty” so if “titles should fall through” they could “get up and move stakes farther down.” Harte, 354.
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explained that deputies would soon run the lines from the point on the mound. Altascar, in turn,
grabbed up a fist full of grass and began speaking: “I Fernando Jesus Maria Altascar, put you in
possession of my land in the fashion of my country,” before tossing those tufts of dried grass to
the four directions. He continued: “I don’t know your courts, your judges, or your corregidores.
Take the llano!—and take this with it. May the drought seize your cattle till their tongues hang
down” like “those of your lying lawyers! May it be the cures and torment of your old age, as you
and yours have made it of mine!” The two patriarchs exchanged course words, and Altascar rode
off. The Surveyor and the two Tryans part ways. The region was amid an extended dry spell during
this time, and the years 1863-65 were some of the harshest on record, and the conditions killed off
most of the remaining livestock in the state. Moreover, they are some of the worst in the region's
history; also, these conditions quickened the displacement of Californios and the expansion of
Anglo settler latifundia best embodied by the notorious Miller and Lux.
Months later, Harte’s Surveyor returned to the Sacramento valley when the “great flood of
1861-62 was at its height.” He assumed the weather had “obliterated the boundary monuments”
the left the previous fall. Harte describes it as the “great flood of 1861-62,” marking it a noteworthy
historical event in its time and one familiar to his readers. Harte describes the Surveyor’s journey
from San Francisco to the capital from behind the “bright cabin windows” of the steamer Golden
City amid the monotonous rattles of the “pattering of rain.” The men on board huddled around the
cabin stove, "some on errands of relief to friends and relatives wore anxious faces and conversed
soberly on the one absorbing topic. Others…attracted by curiosity, listened eagerly to newer
details.” Still, Harte’s Surveyor was also “half-conscious of something more than curiosity as an
impelling motive.”
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The sounds of still “dripping of rain, the low gurgle of water, and a leaden sky" greeted
them in the morning as they "lay beside the half-submerged levee of Sacramento. The "novelty of
boats to convey us to the hotels" was an irresistible and so the Surveyor cum disaster tourist joined
up with a "dripping rubber-cased mariner called Joe" and after draping himself in a "shining cloak
of the like material" sat in the stern-sheets of Joe's boat. For a moment, the surveyor lamented
leaving the steamer, the "only visible connecting link between” him and the “dry and habitable
earth," as Joe steered the small craft through a rapid current and over the levee and into the city.
There they "glided up the long level" of K Street, the once "cheerful busy thoroughfare, now
distressing in its silent desolation." The "turbid water…seemed to meet the horizon edge” and
“flowed at right angles in sluggish rivers through the streets. Nature had revenged herself on the
local taste by disarraying the regular rectangles by huddling houses on street corners, where they
presented steep gables to the current, or by capsizing them in compact ruin [my emphasis].” The
floodwaters spilled over the fences and into “well-kept gardens,” and through the “first stories of
hotels” and homes “trailing its slime on the velvet carpets” and “roughly boarded floors” alike.
And everywhere “crafts of all kinds were gliding in and out of low-arched doorways.” The silence
was as “suggestive as the visible desolation” in the “voiceless street that no longer echoed” with
“carriage wheel or footfall,” only the “low ripple of water,” or the “occasional splash of oars,” or
the “warning cry of boatmen.” Harte’s descriptions of a devastated California capital run parallel
to other first-hand accounts of Sacramento's floods.
Joe, the "Yankee Giuseppe," detailed the horrors of the week past and the “noble deeds of
self-sacrifice and devotion,” intermittently “pointing out a balcony from which some California
Bianca or Laura had been snatched, half-clothed and famished." Joe declines the Surveyor's fare
for the tour, saying that the Surveyor was from San Francisco, the first to “respond to the suffering
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cry of Sacramento.” Even though Joe is poor, he refuses the Surveyor’s money and tells him that
if he must spend it, to give it to the Howard Society for the “women and children without food and
clothing at the Agricultural Hall.” When they arrive, the Hall is a “dismal, bleak place, ghastly
with the memories of last year’s opulence.” Distraught, Joe tells the Surveyor of the Relief Boat,
leaving soon to devastate the interior districts. Harte's Surveyor took Joe's words to heart and
"resolved to turn [his] curiosity to the account of others.” He volunteered to “go forth to succor
and help the afflicted.” Harte’s story provides first-hand accounting of a makeshift rescue team's
workings as they sojourn through the dangers of the inundated valley during the night.
From the pilothouse of Relief Boat No. 3, Harte’s Surveyor looked down at the once
peaceful watercourse, its former banks now “defined by tossing tufts of willow washed by the long
swells” that broke over a “vast inland sea.” The deluge reached for miles over tule lands once
“dotted by flourishing ranchos” and fertile fields that had been “cleanly erased,” and the
“cultivated profile of the old landscape had faded.” That agricultural landscape was not old
compared to the wetlands and riparian plains of the past hundred thousand years. “Dotted lines in
symmetrical perspective” marked orchards “buried and chilled in the turbid flood.” Scattered
across the valley, the “roofs of a few farmhouses” stood above the waterline, and smoke “curled
from the chimneys of half-submerged tenements” evidence of “an undaunted life within.” Mobs
of “cattle and sheep” congregated atop the Indian mounds, awaiting the same fate of their
“companions, whose carcasses drifted by" or "swung in eddies with the wrecks of barns and
outhouses." Abandoned wagons sat stranded "everywhere the tide could carry them.” And as the
Surveyor looked out from behind the fogged-up windows of the steamer’s cabin, he saw “nothing
but water.” Water “pattering on the deck from the lowering clouds, dashing against the window,
dripping from the willows, hissing by the wheels, everywhere washing, coiling, sapping, hurrying
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in rapids, or swelling at last into deeper and vaster lakes, awful in their suggestive quiet and
concealment.”
As the night deepened, the relief boat crossed paths with a passenger steamer returning to
San Francisco. They took on the refugees from Relief Boat 3, along with a “voluntary contribution
taken among the generous travelers for the use of the afflicted.” They shared word that the channel
of the Sacramento was more than fifty miles beyond the bar. With a “Yankee cheer” the rescue
team continued, “steaming over the obliterated banks” and dodging the wrecks of houses floating
by as they charged lower into the interior of the deluged valley. As they moved into shallower
waters, they divided into parties and separate skiffs and in the darkness spread out across the
“submerged prairie” searching for survivors. By three in the morning, the team the Surveyor had
joined were exhausted and laid on their oars in an "eddy formed by a clump of cottonwood" with
the "light of the steamer" like a lodestar off in the void. Their respite broke as a "twinkling of
lights" briefly flashed and then faded before appearing again, and all they could make out was the
"shifting position of some black object” wandering towards their small boat. They thought it first
a drifting steamboat but quickly recognized that "looming in the starlight like a huge fragment of
the darkness” was a house, and the trembling light was coming from a single candle still flickering
somewhere inside. They pulled the rowboat up alongside the floating abode and dove through a
nearby window, and at the end of the long and slowly flooding room sat Joseph Tryan, “wrapped
in a blanket, holding a candle” in one hand and a bible in the other.
The Surveyor recognized the elder Tryan, reminding him that he had recently re-mapped
his ranch, the Espíritu Santo. The Surveyor asked about the whereabouts and wellbeing of the
man’s wife and children. Tryan tells the rescue party to hush and to listen. “It’s them wot he sent!”
Tryan explained, “old Atlascar sent. They’ve been here all night. I heard ‘em first in the creek
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when they came to tell the old man to move farther off. They came nearer and nearer. They
whispered under the door, and I saw their eyes on the step—their cruel hard eyes. Why won't they
quit?" The rescue party searched the rooms looking for other survivors while Tryan groaned, “Why
don’t they quit then? They have the stock…all gone—gone—gone for the hides and hoofs.” They
carry Tryan to the boat and row back to the steamer where they all rest, and Surveyor falls asleep
under a blanket next to the boiler.
In the morning, Harte’s Surveyor learns that another of the search parties picked up one of
Tryan’s sons named Wise. He was on the deck changing into dry clothes and boots. He explained
that the family had fled, but the elder Tryan had refused to leave. The Surveyor learns that George
had been “running about the prairie, packin’ off wimmin and children” instead of tending his stock,
and so he “lost every hoof and hide.” Wise "reckons" he will "turn butcher when things" dry out
and save "hides, horns, and taller…the land ain’t worth much now, and won’t be…for some time.”
The Surveyor learns from Wise that George was likely with the Altascar’s. When Harte’s Surveyor
continued to press about the Tryan family's whereabouts, Wise informed him that Tom has "packed
the old woman and babies" and taken them to "Miles's last week," implying that these folks had
some foreknowledge and time to evacuate. In other words, like the Indians in Twain’s story, some
folks were NOT caught entirely unaware. Wise “reckons” that the Altascar "casa" was "built too
high" to be threatened by the floodwaters and that they had not lost much stock because George
had helped to drive their livestock onto the foothills. Wise continued: "those Greasers ain’t the
darned fools people think ‘em…I’ll bet thar ain’t one swamped out in all ‘er Californy.” Grudging
admiration aside, Wise was wrong.
The steamer continued picking up refugees as it chugged along. Many of them spoke of
George’s “self-sacrificing devotion” and shared “praises of the many he had helped and rescued."
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The search party went on. The Surveyor, driven to find George, headed out with a rowboat towards
the foothills' base and the Altascar adobe in the winds and pouring rains. When they get to where
the creek of the Espíritu Santo was supposed to be, the team noticed the “wrecks of barns” and
dozens of “half-submerged willows” madly ornamented with farming implements.
They rowed in silence. Before long, they emerged into the “broad silent sea” of the plains
of Espíritu Santo. The “sharp outlines of the distant hills” the Surveyor remember from his October
visit were now shrouded in clouds. The water fell shallower as they pulled further west, so much
that the Surveyor could touch the tops of “chimisal” just below the surface of the water. There they
came upon a familiar mound of black earth and steered the skiff up along its side. On its summit
remained the Surveyor’s marker with its letters “L.E.S.I.” [Harte’s play on PLSS?], and partway
down the slope was the severed end of George’s riata, along with the deep dimples of horse hoofs.
They continued, “resting and rowing by turns” and polling the water’s depth occasionally
as they went along. The winds thrashed ever more violently as darkness fell. By eight that evening,
they grounded the boat in a line of willows and slogged through a “few hundred yards” of mud
before they stumbled upon a dry road. Beyond stood the whitewashed walls of the Altascar adobe,
standing like a “snow-bank” in the night. Candlelight stirred the shadows in the courtyard. Señior
Altascar met them there and seeing the exhausted and soaked team and the frayed riata still in the
Surveyor's grip. He invites them in with a "you are tired, you have hunger, you have
cold…Necessary it is you should have peace." Once inside, he served them cognac and sat them
by the fireplace. He brought out hot coffee and dishes of “chupa”—possibly a clue to Altascar’s
past as chupe is a Peruvian or Chilean soup. He advised the Surveyor to “eat when you can…food
and appetite are not always” which he said with “that Sancho-like simplicity with which most of
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his countrymen utter a proverb, as though it were an experience rather than a legend.”
6
Harte’s
demeaning description about the “Sancho-like” simplicity of Altascar notwithstanding, Harte
seems to be nodding to the old Californio’s knowledge earned through lived experience. Harte’s
Surveyor has no appetite though, preoccupied instead with the whereabouts of George Tryan.
Altascar held the remains of George’s riata, a lasso he had made for the Tryan son. He
takes the Surveyor down a corridor to a candlelit room. On the bed lay George. A figure sat silently
nearby, a "heavy shawl drawn over her graceful outline, and her long black hair hiding the hands
that buried her downcast face," and so the Surveyor left the "loving and loved together." Back by
the fire, Altascar explained how that morning he had found George’s horse swimming on the llano.
Further on, he found George’s body. The “many who collected in the great chamber that
evening—women and children, most of them succored through the devoted energies” of George
“who lay cold and lifeless.” They buried him in the Indian mound, a “single spot of strange
perennial greenness, which the poor aborigines had raised above the dusty plain.” A sandstone
wedge marked “G.T.” monuments the corner of the new property line of the Espíritu Santo rancho.
7
Harte’s story of a land dispute between rival Californio and U.S. American ranchers during
the Big Winter of 1862 ends with George Tryan’s burial. G.T.’s monument marks his grave as it
marks the newly enforced boundaries of the U.S. legal system. A dispute that ends with the
Californio losing most of his property to the U.S. American and the new survey, though it is the
Californio’s house on the high ground that survives the great floods, while the Americanos house
washes away. Still, all suffer in disaster, even those with in-depth knowledge, even if not equally,
as do both families in Harte’s story. The Indian mound though endures it all. It is a longstanding
6 Harte: “He said this with that Sancho-like simplicity with which most of his countrymen utter a proverb, as though it
were an experience rather than a legend.”
7 Harte, 345-370.
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marker that represented an older if overthrown civilization. In Harte’s story, it works to remind of
the temporal boundaries between Native control of the land and settler-colonial control of the land.
This story is very much about disaster and displacement. About the Anglo conquest of California
and the greater West. It even hints at the floods of 1861-62 as another turning point in California’s
demographic history. Even while the Altascars are the learned ones, living on the high ground near
the foothills, they ultimately cede land. And even though it is the Tryan’s that benefit from the
redrawing of borders, he loses his house and presumably most of his livestock. The tragedy of
George Tyran drowning is magnified by Altascar’s daughter's grief, a lost opportunity to Harte,
for a genial marriage between the two settler-colonial societies in the Pacific West.
Another of Harte’s writings recounts an epic flood in another account of survival called
“High-Water Mark.” In this story, a young woman named Mary struggles for the lives of herself
and her sick infant while trying to escape a hazardous flood along California’s north coast. She
lived along a “good-sized river” “midway of the great slough” of Dedlow Marsh, an “extended
dreariness” of “spongy, low lying surface, sluggish, inky pools, and tortuous sloughs, twisting their
slimy way, eel-like towards the open bay.” Her house was three miles from Utopia, the nearest
settlement. It was early Spring, and her logger husband was away transporting rafts of wood
downriver to the lower end of the Humboldt Bay. She noticed the tide was up during the day, and
she could hear the surf thundering, though the coast was still miles away. She also felt a south-
westerly gale, a hint of the coming storm. That evening pounding winds felled trees along the
river's edge and shook the small, frame cabin. A scratch awakens her at her door—the family dog,
Pete. She heard something grinding lazily against the clapboards and then a slight gurgling noise
and then the “click-click and cluck-cluck” of water seeping in under the back entrance. Mary bolted
for the door and threw it open wide and in every direction, and as far as her sight could reach, she
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“saw nothing but water.” She scooped up some, cupped it to her mouth, and tasted its sweetness.
She knew it was the river and knew it was pulling her towards the bay.
8
Mary wrapped her baby in a heavy blanket and climbed onto the side of an uprooted
redwood wedged against the house along with the dog. With one arm twined around its roots and
the other around her “moaning” babe, she watched as the porch cracked and the entire front of the
house fell forward into the water. The tree “drifted away with its living cargo into the black night.”
Sometimes the “long roots of her ark struck an obstacle the whole trunk made a half revolution
and twice dipped her in the black water." Pete, the dog, fell off during one of these. He "swam for
some time beside her,” and even though she tried to “get the poor beast upon the tree,” he "acted
silly’ and wild…and she lost sight of him forever.” After a while, she could not tell if she was
drifting, though she could see the "dunes on the peninsula" dimly ahead. Mary thought she heard
"voices and shouts” and the “bellowing of cattle and bleating of sheep” from where the banks
should have been. But she could certainly hear the boom of the crashing waves behind her, and
the water tasted of salt. Then a bright light “lifted itself out of the gloom,” marking the lighthouse
at the edge of the Bay. Luckily, the tree grounded itself in Dedlow Marsh before it could drift off
to sea. She found her child was cold and wore a "blue look under the little lashes" and did not open
its eyes. She screamed before fainting.
She awakened to the bright sunlight and an elder Indian woman signing a “hushaby” and
“rocking herself from side to side before a fire built on the marsh.” A young Indian woman brought
her the “mowitch" alive and bundled in a willow cradle, and they all laughed. "'Plenty get well,
skeena mowitch…Wagee man come plenty soon.’” Mary learned that the two Indian mothers had
8 Harte’s narrator explains that “she remembered hearing her husband once say that there was no danger in the tide,
for that fell regularly, and people could calculate on it, and that he would rather live near the bay than the river,
whose banks might overflow at any time.” Harte, 326.
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been collecting berries and had seen her skirt “fluttering on the tree from afar,” came down to the
water line and discovered the “wagee” lady and her child, and so Mary gave the gown to the
matriarch as thanks. Her husband had learned of her fate from some Indians in Utopia and headed
out to find her. He retrieved the redwood log and used it as the foundation for their new house and
dubbed it "Mary's Ark." He made sure to build this one above the high-water mark.
Harte claimed that this story was based on the account of “Mary,” a woman who had
survived the great flood by clinging to the trunk of a floating redwood tree. The story is full of
detailed information of “Dedlow marsh,” an estuary in Humboldt Bay, descriptions of the
wetlands, plants, and animals, especially the waterfowl, which Harte describes in loud detail. The
story is notable for Harte’s depictions of Mary’s indigenous rescuers in a time when Californians
murdered entire Indian communities under the sanction of the state’s government and prominent
figures.
9
Harte’s first national hit, “The Luck of the Roaring Camp,” painted the social world of
mining era California. Fantastical sure but grounded in part in his own lived experiences and
echoing some realities of that time and place. Harte’s work gives some vision of the Pacific West
during the heat of the U.S. takeover of the Slope. Harte’s characterization and descriptions of
Indigenous peoples compared to that of Twain’s dehumanization is noteworthy. Harte depiction
of the pair of Indian mothers who rescue Mary and her infant. “The Luck” also climaxes in a great
flood, though the story purports to have occurred during the floods of 1851.
10
Harte though never
experienced that season as he didn’t come to the Pacific Wet until 1853. While he likely
9 “the malevolent capacity of Dedlow Marsh…you must tramp over it at low water, or paddle over it at high tide, or
get lost upon it once or twice in the fog...to understand properly…or to appreciate…the blessings of living beyond
high-water mark.”
10 “In the confusion of rushing water, crashing trees, and crackling timber and the darkness which seemed to flow
with the water and blot out the fair valley…”
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experienced wet years, and indeed encountered folks with recollections of that season, the only
“great flood” he could have experienced in such a way to describe it in the Luck would have been
the season of 1861-62. I propose that Harte wrote Luck with the experiences of 1861-82 but placed
it closer to 1849 and the drama and romance that the Gold Rush sparked in the East's readership.
His description of the flooding of California's capital is spot on. Harte also provides what
reads like a first-hand account of rescue efforts amid the chaos and ruin of the flooding in the
Sacramento Valley. I believe Harte was there, drawn by his awe of the apocalyptic scenes around
him. Disastrous winter events occur in several of Harte's stories and often contain the heroic deeds
of outcasts in the face of a natural disaster. Moreover, like his other disaster related tales, Harte
turns the floods into moral lessons about natural disasters, colonization, and racial others.
Margaret Kerr Hosmer: You-Sing and the true story of the Sacramento Flood
A Philadelphian at her birth in 1830, Margaret Kerr Hosmer grew into a journalist, novelist,
and writer of short stories and “Sunday school tales.” As Grace Thorton, she wrote serials like "A
Milliner's Girl" and "The Beauty of the Showroom" for Saturday Night [tell at least where this pub
is out of]. In her “girlhood,” Margaret came to California with her father Thomas Kerr in 1852 or
3. There she married Granville Hosmer a year later. Granville was the California, Nevada, and
Philadelphia mints' chief coiner, requiring their bi-coastal lifestyle. Hosmer lived for a time in San
Francisco, where she taught public school and eventually became principal. She also lived in
Philadelphia and covered Washington for the Alta California and Harte’s Golden Era which she
also co-edited. There she published her first two novels, The Morrisons in 1863 and Blanch Gilroy
in 1864. She published her third novel, Ten Years of a Lifetime in 1866 from her home in the Bay.
Hosmer also published a series specifically for young girls called Little Rosie, and many of her
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other works appeared in Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine. She wrote at least three novels
and at least twenty-five “volumes for juvenile readers” over her lifetime.
11
One of Hosmer’s volumes, You-Sing the Chinaman in California is subtitled A true story
of the Sacramento Flood. Published in 1868 by Presbyterian pub, the work gives one of the earliest
literary accountings of the devastation of the winter of 1862. The preface explains that fourteen
years spent in California “awakened” Margaret Hosmer’s “warm sympathy” for Chinese residents
of the West, and “her desires should think and feel and work for them.” Hosmer [???} in the
Chinese “pouring into the State so rapidly.” It also shares that motivation for the publication and
perhaps some of Hosmer’s drive for writing: the “aim of this story” which is “entirely true” is to
“interest the people of the United States” in the struggles of the Chinese immigrants, and to convert
to Christianity these “intelligent, apt, industrious, but heathen people.” The attempted conversion
of You-Sing is a prominent theme throughout the book. Hosmer tells the reader the “flood in
Sacramento, which forms the chief feature of this tale, is an event well remembered by
Californians.” At least it was for a time.
12
Hosmer’s tale follows “Little Mary Murdock,” a young girl and her settler family in 1862
Sacramento. Mary's father followed the gold fever to the "verge of the Western Continent" a
decade previous. Like the majority that made the trip in the hope of speedily returning to live in
11 James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, D. Appleton, 1887, Vol 3,
268; Appletons’ Annual Cyclopædia and Register of Important Events of the Year … D. Appleton & Company,
1898, Vol 37, 597; J. Randolph Cox, The Dime Novel Companion: A Source Book, Greenwood Publishing Group,
2000, 138; The Anglo-American Encyclopedia and Dictionary: Encyclopedia Department (A-Z), Avil Printing
Company, 1904, 1358; Oscar Fay Adams, A Dictionary of American Authors, 4th ed., rev. and enl., Boston, 1901,
196. Her works include (as cited in Appletons): The Morrisons: A story of Domestic Life (1864), The Black Court,
Catey’s Three Dresses, Courts and Corners, Dismal Castle Brightened, The Story of a week, The Subtle Spell, John
Hartman, Ten Years of a lifetime (all in 1866), Lenny the Orphan, Juliet the Heiress (1869), Child Captives, Rich
and Poor, Three Times Lost, Little Rosie Series (1870), Blanche Gilroy, Lilly’s Hard Words (a871), The Sin of the
Father (1872), A Rough Boy’s Story (1873), Chumbo’s Hut (1880). Also, published Under the holly: a book for girls
and Pair of Hands under a pseudonym.
12 Margaret Kerr Hosmer, You-Sing…, 3.
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luxury, he found adversity instead. The work was arduous. And unlike most who came, Mr.
Murdoch had some success. After five years and the help of a partner who invested in mining
machinery, Murdoch had saved enough to build a cottage in Sacramento and move his wife, their
three children Mary, eight-year-old Frank, toddler Nelly, and teenage Betty. Betty was “a partially-
grown colored girl” who had lived with the Murdoch’s in New England since she was a child.
13
Next door to them, the Brown family employed a "good and useful” servant named You-Sing.
Hosmer's character Betty "had a perfect horror of the Chinese, of whom there are great numbers
in Sacramento, and she tried to make the [Hosmer] children share her repugnance.” She could not
"be persuaded to speak civilly of him or to him," and she taught Frank to throw dirt at You-Sing,
and to call him “rat-eater” and “old pig-tail.” This “warfare,” Betty was “cunning enough to carry
on” out of sight of Mrs. Murdoch. Mary too “shared Betty’s antipathy” for the “Celestials.” And
in return, the "poor Chinaman felt a deep prejudice against” the whole Murdoch household.
Hosmer tells the reader to blame Betty for fueling little Mary's racial prejudice.
14
Hosmer’s
characterization of Betty as “the colored girl” is problematic, but still better nomenclature than
was common, even in published works, at the time. Still, Hosmer depicts her as irrational,
unintelligent, less mature than her years, and irreparably prejudiced towards Chinese Americans.
Betty constantly harangued You-Sing by throwing “water in his face” when he walked by the “side
gate of the garden,” or she tripped him by “putting old preserve cans in his path when his arms
were full of wood” and made him “bruise his knees.” You-Sing would “take revenge on the first
member” of the Murdoch household that he saw which was often young Mary on her journey to
13 Mary's father ventured to the gold fields of California in search of a quick fortune; bought a claim "from some
disgusted miners" …fortunate enough to realize a comfortable income…enabled him to go to Sacramento and send
for his family…retained interest in his claim…built a little cottage….and went to San Francisco to buy furniture for
it" and wait for "the arrival of his family…after five years of separation…," Hosmer, 11.
14 Margaret Kerr Hosmer, You-Sing…, 11
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or from school. Sometimes he would rush out and “shriek in her ear” or “brandish a long stick over
her head” as if to strike her, though he never did. Mary ran from the sight of him and grew to hate
his “whole race,” whom she thought were all as “wicked and malicious” as he.
On one wet January morning, Mary left for school as usual, waving goodbye to her mother
and little sister as she departed. On her way, she met up with her "play-fellow" Sally Richardson
dressed in knee-high rubber boots. They had to hurry because the roads were roughed up from the
recent rains. The crossings were muddy, and when Mary’s bootless feet eventually got stuck in the
“soft, glutinous clay,” she began to cry. Presently, You-Sing appeared on the road, driving Mrs.
Brown’s cow out to pasture. His sudden arrival startled Mary, and she tumbled forward into the
muck, soiling her stockings in the “black slush.” You-Sing, witnessing the comedy of errors
“laughed heartily” at the swamped schoolgirls. Hosmer notes that after years of being “teased and
insulted by the American boys and girls” he relished seeing anything “unpleasant happen to them.”
Hosmer’s You-Sing, speaking in stereotypical broken English, that “Me likee see Mellikan
girl cry. She welly bad, and me no likee.” Mary threatens to have Mrs. Brown fire him, to which
he replies, walking away, “Me welly good—me do too muchee work for Mrs. Brown. She likee
me. Me likee her. You all welly bad people ‘cept you papa. He welly good; but you gotee bad
brother, and gotee welly bad black sister.” The girls sneer at You-Sing for his “stupidity” in
thinking Betty a “sister” and the general "wickedness" of his people, whom Mary believes are the
“worst in the world.” As they continue their course, Little Mary questions her father’s lesson that
the Chinese are “just what we make them.”
The schoolhouse “stood in a pleasant lot” on the outskirts of Sacramento and to the children
it “appeared quite beautiful” “having been newly washed with the rain and was surrounded by a
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verdant field” that appeared as “green as if it were springtime, although it was late in January.”
15
[A common experience for newcomers to Californians.] Their teacher, Mrs. Harris, was happy
they made it in as many students were unable to because of the weather, especially those from the
“lower part of town.” Hosmer tells the reader that that “the year of 1862” was “very much wetter”
than they had “seen for many years in California” and would “long be remembered on that
account."
16
It was for at least a time. Mrs. Harris explained that being “shut up within doors day
after day” was “dreary,” even though the “earth was being refreshed and prepared to yield
abundantly of its grains and fruits for their comfort and pleasure.” For California, Mrs. Harris
explained, “was peculiarly the country of the poor” as “there were no extremes of heat or cold” to
impede their labor or challenge their inexpensive and “loosely-built houses.”
17
The group
discussed the merits of California’s winters with their “fresh green grass” [reminder of how early
invasive plant species had already spread throughout most of California's share of the Slope] and
the "mild and pleasant breezes" that invigorate their lungs and spirits" compared to “frost and
snow-bound” winters “at home” in New England. Hosmer’s Mrs. Harris goes on: “nobody looked
down on his neighbor” because of his occupation. Labor was “honorable” in California, and
“always sure to be successful if directed by prudence and wisdom, and there was a fair chance for
success open to all…every boy has not got a sled or skates [to enjoy the “great pleasures” of a New
England winter] …remember it was of the poor I spoke when I said this country had a beneficent
climate.” One student affirmed this, continuing that there are “no wretched, shivering, half-naked
15 Hosmer, 8.
16 Margaret Kerr Hosmer, You-Sing…, 18
17 Hosmer’s Mrs. Harris goes on: “nobody looked down on his neighbor on account of his occupation. Labor was
honorable, and always sure to be successful if directed by prudence and wisdom, and there was a fair chance for
success open to all…every boy has not got a sled or skates [to enjoy the “great pleasures” of a New England winter]
…remember it was of the poor I spoke when I said this country had a beneficent climate.”
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children” in California, for “everybody seems to have enough for comfort,” with just a hint of
dramatic irony.
Just then, Sally Richardson stood up. Still, only half listening, she pointed out the window
where water was “streaming in from the walk outside the palings,” and the schoolyard was “nearly
all afloat.” Mrs. Harris visibly troubled herself, told the children not to be frightened, that the recent
rains had swelled the river, and that it was best that they all head towards their homes. As she
spoke, water began to seep through the seams in the schoolhouse floor and under the door, where
it ran in “diverging rills” across the floor. When Mrs. Harris opened the door, the floodwaters
dashed in. The teacher shepherded her pupils through the two feet of rising water and out towards
the gate, the children “floundered…slipping and screaming in great disorder…wetted to the skin,
and in wild confusion.” Mary and Sallie split from the leading group on their way home, while
Mrs. Harris escorted the rest.
The girls stumbled along, wading through the “narrow and invisible sidewalk.” People
were scrambling all about them. Opened doors revealed the “inmates of houses dragging up carpets
and piling up furniture" and "tearing up planking" and digging outlets to drain the water. Amid the
commotion, You-Sing appeared, returning with the Brown’s cow. While the children were startled,
You-Sing could care less about their ongoing feud and quickly told Mary that her mother was
injured and that Mr. Murdoch had run to get a doctor. "Me welly sorry" he continued, "me help
you over welly bad street." Bur Mary did not trust the "worst Chinaman in the world,” and so she
grabbed Sallies’ arm and the two tried to run off in the rain and rising floodwaters. Mary slogged
her way home to the “little cottage” where she met her father at the door. He told Mary that her
mother slipped and fell while running up the stairs with Nelly and had “broken bones.” The second
floor was a loft, a “half story” above, where Betty stayed and where the Murdoch's stored the
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"rubbish of the household." [The Murdochs kept their "servant," and young black girl, in the attic
with the trash.] Mr. Murdoch assured Mary that the floodwaters were receding, that men were
fixing the levee, and that her injured mother was going to be all right. Her father was "like almost
every other Californian: he had conceived the most zealous attachment for the spot he lived in and
could not endure to think that anything could be produced against its comfort and perfection.”
18
Mary lies to her fevered mother that You-Sing attacked her, and "nearly killed Sallie Richards."
Her brother Frank followed that he would "catch him by his long pig-tail" and "make him
squeak."
19
Mrs. Murdoch again disapproves of her children’s words.
Figure 44: Even with their history of racial hostilities, You-Sing tries to help the Murdoch children during the onset of the
Sacramento floods. "You-Sing offering to help Mary" from Hosmer, You-Sing.
The people of Sacramento “had not been idle.” They dug “drains and trenches” to
encourage the outflow of water. They mend the levee [interesting detail, as it was the levees that
trapped the water in and needed to be cut open to allow water to drain from the city.] They bailed
out their houses, and the "soaking carpets were elevated on poles and ropes to dry." The "mud was
18 Hosmer, 31-32.
19 Hosmer, 34.
332
something appalling," but the Murdoch part of town seemed to be drying out and Sacramentans
talked of the flood was as a "danger past." Some were already installing fresh carpets after a “bright
sunshiny day or two,” an exciting note of brief reprieve; a day or two of sun between floods aligns
more with our current experiences of atmospheric river storms on the Slope, and not the thirty to
forty unbroken days of rain that so many describe. The heavy rains returned, and the American
River swelled again, but Mr. Murdoch “laughed at the doubters” of the levee, calling it an "absurd"
opportunity for San Franciscans to "laugh at them." It was, Murdoch reminds, "that city that first
started the idea of the danger of the flood, and called [Sacramento] a flat, low-lying plain, open to
inundation at any time." The winter of 1861-62 fed the rivalry between Sacramento and San
Francisco. Both had jockeyed to be the state's capital, and the foundation of the new capitol
building had just been set when the first floods came. Sacramentans feared that the region's history
of flooding, as well as the constant wetness of that season, would undermine this decision. They
“grew wrathful at the professed sympathy, mingled with forebodings,” and “vowed and protested”
that Sacramento “stood in no danger of being overflowed.” Hosmer repeatedly paints Murdoch as
being dangerously naïve and optimistic, which we can characterize many peoples’ responses to
these storms, including Twain. Also, the long American tradition of conspiratorial thinking. With
his wife comfortable and his children safe, Mr. Murdoch headed out to check on his mining claims'
conditions. But floodwaters submerged the city a second time, practically destroying the city and
forcing the government to relocate to San Francisco.
The “great yellow waves came surging and pouring” across the city and into the Murdoch
house. Mary’s mother faints. Mary, Frank, and Nelly cannot carry their mother upstairs, but You-
Sing entered and picked up Mrs. Murdoch and ordered Mary and Betty to each grab a child, and
they all climbed into the upper story. From there, Mary could see the “whole city was a sea of
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water.” You-Sing reassured the children not to despair and that help was on its way. Hosmer again
paints Betty in a poor light in two scenes where all Betty does during the ordeal is "wail," "shriek,"
"cry," and "shout.” But the water in the streets continued to rise and to “ooze through the floor-
cracks” and to “ripple around” their feet. After getting dry coats and socks for Frank and Nelly,
and a blanket for the injured and delirious Mrs. Murdoch, You-Sing lead the younger children
through the window onto the roof as the waters continued to rise in the room on the second floor.
Mary and Betty still did not trust You-Sing and refused to follow, so he picked them up and carried
them outside.
Across the city, what had been streets were canals. People “hurried about” on the housetops
that remained above the swelling river. Women and children floated along, “clinging to doors and
window shutters while frantic husbands and fathers pursued in boats” or worked on roofs “hastily
constructing” rafts and oars. You-Sing tried to get the attention of every boat that passed by, but
each was too preoccupied with their personal tragedy and "could not spare the Chinaman a word
or a glance.” Mary joins You-Sing and together they finally convince a man and his sick wife to
take only Mrs. Murdoch with them to the St. George Hotel and its makeshift medical center. Surely
the needy white child made a more “worthy” refugee. Hesitant to leave the children, You-Sing
promised Mrs. Murdoch that his friend Hop-Loo would be there soon and that they would all meet
at the hotel, where they could get medical and other aid, and Mrs. Murdoch relented. You-Sing
and the children waited for hours in the rain and rising floodwaters. Many watercrafts passed
through with “lanterns hung from their sides.” Most stopped by the Murdoch house “where the
lonely little group huddled together, seeking to comfort and sustain one another in their desolation
and danger.” But they were usually looking for a missing member of their own family and so
moved on with that mission in mind.
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Near daybreak, a rescue party arrived and hurried the disaster family from the roof of their
house. They were sent by an “association just formed” for “aiding those who were suffering,” and
that they had heard of the “little family clinging together" on their rooftop. The team knew nothing
of Mary's mother nor Hop-Loo. From the rescue boat, Mary and the others looked on at the
“strange sights the city presented,” the “hurrying boats” that shot by, “filled with half-drowned
creatures.” They gazed through the “upper windows of the taller houses” into the “bare rooms
where excited people strove to make a refuge for their children, while the surging waters below
engulfed all their possessions!”
20
The rescuers take them to the St. George Hotel, where they are
“warmed and fed” but learn nothing of the fates of either Murdoch parent or You-Sing’s friend.
Undaunted, You-Sing ventured out to find Mrs. Murdoch and his friend Hop-Loo, and seeing this
devotion to her family and his companion, Mary saw him anew.
Figure 45: Even though his white neighbors treat him poorly, You-Sing risks his life multiple times to aid the Murdoch family
during the winter disasters of 1862. "The Rescue," Image from You-Sing, Margaret Hosmer.
20 Hosmer, 56.
335
Late that night, Mary awakened with a fever. A steamer crowded with survivors ferried the
children to San Francisco with the promise that they would be “cared for until the waters subsided.”
The streams of refugees found their way to the city's most prominent public place, the “Musical
Hall.” When the Murdoch children arrived, it was “already warmed and prepared” for them. There,
two dozen "philanthropic men" and women were busy "spreading beds, measuring muslin and
flannel for undergarments, and setting sewing machines at work" to make clothing. Teams of
women worked in shifts. In the basement, others set up tables with cooked food and other supplies
donated by "neighboring hotels and restaurants." Mrs. Irving, a widow with a young son of her
own, looked after Betty and the Murdoch kids, and she attended to Mary’s fever. Hosmer again
singles out Betty, who is sent to the basement to help with the dishes, for “having a strong
inclination to fret and repine.” Across San Francisco, women “who could not leave their homes”
“cooked and baked meats and bread” to be sent to survivors in Sacramento. Men and wagons
passed through the streets collecting donations, and at many of the hotels the landlords and
boarders agreed to send their prepared meals to their “sister city.”
You-Sing found them three days after Betty and the young Murdoch’s arrived in San
Francisco. He tells them that their mother is alive and soon on her way. He found Mrs. Murdoch
in a "storehouse near the wharf" where other sick and injured received treatment. Mr. Murdoch
was dead. You-Sing tells them that he liked their father because Mr. Murdoch was good to him
and protected him from the other white miners when the two had worked together years back. He
tells them that their father had rushed back from his claims when he heard that the city had flooded
again and that when he came to the flooded river, fearing for his family, he tried to ford it anyway
and never made it across. When Mrs. Murdoch arrived, the family reunited, and You-Sing took
them all to stay at a Chinese friend's house on Kearney Street. He had resigned from serving the
336
Browns and volunteered to serve the Murdoch's for free. He and Betty kept the room clean and
arranged the family’s meals and picked up after them. Still, Betty continued to distrust "that John
Chinaman" no matter Mary's newfound defenses of You-Sing.
Mary's turn is one of the story's critical themes, as her experiences with You-Sing have
changed her racism towards Chinese people. Mary’s change also underscores Hosmer’s belief in
evangelizing Chinese-Americans. Hosmer speaks through Mrs. Murdoch that god “has put it into
the heart of a poor heathen to be a friend and a brother to us all. I hope Franky and Nelly will never
forget how they used to annoy and torment the good man who has shown himself superior to spite
or malice.” She explains that “in the mines, You-Sing was employed in a neighboring camp," and
"some reckless, drunken men" treated him harshly but that Mr. Murdoch "interfered to prevent
You-Sing form being ill-used.” When Mary asks what a heathen is, her mother explains that a
“heathen or idolater…is one who worships gods of wood or stone, or objects in nature such as the
sun, or fire, or beasts.” But most importantly she explains that You-Sing can be saved because he
has “never been taught to know” and that by sharing with him “the knowledge of the Savior’s
love” they will have “repaid him” for all he had done for the family. The children were excited to
try.
21
Eventually, the floods resided and left the “desolated house[s] looking like a beach after
the tide has gone out,” and the people of Sacramento begin to rebuild. Again. They find their lower
floors filled with “sand and sediment piled upon the carpets” and their “soaked and disjointed
furniture thrown about by the retiring waters.” Hosmer tells us that few died from drowning but
that many died from "fright and exposure," but most from sickness due to the "imperfect care and
accommodations” during the storms.
22
Some Sacramentans banded together and formed the
21 Hosmer, 91
22 Hosmer, 100.
337
impromptu “Howard Association” during the floods and in the aftermath worked to “render every
aid to those who remained in their homes, wither from necessity or choice.” They delivered
provisions by boat to the windows of those in the upper stories. Without this spontaneous
organization of disaster citizens, many more lives would have suffered and died.
The family returns to Sacramento and starts again. You-Sing sets out early to repair and
clean their old house, though no amount of scrubbing could erase the water-marks on the walls.
You-Sing encourages Mrs. Murdoch to return home to start a sewing business; he knows many
women who need sewing work. You-Sing and Hop-Loo rent a nearby shanty and start a washhouse
while still helping the family. Mary gives You-Sing English lessons, and he and Hop-Loo start
going to church with them. When the rainy season returned, “it was scarcely possible for those
who had suffered so deeply in last winter’s flood to contemplate the approach of another winter
without some nervous trepidation. “Mrs. Murdoch shuddered when she saw the rainclouds
darkening in the sky, and the children stopped their play when they heard the first heavy drops
come plashing on the out-house roof.” They were told not to worry. That the new levee was “solid”
and that an overflow was “impossible.” You-Sing briefly went missing one stormy night but
returns "dripping with water like a half-drowned rat." [strange that Hosmer compares You-Sing to
a rat when she has spent the whole book trying to humanize him.] You-Sing discovered that Mr.
Murdoch’s partner cheated the family out of their share of their father’s claim. You-Sing recovers
Mr. Murdoch’s jacket from an associate of this former mining partner in a series of dangerous
misadventures. In its pocket was the paperwork proving the Murdoch family’s right to their
father’s claim. The two had concocted a scheme to cheat the family out of their right to the claim
following the flood and Mr. Murdoch's death. One kills himself upon being exposed. The other is
sent to the Stockton Insane Asylum. The Murdochs live in relative wealth following You-Sing’s
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discovery. You-Sing attends a private English school. Mary prays that he will one day not be a
"heathen."
Hosmer’s story offers some clues about the social world of 1860s Sacramento and San
Francisco. [Hosmer’s “heathen” provides a foil to Harte’s “Heathen Chinee.” In comparison to the
other stories discussed here, compare to Harte and Twain and others? Treatment of Chinese in
American print in the mid 19
th
century; Ah Sin; and anti-anti-Chinese sentiment in 19
th
century
California.] It also deals with racial and religious matters of mid 19
th
century California. Hosmer’s
work often mentions not being concerned with “what the color of [a person’s] skin might be.” Mrs.
Murdoch tells a resistant Betty that "every being created by God in his image and likeness is your
brother or sister…and no one who strives to please their heavenly father will treat any of his
children unkindly because of their complexion or appearance.”
23
Hosmer's story also gives insights
into the labor relations of Sacramento households in this period. Betty and You-Sing—a young
black girl and Chinese man—are “servants” and at one point both work for the Murdoch’s for free
(assumedly Betty has done so throughout). In “free state” California, labor relations were blurred
and often less than free. Also noteworthy is Hosmer implicit racism towards Betty, who is “not
very intelligent” and “had not the opportunity of becoming better and wiser than more favored
white children generally possess," thought this last one might imply that Hosmer believed in
Nurture as well as Nature.
Margaret Kerr Hosmer’s disaster history of Sacramento's Great Flood through the
experiences of a single-family are offered as fiction but could just have easily been the lived reality
of hundreds of settler-colonial families up and down the west coast. The novel provides
information about the social and environmental history of the winter of 1861-62 against the
23 Hosmer, 96
339
backdrop of the broader social realities of the time and place. Hosmer gives interesting
environmental details that deepen our understanding of the storms and floods of that winter. The
book tracks the sequence of floods in Sacramento that winter and notes multiple overflows that
winter, which aligns with events as best understand them.
24
A true story of the Sacramento Flood
tells of spontaneous acts of individual and community bravery and sacrifice; unplanned
organizations arose to save and sustain lives. Both Harte and Hosmer reference the Howard
Benevolent Society and the donations of food, goods, and labor offered by the citizens of San
Francisco and Sacramento. Hosmer also gives an idea of disaster management in a time with little
to no federal intervention. Perhaps Hosmer’s criticism of Mary’s father, Mr. Murdoch, and his
naiveté regarding the geography, the climate, and the hydroscape in which he lived is the most
striking and most relevant message for inhabitants of the Slope today.
Twain: the Isle of Honey Lake Smith, a desert snowstorm, and the great landslide case of
1862
The trio of riders had spurred through the snowstorm for two or three days when they
finally reached Honey Lake Smith’s along the big bend of the “crooked” Carson river between
Ragtown and Virginia City. The “isolated inn” was a two-story log cabin sitting on a short hill
amid the vast desert basin “through which the sickly Carson” wound its “melancholy way.” Nearby
stood the only other structures for miles, the adobe buildings and roughhewn log stables for the
Overland Stage. A convoy of twenty or so hay-wagons arrived soon after with a "very, very rough
set" of teamsters that joined the Overland drivers and the other “vagabonds and stragglers” in the
packed house for supper and sleep. A commotion woke the three that evening. The sleepy Carson
grew full and foaming "sweeping around the sharp bends at a furious speed, and bearing on their
24 Hosmer, 36.
340
surface a chaos of logs, brush, and all sorts of rubbish." Before long, "there was, but two hundred
feet of dry ground around the house and the whole desert for miles around was underwater." Honey
Lake Smith's was an "island in mid-ocean." As far as Sam Clemens eyes could reach under the
light of the moon, there was no desert,” only a “level waste of shining water.”
25
Mark Twain was still just Sam Clemens, twenty-five and kid brother to Orion Clemens
when he followed his brother to the Pacific Slope in the summer of 1861. President Lincoln had
appointed Orion Secretary of the Nevada Territory under Governor James Nye and Orion, in turn,
hired his younger brother as his private secretary. The brothers’ journeyed from St. Louis across
the plains and the Rockies, through the “sagebrush and greasewood and the ‘dobies’” and the
“coyote, the lizard, the jackass-rabbit and the raven” of the deserts beyond. The eight-hundred
dollars Sam took to pay for the trip was all he had saved from steamboat piloting. He hoped to
exploit his brother’s position to get in on the silver and gold mining frenzy and jumped headlong
into a slew of scattershot speculations in real estate, mining, and logging ventures. In Carson,
Clemens finds partners, invests in equipment, and chases claims but busts. Sam’s attempts at
soldiering, mining, lecturing, and writing leave him salty. Even still, Clemens reluctantly stumbles
into a twenty-five dollar-a-week job as a local reporter for the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia
City, Nevada where he first uses his iconic nom de plume.
26
25 Mark Twain, Roughing It, Harper, 1871, 207-212. True Williams and Edward F. Mullen, Roughing It, California,
1995, Mark Twain, The Works of Mark Twain, California, 1993, 630; Letter from Samuel L. Clemens, 1866, SLC
1866d; “From the Humboldt Mines,” Stockton Independent, 8 Feb 62 2, and “Humboldt,” Marysville Appeal, 2 Feb
62, 3, both reprinting the Carson City Silver Age of 21 January Clemens remained in Virginia City at least a week,
but was back in Carson City by 28 January. His departure for Esmeralda district did not take place until early April
1862 (L1, 150 n. 3, 184-85 n. 1); Mark Twain, Harriet Elinor Smith, and Benjamin Griffin, Autobiography of Mark
Twain Volume 1, 2010; Gianella, Vincent P. 1960. “The Site of Williams Station, Nevada.” Nevada Historical
Society Quarterly 3, 5–10.
26 Mark Twain, Harriet Elinor Smith, and Benjamin Griffin, Autobiography of Mark Twain Volume 1, 2010, 461; St
Joseph Missouri to Sacramento California by stagecoach was nearly 1900 miles and took roughly 15 days to traverse
(trains do it in four or five days in the 1870s). It took the bothers 18 or 19 days according to Twain; He also reported
for San Francisco’s Morning Call, before fleeing to the Bay to avoid prosecution for dueling. There he also writes
for the Californian and the Golden Era. For the Sacramento Union, he travels to report on the Hawaiian Islands.
341
His experiences became the core of his 1871 publication Roughing It, which Twain later
called a “personal narrative” of “several years of variegated vagabondizing.” Those familiar know
its general story of how young Samuel Clemens stumbled from scheme to scrape chasing quick
riches in California and Nevada during the early 1860s and offers an account of the “silver-mining
fever in Nevada” by someone “on the ground in person,” that “saw the happenings” with “their
own eyes.” In Roughing It, Twain touches on the expansion of the United States across the
continent and into the Pacific and how economic and industrial changes were altering landscapes
and social realities before his eyes. What some have read as playful and comedic, others have seen
as dark and cynical. Twain’s West is one of disillusionment with the romance and fantasy that he
had come to believe was waiting for him across the plains. Throughout this coming–of–age–in–
the–American–West–story, he includes several misadventures, including his short time as a
Confederate militiaman, his first view of the Great Salt Lake, and accidentally setting the forests
around Tahoe ablaze, and his rebirth as the Washoe Giant.
The winter of 1862 and its consequences also appear in a series of episodes in Twain’s
Roughing it.
27
In one of them, he recounts heavy storms and a great flood east of the Sierra during
the winter of 1861-62. Most of the settler population amassed in the Bay and Delta regions of
Central California, Oregon’s Willamette Valley, and California’s south coast. Still, there were
pockets of indigenous and settle populations throughout the Pacific West, and it is essential to note
the effects on communities in the oft-overlooked interior Slope. Clemens, along with his two travel
companions, were fifteen days deep into a trip from Carson City to the mining districts of the
Humboldt mountains and back in late December 1861 and early January 1862, when a wave of the
storms hit. They were “water-bound for eight days” before finally having to “swim out” and
27 Chapters 27-28 especially.
342
traveling “slow and tiresome” along desert roads “covered with snow and water” before arriving
in Virginia City on January 19, 1862.
28
Twain’s account is more than just a quirky story of unexpected desert weather (unexpected
for an outsider) as it offers clues to the storms and their devastation east of the Sierra Nevada. In
Twain’s account of events in Roughing It, Sam Clemens is on his way to the Esmerelda mining
district to investigate some silver claims Orion and he had purchased. Where they expected quick
returns they instead received requests for more funds to the mines.
29
This was not the placer mining
west of the Sacramento Valley. Here much of the mining required boring deeply into quartz veins,
hauling out tons of stone, pulverizing and chemically treating the rubble to draw out the seductive
rare metals enclosed within. Clemens thought the assessments too expensive and wanted to see for
himself stayed two or three weeks in Humboldt.
30
It is not clear what he found out. We can safely
assume it was a bust. On the return trip from the Humboldt "ledges," Sam spent New Year’s Day
in Unionville, Nevada. Colonel John B. Onstine, a “lawyer from Ohio who established a practice
in Carson City, and then in Unionville, in the early 1860s” and Captain Hugo Pfersdorff, “one of
28 Twain, Roughing It, Harper, 1871, 207-212. True Williams and Edward F. Mullen, Roughing It, 3rd ed. California,
1995, Mark Twain, The Works of Mark Twain, California, 1993, 630; “In a letter to the Virginia City Territorial
Enterprise from February 12, 1866; Williams and Mullen et al; “From the Humboldt Mines,” Stockton Independent,
8 Feb 62 2, and “Humboldt,” Marysville Appeal, 2 Feb 62, 3, both reprinting the Carson City Silver Age of 21
January); Mark Twain et al., Early Tales & Sketches. 1851-1864 Vol. 1 Vol. 1, California, 1979; Myron Angel,
History of Nevada, 1881; Smith had rebuilt on the site of an older station. That station was run by three brothers
from Maine, “Williams Station was a combination stage station, general store, and saloon” on the north-west side of
the Carson River Paiutes had burned it down and killed its occupants during the so-called Paiute Indian War, in
retribution for the brothers raping of Paiute women. Some said that this story was made up to cover a murder
between whites; Myron Angel, History of Nevada, Thompson and West, 1881. Ironically, since 1911, has more or
less been under a reservoir called Lake Lahontan, named for the massive ancient lake that once stood there. From
http://www.forgottennevada.org/sites/williams.html: “With the water level so low, it's easy to spot the location, a
small knoll. Tougher, though, to get to it- it's surrounded by gooey mud. We may try later in the year. UPDATE-
January 2014: In the meantime, unseasonably warm temperatures have melted whatever snow we got and it's now in
Lahontan- there is a lot more water that there was in September. Still, the Williams site is sticking above the water,
so we flew our drone camera over the site to snap a few photographs. You can see man-made lines on the site but we
won’t be able to visit unless the drought continues and the lake levels drop down again.”
29 Mark Twain, Roughing It, Harper, 1871.
30 SLC 1886d
343
the pioneers of the Unionville area” he “served as district recorder there from 1861-1865,
accompanied the fledgling Clemens on this trip back to Carson City.
31
Twain, whose commentary on Indigenous peoples of Nevada and California was racist and
colonialist, tells us that the Native peoples along the Carson river knew something the settlers did
not.
32
After his supper at Honey Lake Smith’s, Clemens visits an Indian encampment nearby.
There, the “Indians were in a great hurry about something, and were in a great hurry about
something, and were packing up and getting away as fast as they could. In their broken English,
they said, "By’m-by, heap water!” and by the help of signs made us understand that in their opinion
a flood” was approaching.
33
Also, in a letter from both Orion and Sam to Orion’s wife Mollie, they
write that “the Indians prophecy more storms—they say “heap snow,” “heap rain.”
34
Twain
describes presumably the Carson River or one of its tributaries as an "insignificant river" carrying
"maybe two feet" of water and no wider than a "back alley in a village," it is banks barely “higher
than a man’s head.” “Where was the flood to come from?” Clemens asks both his companions as
31 Mark Twain, The Works of Mark Twain, California, 1993, 630.
32 In a letter to Twain wrote to “keep your eye on [Cornbury S. Tillou, likely Mr. Ballou from the story] …don’t let
him get too enthusiastic…he will begin to feel young again, like he did when he fell in the river at Honey Lake
Smith’s; and being a lecherous old cuss anyhow, he might ravish one of those Pi-Utes and bring on an Indian War,
you know…” Twain isn’t making an offhand reference here. He is joking about the actual rape of Pauite Women by
the Williams brothers and others at their station and the subsequent hostilities that followed between Paiutes and
white settlers along the Carson. SLC to William H. Clagett, 28 Feb 1862, Carson City, Nev. (UCCL 00037). Also,
Twain: “He will eat anything in the world that his first cousins, the desert-frequenting tribes of Indians, will, and
they will eat anything they can bite...the only creatures known to history who will eat nitroglycerin and ask for more
if they survive.” “In Chapter 19, Twain describes a group of Indians which he fictitiously names the "Goshoot
Indians: "The disgust which the Goshoots gave me, a disciple of Cooper and a worshipper of the Red Man--even the
scholarly savages in "Last of the Mohicans" who are fittingly associated with the backwoodsman who divide each
sentence into two equal parts: one part critically grammatical, refined, and choice of language, and the other part just
such an attempt to talk like a hunter or mountaineer, as a Broadway clerk might make after eating an edition of
Emerson Bennett's works and studying frontier life at the Bowery Theatre a couple of weeks--I say that the nausea
which the Goshoots gave me, an Indian worshipper, set me to examining authorities, to see if perchance I had been
overestimating the Red Man while viewing him through the mellow moonshine of romance,” 129.
33 Mark Twain, Roughing It, Harper, 1871, 207-212.
34 From news clipping attached to Orion’s letter; likely from the Carson City Silver Age from January 29, 1862. Mark
Twain et al., Mark Twain’s Letters. 1 1, California, 1988, 143-144.
344
well as his reader. He figured it an Indian “ruse” and that they must have had “some better reason
for leaving in a hurry than fears of a flood in such an exceedingly dry time.”
Strangely, Twain notes that the “weather was perfectly clear” and that it was not the "rainy
season” and an “exceedingly dry time.” The years [include how many exactly] leading up to that
winter were dry, but the Clemens brothers had arrived just the prior year and not long enough to
learn the inland Slope's different seasonal regimes. Strange because they had ridden in through
snow and rainstorms, and the months of January and February are in the heart of the “rainy season”
in the Pacific West. These inconsistencies lend to both Clemens’s poverty of understanding of the
waterscapes of the West and perhaps also to his practice of “mixing the truth with fiction in a way
that makes the work neither tall tale nor a hoax, but something in between.”
35
Twain undoubtedly
experienced the events of that winter firsthand, but his dramatization makes the flood and blizzard
seem to come from nowhere for added effect.
That night, Clemens and his mates slept on the second floor of the packed house, with their
“clothes on, as usual, and all three in the same bed.” The trio awoke an hour later to the strange
noises of the now rabid Carson, “full to the brim.” It spilled over the banks of the main channel
and filled into old stream beds. The teamsters sprinted about, pulling the cattle and the wagons to
the high ground near the inn. The Carson rose over its banks, swamping the nearby log stable
before it began its accelerating crawl towards the Overland trail buildings where its “waves” came
ashore and the cold waters crept "about the foundations" and "invaded the great hay corral.”
Clemens and his companions joined the harried teamsters in rescuing the panicked horses and
cattle and as much of the hay as they could by “rolling the bales up on the high ground” by the inn.
The water continued to rise, first knee-high, then waist-deep, and the last waded out in water up to
35 From the Introduction of Mark Twain et al., Early Tales & Sketches. 1851-1864 Vol. 1 Vol. 1, California, 1979.
345
their chests, before “the sunburned bricks” of the Overland “melted down like sugar” and the
building “crumbled to a ruin” and “washed away in a twinkling.” By midnight, the floodwaters
marooned the group at the inn. Clemens spent “eight days and nights” at Honey Lake Smith’s
along with this “curious crew,” his companions Ollendorf and Mr. Ballou, the nearly two dozen
teamsters, the Overland team, and a few others—and as Twain tells it their time was spent
“swearing, drinking, and card-playing” with an occasional “fight thrown in for variety.” The
waters began to subside around day five or six, but the Carson still surged too wildly for anyone
to dare cross. In one of Twain's letters, he notes that a “Captain Pfersdorff’s” (Ollendorf in the
book) cheating at gambling may have accelerated their parting. It must have been something more
hazardous to their health than the potential to drown or freeze. By the eighth day, Clemens and his
two companions had tired of the “dirt, drunkenness, fighting” and the “dirt and vermin” and chose
to make a break for it amid an inbound storm and a charging Carson river.
They filled a canoe with their saddles and supplies and then themselves and set out, towing
their horses behind by their halters. But Ollendorf grew more anxious as the water grew deeper,
and the horses started swimming. The currents threatened to pull them towards the “boiling
torrent” of the main channel as it flushed towards the Carson Sink's swelling sea. He leaped for
the far bank in a panic, and the canoe capsized, emptying into the churning currents. For a moment,
the river washed Clemens and Ballou (Onstein in SLC’s letter) downstream, but the two somehow
salvaged the boat and made it ashore. Their saddles and gear were gone. Resigned to trying again
the following day, they tied the drenched horses off in the sagebrush, bailed out the canoe, and
pushed back across the raging river. They ferried back food and blankets for the horses before
returning to the inn for one more night.
346
Figure 46: Clemens and his companions nearly drowned fording the Carson River during the Big Winter of 1862. “Crossing the
Flood,” and “The Rescue,” from Roughing It!, 1871.
They struck out again with some blankets and food at daybreak, but the storm had rolled
in, and the snow was falling with ferocity. They returned to their horses and pressed on through
the snow, too deep to find the road and falling too thick to see the mountain ranges that oriented
their place in the world. Sometimes they could see no farther than 100-yards. Sometimes they were
blind beyond fifteen paces. They rode towards what they thought was the direction of Carson City.
Before long, they hit a fresh trail of footprints, and the threesome hurried after the tracks hoping
to join with the company ahead. They noticed even newer tracks and figured the number in the
group ahead to be growing, and they wondered if they were trailing soldiers marching to Fort
Churchill. They followed on still faster. But before long, they noticed that just below them lay the
bank of a rapid stream, and just off in the distance, through the thick snowfall, they could just
make out the faint if familiar outlines of the inn. They had been chasing their own tracks for
hours.
36
36 Mark Twain, Roughing It, Harper, 1871, 219-224.
347
Fortuitously, the Overland stage drivers had just forded the retreating river and were on
their way towards Carson City. So Clemens and company followed in the Overland’s wake through
the cartwheeling snow. Though their horses failed to keep pace with the rested stage team, they
soon fell behind, the stagecoach barreling off into the “white oblivion." They shadowed the ruts
the wagon’s wheels had left in the snow before nightfall, and the driving snow again concealed
the way. They continued to follow where they believed the road must have been but soon grew
disoriented, each man thinking he found the correct route, but none persuasive enough to compel
the others to follow. Again, they were lost, and the horses were worn-out, so they decided to rest
until the morning light among the “smooth sugar-loaf mounds” of covered sagebrush and the silver
glare of snow all around. They huddle together men and horses while the “feathery flakes eddied
down” and turned them into an assembly of “white statuary.” The three tried various measures to
start a fire in the cold and the wet, like shooting a pistol into a pile of twigs. They fail. Startled by
the gunfire, the horses scattered into the blizzard and the night. Lost and freezing, the men
contemplate death. They cry, offer apologies, make bargains, and share farewells before they
embrace and drift off to sleep amid a “stealthy, sinister quiet” with no more noise than the tumbling
of falling snow.
In Twain’s telling, he awakened to the “gray dawn” and thinks himself dead. His
companions remained “tousled snow images in a sitting posture.” And just beyond the spot of their
last stand, “not fifteen steps from” them, stood the “frame buildings of a stage station,” and there
“under a shed stood our still saddled and bridled horses.” Twain writes: “I have scarcely
exaggerated a detail of this curious and absurd adventure. It occurred almost exactly as I have
stated it. We actually went into camp in a snowdrift in a desert, at midnight in a storm, forlorn and
348
hopeless, within fifteen steps of a comfortable inn.”
37
The comedic nature of Twain’s
dramatization of his younger self's misadventures belies the storms' hazardous nature and their
effects that winter of ’62. Many drowned and froze to death that season attempting the very things
Clemens and his companions did but were far less fortunate. Twain hints at this noting that the
station had been expecting “sheep drivers and their flocks” that night. Three groups arrived, but
two were never heard from again.
38
Figure 47: Clemens and Co. also likely survived a blizzard during the Big Winter like the one described in the book. Many others
did not. “Advance in a Circle,” and “Camping in the Snow,” from Roughing It!, 1871.
Twain’s correspondence in the years before the publication of Roughing It tells a similar
story, though some variances emerge. In a letter dated January 30
th
,1862 from Carson City, a date
when he should have just returned from his flood and blizzard misadventures, Clemens writes to
his mother Jane Lampton Clemens, and he does not mention these specific events. He describes
the road between Ragtown “where the sand is of unknown depth, and locomotion of every kind is
very difficult; where the road is strewn thickly with the skeletons and carcasses of dead beasts of
burden, and charred remains of wagons; and chains, and bolts and screws, and gun barrels, and
such things of a like heavy nature as weary, thirsty emigrants, grown desperate, have thrown away,
37 Roughing It, 231.
38 Roughing It, 232.
349
in the grand hope of being able, when less encumbered, to reach water.” During Twain’s recent
trip the opposite was true, as rain and snow were heavy. In a letter from Carson City dated February
8, 1862, he mentions to his mother Jane and sister Pamela Moffett in St Louis that “when it rains
here, it never lets up till it has done all the raining I has got to do—and after that, there’s a dry
spell.”
39
In a letter to the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Twain reminiscences on that trip
and its meteorological misadventures. In this version, he recalls his companions as Colonel Onstein
instead of Mr. Ballou and Captain Pfersdorf, instead of Captain Ollendorf. Here Twain briefly
describes their nine-day stay where they "wore out every deck of cards in the place" before turning
to "scrape up a handful of vermin off the floor or the beds, and ‘shuffle' them, and bet on odd or
even" to amusingly pass the time. Like the card games to that point, this game too ended “in a
row” when the other players uncovered that Onstein had been cheating by hiding a “cold deck”
down the back of his neck. Twain remembered it as the “funniest trip” he ever made.
40
Still, it is a
wonder that the king of American tall tales in some ways undersells the extreme nature of the
storms he experienced that winter.
The storms had consequences for those living east of the Sierra beyond desert seas and
snowstorms. Its floods, avalanches, and debris flows destroyed settlements, washed-out roads,
drowned mining operations, and buried ranches. In the next chapter in Roughing It, Twain tells of
Hyde vs. Morgan's great landslide case. The mountains above Carson, Eagle, and Washoe Valleys
are “very high and very steep," and when “the snow gets melting off fast in the spring, and the
warm surface-earth begins to moisten and soften, the disastrous landslides commence." Moreover,
following the winter storms of 1862, it is likely he saw the “whole side of a mountain taken off
some fine morning and deposited down in