By Alton Pryor

Olive Mann Isbell (Google Image)

The future looked grim for the 130 Americans Inside Mission Santa Clara de Asis.

The gates of the crumbling Mission were barricaded to keep out the Spanish soldiers of Don Francisco Sanchez, who appeared on the verge of attacking the newly arrived emigrants.

There was a climate of fear inside the mission, especially among the children. Olive Mann Isbell, the niece of Horace Mann and a former teacher herself, could see the chil-dren needed both attention and a haven.

She set the children and any others who would volunteer to clean an old 15-square-foot adobe stable. A rickety table and a few benches were thrown together from scraps of wood left in the compound.

“Before you get started, you’ll have to learn how to use this,” she was told as one of the men handed her a long rifle. When classes began, she kept the weapon handy.

Mrs. Mann lacked even pencils and paper. She wrote lessons on the dirt floor with a long pointed stick.

From each spent fire she saved the charcoal and wrote the youngsters’ A-B-Cs on the palms of their hands. Olive Mann Isbell soon became Aunt Olive to the children, who tried to imitate her courage.

Thus began the first school in California taught by an American.

Many of the emigrants in the compound were sick, including Dr. Chauncy Isbell, a medical graduate of Western Reserve College. The Isbells came west with $2000 in re-serve funds and a well-fitted wagon.

As they crossed the Sierra Nevada, John Fremont met them at a pass near Bear River and escorted them to Sutter’s Fort and then on to the Mission.

Dr. Isbell was drafted to join Fremont and his men. However, upon crossing the Salinas River, he was stricken with typhoid pneumonia, the so-called ‘emigrant fever’, and returned to the Mission. Olive’s knowledge of drugs and nursing served her well as she tended to her ill hus-band and others suffering sickness. While her patients slept, Olive made bullets to hold off their attackers.

When Dr. Isbell became well enough to travel, he and his wife moved to Monterey. When they arrived, they learned the Mexican War had ended and California was about to become a member of the United States.

On her very first night in Monterey, Thomas O. Larkin, United States Consul, who had heard of her previous school at the Mission, awakened Olive. Larkin wanted her to set up a similar school in Monterey.

Dr. Isbell began a medical practice, and Olive opened a school with about two dozen students. This number soon grew to about fifty, with each student paying six dollars for a term of three months. Unlike the conditions in the Mission, Olive opened a classroom with a few books, and with some pencils and paper. The school was located above the jail. Only two of her students knew how to speak English. A tutor helped Mrs. Isbell, who spoke no Spanish.

The Isbells soon moved to French Camp, a community near Tuleberg, where Stock-ton now sits. They had barely settled when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill. Dr. Isbell and others organized the Stockton Mining Company and set out for the gold fields.

Once when it was so muddy the horses could not travel on the road, Dr. Isbell showed up with a young boy helping him carry eighty pounds of gold in sacks on their backs.

While Dr. Isbell was away mining, the twenty-four-year-old Olive was left to care for the horses, chickens, milk cows and 600 head of cattle. Her only help was a nine-year-old boy.
She discovered the Indians liked the type of clothing she wore. She made an outfit every day, which she traded for two ounces of gold. She soon found herself cooking meals for travelers, for which she charged a modest sum. She received $500 in gold when she sent a wagon to Stockton filled with two demijohns of milk, two of cream, some eggs, four-dozen chickens, and a few pounds of butter.

By 1850, the Isbells had become wealthy. The couple had no children. Dr. Isbell wanted to travel and convinced his reluctant wife to sell their French Camp holdings. Eventually, they returned to California and settled in Santa Paula. Olive died there on March 25, 1899.

— Alton Pryor

By Alton Pryor

‘A Hungarian nobleman leaves indelible mark’

Agoston Haraszthy made an impression wherever he went. After serving as a member of the Royal Hungarian Guards of Francis I, Emperor of Austria-Hungary in 1830, he was forced to flee Europe for fear of being branded a revolutionist.
In 1842, he returned to Hungary and convinced his father to liquidate their considerable holdings so the entire family could immigrate to America. When they arrived in Sauk City, Wisconsin, they were among the best-capitalized immigrants of the 19th century.
Along with his other entrepreneurial investments, Haraszthy began agricultural experiments and achieved considerable success in sheep raising and growing hops.
Even with his considerable success, he was still disappointed at not being able to establish the high quality vineyards of his native Hungary. The tug of the western frontier pulled at the Haraszthy family, and they headed, by wagon train, to California in 1848.
Agoston was the wagon master of the train, which included about sixty immigrants. Without serious incident, the wagon train arrived at Warner Hot Springs, in San Diego County.
Colonel Jonathan Warner, a former militiaman who established Warner Hot Springs in 1844, apprised Haraszthy about the agriculture and the politics in the San Diego area. A scant 650 people, mainly vaqueros, Yankee sailors who had jumped ship, and a few Mormon soldiers from the Mormon Battalion populated San Diego.

Haraszthy’s family now included his wife, six children, his father and stepmother, and Thomas W. Sutherland, former U.S. Attorney for Wisconsin Territory, who was now Haraszthy’s stepbrother.
The Polish immigrant purchased a plot of land adjacent to San Luis Rey Mission, and, with his sons, Attila and Arpad, first planted a large fruit orchard. He later bought 160 acres more in Mission Valley and planted peach and cherry trees sent to him from New York State.
Haraszthy never ceased his investment activity as well as his interest in community politics. With Don Juan Bandini, Haraszthy set up the first regularly scheduled omnibus transit system and established a livery stable. He established a very profitable butcher shop.
With other real estate speculators, he helped establish the subdivision of Middletown. Haraszthy Street existed there until the early 1960s when it was wiped from the map by the construction of Interstate 5.

When San Diego County was chartered in 1850, Haraszthy was elected the first City Marshall, while his father, Charles, was elected Magistrate and Land Commissioner. His stepbrother, Tom Sutherland, became San Diego’s first City Attorney.
In 1851, he was elected to the State Assembly and resigned his other offices. While in the legislature, then meeting in Vallejo, Haraszthy succeeded in getting funding for the expansion of San Diego Harbor and the county’s first public hospital.
He was the first legislator to introduce legislation to divide California into two states; North and South. Because of powerful political interest in Northern California, that bill died.
All the while, Haraszthy continued searching for land more suitable for agriculture than San Diego’s subtropical desert land offered. Early in 1852, he purchased 210 acres near San Francisco’s Mission Dolores. He moved the entire family there at the end of the Assembly Session.
Haraszthy’s noteworthy accomplishments didn’t stop. He introduced the “Zinfandel” red wine grape and the “Muscat of Alexandria” raisin grape to California.
He invented an efficient gold refining process, and was founding partner in the Eureka Gold and Silver Refining Company. The firm became one of the major contract refiners for the San Francisco Mint.

Because of his reputation for fairness and honesty, Haraszthy was appointed Assayer of the Mint in 1855.
He developed the first large, high-quality grape vineyard at Crystal Springs in San Mateo County. At this new ranch, Haraszthy designed and laid out a nursery and horticultural garden, which he named Los Flores.
With his son’s help, he planted fruit trees and shrubs imported from the east. At about this same time, he received a shipment of six choice rooted vines and 160 cuttings from Hungary.
In the shipment were two small bundles. One was the Muscat of Alexandria and the other was said to be the famous mystery grape, the Zinfandel. Today the Zinfandel is the most widely planted wine grape in California.
In 1857, while visiting General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo at the General’s Lachrima Montis estate, Haraszthy was introduced to the Sonoma Valley. This valley especially appealed to him because its weather, topography and soil were so similar to his Hungarian homeland’s high quality vineyards.
In Sonoma, he established the Szeptaj Estate (Buena Vista). That Buena Vista Winery is today a state park and historical site.

In 1861, He was appointed to a California commission to improve agricultural methods and to collect vines and fruit tree stocks in Europe. During a European tour with his son, Arpad, he purchased, with his own money, 100,000 grapevines representing 1,400 varieties, along with small selected lots of planting stock for olives, almonds, pomegranates, oranges, lemons and chestnuts.
When he returned, Harper & Brothers, of New York, published Haraszthy’s report, “Grape Culture, Wines and Wine Making upon Agriculture and Horticulture. It remained the winemaking classic authority in the English language until well into the 20th century.
The Haraszthy family planted vineyards for European immigrant friends and wine growers, including Charles Krug, Emile Dreser and Jacob Grundlach.
In 1863, Agoston’s sons Attila and Arpad Haraszthy were married in a double ceremony to the twin daughters of General Vallejo.
Later, after one of his wine cellars containing vintages of two years was destroyed by fire, Haraszthy traveled to Nicaragua where he bought a sugar plantation. There, he wife contacted yellow fever and died.
Agoston Haraszthy died July 6, 1869, near his estate, Hacienda San Antonio, at Corinto, Nicaragua, while trying to cross a crocodile infested rive.. His family believed that he fell into a river while attempting to cross and was dragged away by an alligator. His body was never found.

(Alton Pryor has been a writer for magazines, newspapers, and wire services. He worked for United Press International in their Sacramento Bureau, handling both printed press as well as radio news. He traveled the state as a field editor for California Farmer Magazine for 27 years. He is now the author of more than 50  books, (Including E-Books) primarily on California and western history. His books can be seen at http://www.stagecoachpublishing.com. Readers can email him at stagecoach@surewest.net.)

— Alton Pryor

(Author’s Note: We hope you enjoy the historical features that we publish here. Please send your youngsters to this site to help them get a handle on historical happenings.–Thanks, from your friendly author, Alton Pryor

The Hole in the Wall

The lair lay hidden in the Big Horn Mountains of northern Wyoming. It was the favorite hideout of a number of outlaw gangs, including the notorious group known as Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch.

A view from the top of the “Hole in the Wall” hideout.

The hideout was  known as the “Hole in the Wall”. The Hole in the Wall is located in Johnson County. It is named for a pass in an eroded wall of a mesa rising above the rolling plains and canyons.

To get there, a horse and rider must climb over loose rock to the top of the wall. It is at least a day’s journey on horseback from any semblance of civilization, but it was haven for outlaws.

Several noted outlaw gangs used the Hole in the Wall as a hideout.  Geographically, the hideout had all the advantages needed for a gang attempting to evade the authorities. It was easily defended, and impossible for lawmen to access without detection.

The hole in the wall contained its own infrastructure. Each gang hiding there supplied its own food and livestock, including its own horses. A corral, a livery stable, and numerous cabins were constructed, with one or two for each gang.

If a gang chose to operate out of the hole in the wall, it abided by certain rules. There was a rule for handling disputes with other gang members, for instance. Gangs were forbidden from stealing from another gang’s supplies.

Gangs that used the hideout at some time or another includes Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Kid Curry and his brother Lonny Curry, “Laughing” Sam Carey, Black Jack Ketchum, Elzy Lay, and George “Flat Nose” Curry.

The hideout was virtually impenetrable by sheriffs and their posses. While some U.S. Marshals tried to infiltrate the outlaws with undercover operatives, none were successful in doing so.

— Alton Pryor