(Editor’s note: This information was edited from a speech given by historian I. N. “Jack” Brotherton at a June 3, 1961 Clampers meeting at the Adamsville town site. Additional information was added by Courier editor Jeff Benziger based on his past research and interviews.)
If one could enter a time machine and go back to 1808, Stanislaus County would be wild and free without a single road, bridge or home.
Long before there were any permanent settlements along the rivers that ran through what would become Stanislaus County the Valley saw many transient explorers, hunters, and trappers.
The first white man to enter the great San Joaquin Valley was Sergeant Gabriel Moraga. In the fall of 1806 he led an expedition from Mission San Juan Bautista into the Central
Valley and named the rivers he came into contact with. He explored along the foothills to the east and the first river that he crossed in Stanislaus County was the Tuolumne River, which he named the Rio Dolores.
He then came to the Stanislaus River, which he named the Rio Gabriel.
When he spotted another river that led to the Delta, he named it Rio San Francisco. Today we know it as the San Joaquin River.
Moraga led a second expedition into the Valley two years later, in 1808, in search of possible sites to build missions. His report was quite comprehensive, and had it been followed, there would be a Spanish mission in what is now Stanislaus County. Plans for new missions never materialized since the missions were having a hard time then, and there was a lack of interest of the Spaniards or the Mexican government to develop the Valley aside from handing out large land grants.
In 1810, Moraga was in the county a third time but in the company of a Padre Viader who was on the hunt for an estimated 400 Native Americans who had run away from the coastal missions. On this expedition he captured a few new neophites, (new converts to Christianity), among them Chief Estanislao who had escaped from Mission San Jose.
For the next 15 or 16 years the Valley saw no additional white explorers.
Chief Estanislao, who was born around 1798 on the banks of the Stanislaus River near Salida, was not used to, nor did he like, life at the mission. He led a revolt against the padres, and with a considerable band of followers deserted and headed back to his tribal ranch. In May 1826 Mariano Vallejo started out in pursuit of the rebellious neophites. On May 30, 1826 he caught up with Chief Estanialao on the north side of the Stanislaus River, near its mouth, at about where Caswell State Park is today. In a pitched battle that lasted the better part of two days, the chief defeated the Mexicans and forced their retreat. As a result of this decisive battle Chief Estanislao gained his niche in history, and the Rio Gabriel was renamed Rio Estanislao (Stanislaus River) in his honor.
On the same battleground, some three years later, Chief Estanislao was defeated by Vallejo. Estanislao escaped, however, and returning to the Mission San Jose he confessed his sins, was pardoned, and died there in 1839.
The name of Rio Dolores was changed to Tuolumne in honor of a tribe of Indians whose principal habitat was the area along the river.
Fur trappers move in
While the Mexican government was busy chasing renegade Indians around the Valley, fur trappers had started to move into the Valley. In 1823 the Ashley Expedition hunted and trapped here.
With 40 trappers and Indian guides in 1825 Jedediah Smith camped and trapped along the Tuolumne River.
In 1830 Ewing Young and his band was in the area, and in 1832 the Hudson Bay Company established a headquarters camp under Michael Laframboise at a place that would become French Camp near Stockton. This group trapped the area so intensely that beaver was practically extinct along the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers in about 15 years. Even to this day there are few beaver and muskrat left in the Valley.
Fremont expedition
In March 1843, Captain John C. Fremont and his party explored Stanislaus County, camping along the Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers. In fact, one of his men died in the vicinity of Roberts Ferry (east of Waterford) where he was buried with a marker. That marker was found attached to a tree by the late Don Ketchum who was duped into turning it over to a man who claimed to be from a Bay Area university.
Fremont, who was known as the Pathfinder, served in the U.S. Senate and ran against Abraham Lincoln for president in 1864. He also resided for a while in Bear Valley near Mariposa.
Tuolumne City
The discovery of gold in the Southern Mother Lode led to a stampede of gold miners up the San Joaquin River from Stockton. This steady stream of gold seekers was the direct cause of the founding of the ferry system that popped up along the San Joaquin, the Stanislaus, and the Tuolumne Rivers. One of these ferries was Griffin’s Ferry on the Tuolumne River about three miles above its mouth. It was at this place in February of 1850 where four men came with visions of building an empire – Paxton McDowell, Richard P. Hammond, Dr. Washington M. Ryer and Thomas Pyle. Paxton McDowell is usually credited with being the founder of the town of Tuolumne City, but it was Richard P. Hammond, father of that world-famous mining engineer, John Hays Hammond, who surveyed the 160-acre site into streets and lots. Sixty thousand dollars’ worth of lots was sold almost immediately, and Tuolumne City was advertised as the rival to Stockton.
The town is gone today but was located north of the Tuolumne River near the Shiloh Road bridge south of Paradise Road.
May 2, 1850 saw the arrival of the first river steamer when the “Georgiana” docked at Tuolumne City, and May 18 of the same year saw the first township election. On July 28, 1851, Tuolumne City’s first post office was established, only to close on Oct. 21 of the same year. For a brief period of about a year Tuolumne City was to enjoy a brisk trade with the mines of the Southern Mother Lode, and to grow during that year to a sizable community.
The financial panic of 1851 and 1852 was the cause of an almost complete abandonment of the town. On Feb. 13, 1854, there was advertisement of the sale of all lots in Tuolumne City to satisfy a mortgage. It is said that town lots went on the auction block at 25 cents each.
There was one man who stayed on after the virtual desertion of the town.
One man, N. W. Wells, stayed to become Tuolumne City’s pioneer. Wells had tried his hand in the mines, but seeing a more lucrative field in merchandising he moved to Stockton. From here he supplied the mines with necessities, shipping his stores by pack train. In those days the most experienced packers were Mexicans.
Wells had In his employ one such by the name of ‘Texas Jack” Jack remained faithful to his trust for several trips from Stockton to Chinese Camp, but finally, losing heavily in a poker game one night, he gambled off Wells’ pack train and provisions. By the time Wells found out about it Texas Jack was long gone.
Wells then purchased a few small boats and moved his headquarters to the new settlement of Tuolumne City. He chartered the river steamer Georgiana for $6,000 for that now famous trip of May 1 and 2, 1850. He purchased $1,300 worth of lots and built a large store and warehouse. Wells’ marriage to Asa Grunnell’s oldest daughter on Jan. 16, 1851 was the first recorded marriage in this part of the county. Wells told an amusing anecdote concerning that marriage. He entrusted two horses and some cash to a John Legg for the purpose of going to Stockton to bring back Parson Woods. Legg explained to the parson that he was needed in Tuolumne City to perform a marriage ceremony, but neglected to tell the Parson that he was to accompany him. Legg absconded with the cash and the horses.
Parson Woods showed up and performed the ceremony, but Wells had to go looking for Legg. He finally found his horses but had some trouble proving his ownership. He never caught Legg, who had left for Mexico.
Wells’ first child was a daughter, Fannie, born Oct. 4, 1852, the first white child born in the west half of the county.
In 1854 Wells took over operation of the old Griffin Ferry and tried farming and raising cattle. Wells, Asa Grunnell, John W. Laird and B. M. Shipley were the few remaining in the area at the time.
The influx of farmers to the area during the late 1860s led to a revival of Tuolumne City. The post office was reestablished on June 5, 1867. By the summer of 1868 Tuolumne City was again a booming river town. February 14, 1868, saw the publishing of the county’s first newspaper, the Tuolumne News which was established by J. D. Spencer. John B. Covert had built a new brick building; Dr. Sam M. McLean, hero of a smallpox epidemic in the Spring of 1868, had opened a drug store; Capt. H. C. James had built a brick building for a meat market and packing house; Julius Dettlebach and H. M. Covert had opened a mercantile store; Alden and Grenfell, a livery stable; John Grollman a harness shop; J. H. Hayes, a shoe store: D. S. Husband had the town’s one saloon; Goodrich ran the hotel; and Munson and Judge Griffin were building new hones. A stage line ran from Stockton to Visalia by way of Tuolumne City and river boat traffic was again in full bloom.
September 22-24, 1868, saw the first County Fair, which was held at Tuolumne City and there were festivities for three full days with horse racing at Judge Wolden’s track about miles out of town, while Bartholomew’s Circus played to capacity crowds and nightly dancing was held at Covert’s Hall.
On Nov. 10, 1868, the first fraternal organization In Stanislaus County, Wildey Lodge of the Odd Fellows, was instituted by H. M. Covert and J.A. Brown.
The first Masonic Lodge, Stanislaus #206, was constituted in Tuolumne City on Dec. 31, 1869; received its charter on May 10, 1870 and was removed to Modesto on March 20, 1871.
In 1869 a new brick school building was opened at Tuolumne City with 36 pupils. This school replaced the private school that John W. Laird had opened that had in 1853 with his own funds and also an earlier public school opened in February 1865.
With the building of the Central Pacific Railroad down the center of the Valley and the founding of Modesto there was a concerted rush on the part of most of the merchants and business men of Tuolumne City, and of the other small towns along the Tuolumne, to be first on the ground in the new town. The last issue of the Tuolumne News to be published in Tuolumne City was issued on Nov. 29, 1870, and the next day Spencer began moving his press and building, to reopen the paper in Modesto as the Stanislaus News.
The post office in Tuolumne City closed on March 20, 1871, only to reopen again for the third time, on Oct. 2, 1871, and to close for the third and last time on Sept. 26, 1872.
Today there is nothing left of the original town of Tuolumne City. A steel bridge replaced the ferry, and was known as the Nine Mile Bridge. An old wooden structure was used as a labor camp and across the road is a small group of farm buildings. This is the site of Tuolumne City, a once proud town whose ambition was to rival Stockton.
Adamsville
In 1849 Dr. Adams began operation of a ferry at a point about one-half mile east of the west end of Service Road. Dr. Adams remained in the area for a year or so and then sold his interest in the ferry to a man named Jones. Meanwhile a small settlement had begun to grow up around the south end of the ferry, which became known as Adamsville.
The Courier recently published an article on Adamsville.
The river barges
The heyday of river boat traffic ran its course 1860 to 1890. Many thousands of bushels of wheat, countless head of cattle, and thousands of tons of wool were carried down this river to markets in Stockton and San Francisco. Today an expert navigator might possibly paddle a canoe up the river without grounding on a sandbar, but even then it would be a risky voyage.
The first steamer to ascend the Tuolumne was, as mentioned before, the “Georgiana,” a small side-wheeler of only 30 tons. She left Stockton on May 1, 1850 and was the first night she tied up to a tree on the bank of the San Joaquin near where San Joaquin City is located.
The following day she steamed into Graysonville, and then returning down river, went up the Tuolumne River to Tuolumne City. This initial trip inaugurated steamboat traffic on the Tuolumne. The Georgiana continued to make weekly runs until she was destroyed by an boiler explosion on Nov. 23, 1855.
About two years after the Georgiana began running she had a competitor muscle in by the name of “Erastus Corning” which had been on the Stockton-San Francisco run since December 1851, and when she became desperate for business, she started a rate war that almost bankrupted several of the steamboat companies. Passenger fares dropped from $12 to $1.50 and freight rates dropped from $20 per ton to $6. Later the companies got together and stabilized the rates so that they could run at a profit.
The panic years of 1855-56 saw the discontinuance of practically all river traffic, but it revived in 1860 owing to the upsurge of agriculture and cattle raising in the Valley, and for a period of around 20 years many riverboats went up and down the rivers daily. There was the Eureka, a sternwheeler of 56 tons and her sister ship, and the Christiana, both built by Ling Brothers in Stockton. Others were the Aetna, formerly on the Sacramento run, the Visalia, a 136-ton stern-wheeler, the Alta; the Tulare, 112 feet long and 166 tons, built by Stephen Davis of Stockton for
Capt. J. D. Hamilton. The Tulare was the first steamer on the river to have staterooms, and she made the run directly from Tuolumne City to San Francisco.
There was also the Fresno, which in May of 1868 made a trip up the Tuolumne to Morley’s Ferry, the highest point on the Tuolumne ever reached by steamer. Morley’s Ferry was situated just north of Turlock Lake.
One of the older boats on the river, the Esmeralda, was owned by Captain Thomas E. Trueworthy. She ran the Tuolumne River until about 1865, when Capt. Trueworthy transferred his interests to the Colorado River. She went down the Pacific Coast under her own power and steamed up the Gulf of California to Yuma, on the Colorado River. There she picked up a barge and went on up the Colorado to Collville, Utah.
Perhaps the best known steamer, and one of the last on the river, was the “Empire City.” She was built by Stephen Davis in Stockton, and was 106 feet long, and of 102 tons displacement. She was on the Tuolumne run from 1869 to 1899. She made regular runs from Paradise City to Stockton, usually in about seven hours. In February, 1869, she achieved a record when she made a run to Stockton with 150 sacks of grain for a deck load, and towed a barge loaded with 1220 sacks of wool, weighing 336,000 pounds. In March 1893 she steamed into Modesto with 200 tons of cast-iron pipe for the new Modesto Water Works. This trip was the first time a riverboat had been as far as Modesto since 1869. By this time the era of the riverboat was fast drawing to a close.
Paradise City
About 14 miles above Adam’s Ferry there was the site of Roger’s Ferry, and about a mile above Roger’s was Berry’s Ferry. These two ferries formed the nucleus of the town of Paradise City. Of course, Paradise Road is named after the long-lost establishment.
During the winter of 1867 and the spring of 1868 early pioneer John W. Mitchell laid out the town of Paradise City on the north bank of the Tuolumne River in the area of Paradise, Grimes, and Pauline avenues.
The town had a very rapid growth and on Nov. 25, 1867 was granted its first post office.
By May 1868, Paradise City had a mercantile store, a hardware store, a harness shop, a wheelwright, a blacksmith, a livery stable, a hotel, two saloons, and a brick kiln with a capacity of a quarter million bricks, which was not enough to supply the demand. There were also weekly steamers and a tri-weekly stage.
Herron and Company’s Paradise Flour Mill was added in 1868 . This was a four-story building, with a 65 horsepower steam engine and a capacity of 150 barrels of flour per day. Until the late 1890s, Paradise Flour famous on the west coast.
Paradise City’s most famous citizen was Reuel Colt Gridley who opened the first mercantile store in Paradise in 1868. He had gained national fame for the repeated sale of a single sack of flour.
Gridley previously operated a store in Austin, Nevada in April, 1864 as Gridley, Hobart and Jacobs. The Civil War was still in progress and there was considerable feeling between the thick Northern Democrats and the Southern Democrats. Gridley, at the time, was 35 years of age and a staunch southerner from Hannibal, Missouri. On the outcome of a local election contest for mayor, Gridley made a wager with a Dr. Herrick. The loser was to carry a 50-pound sack of flour two miles between the towns of Clifton and Upper Austin to the tune of a song. Gridley lost, and on April 20 he fulfilled his bet by carrying the flag-bedecked sack from Upper Austin to Clifton, accompanied by the Austin Band playing “John Brown’s Body.” He delivered the sack of flour to Dr. Herrick, somebody in the crowd sald, “Let’s make hot cakes out of them.”
Gridley suggested that it be auctioned off for the benefit of the Sanitary Fund, the forerunner of the present Red Cross. Acting as auctioneer, he himself started the bidding at $200. The high bid was $350, knocked down to T. B. Wade, a mill man.
Wade said “Auction her off again.” And again and again that sack was auctioned off until Gridley had collected $4,549.80. Other towns heard of this stunt, and that started a chain reaction that finally terminated in New York some six months later. In Virginia City Gridley collected $8,000; in Sacramento $10, 000; In San Francisco $25,000; and finally, after the tour ended in New York Gridley had collected $275,000 for the Sanitary Fund for that single sack of flour.
But Gridley was a broken man, both in health and finances.
He had paid all his expenses out of his own pocket and he returned to his home in Austin to find his firm near bankruptcy. Closing out the business, he moved to California in an effort to regain his health.
He moved to Stockton, and 1868 he moved to the new town of Paradise City.
Here he opened the first mercantile store and also served for a time as postmaster. Gridley never recovered his health, and on November 24, 1870, he passed on. His remains are buried in the G. A. R. plot of the Rural Cemetery in Stockton.
On Admission Day, Sept. 9, 1887, the Stockton Post of the G.A.R. dedicated an impressive monument to his memory. Placed atop a massive 10-foot base is a life-size statue of Reuel Colt Gridley and his famous sack of flour. The base is inscribed “Reuel Colt Gridley. The Soldiers’ Friend.” A more truly appropriate epitaph could not have been used.
By February 1869 Paradise City had added a 28 foot by 40 foot brick school house, the new Hendrick’s Hotel, and W. J. Houston’s two-story mercantile building to its list of structures. W. J. Ross and Stephen Rogers had taken over the ferry and were running it free to the public. Washington’s birthday and Independence Day of 1869 were the occasions for two grand balls at Hendrick’s Hotel.
About the last Incident of historical record that occurred in Paradise City was the famous Rooney-Cockery homicide. Michael Rooney was the town blacksmith, while Thomas Cockery was the local butcher. They were very close friends, and the night of Dec. 20, 1869, they went to John Brickman’s Saloon for a few friendly libations. As the evening wore on, what started as a friendly argument wound up in a fight. Rooney thrashed Cockery severley who went home, fetched a gun, and returned to the saloon to shoot Rooney dead.
The advent of the Central Pacific Railroad and the founding of Modesto In 1870 tolled the death knell of Paradise City, as well as Tuolumne City. The town’s population dwindled almost overnight. Whole buildings were moved to the new metropolis, and what could not be moved in its entirety was torn down and rebuilt to form the nucleus of Modesto. Paradise City lost not only the post office, but the Ross House, the Ross Stable, the two-story Houston store, Brickman’s Saloon, Bastin’s Hall and others. All that remained was the flour mill and a large warehouse at the steamer landing. With the end of riverboat traffic and the closing of the flour mill, Paradise City had disappeared completely by 1895. Today it is a part of the vastly sprawling city of Modesto, and all that remains to remind us of it is the name Paradise Road.
