The Museum of Many Other Things

When the 20th century ended, there was hopeful news for the Hotel Marysville. Writer Eric Vodden of the Appeal Democrat captured the history dating back to its opening as he quoted new hotel owner Bruce Porter as he explained his vision. Just about everyone had a vision for the Hotel Marysville but no one, it seemed, had the cash...

Resharing because because because because because, because of the wondderful guy he was. We're off to see Harry Hooper...

"Of Yuba Dam the story's told..."

Yuba Dam Once More! | Folklife Today In a previous post, I took a look at the song “Yuba Dam,” in which a man gets in trouble with his wife and the law by answering questions honestly with the words “Yuba Dam,” only to be repeatedly misheard as saying “you be damned.” In this post, I’ll look in...

A COVID era video brought to you by Yuba-Sutter Arts explores the pesky issue of missing monuments in Marysville. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUOyy5iacV8

"The Multifarious Mystery of Marysville's Missing Monuments" Five monuments tell a story of Marysville. But what happens if they are missing? Have some fun with Chuck Smith as he portrays the U.S. Supreme Court Justice...

There must have been a lot of head scratching going on. It was February 5, 1923, when bones dug from the bottom of Ellis Lake were identified as either an extinct Diplodocus or an extinct Glyptodon. The announcement came in an article in the February 6, 1923 edition of The Marysville Appeal. At the end of that story, the man who unearthed the bones said they looked like the remains of a young cow, perhaps a Holstein.

This is the most comprehensive video documentary of the events leading up to you, and the results of, a levee failure that killed more than three dozen people in Yuba City and the farmland to the south in the early morning hours of Christmas Eve, 1955

1955 Sutter County Flood Documentary On December 24, 1955, just four minutes past midnight, a levee broke along the Feather River south of Yuba City, flooding 90 percent of Yuba City and farms a...

Marysville merchants were the driving force for a Christmas Party in the two movie theaters in 1949, and for a new endeavor, a parade, in 1950. Oh, Kristmas Karnival with 15 foot tall balloons.

For 10,000 years, only Maidu hunted and lived at what is today Marysville and Yuba City. A few Spanish explorers came within miles of the confluence of the Yuba and Feather rivers in the first decades of the 19th century, but it wasn't until March of 1828, when a party of trappers led by an American, Jedediah Smith, crossed the Yuba River from the south, that the first non-natives arrived here.
Smith is known for mapping much of the American West before he was killed by Comanches in what is today southwest Kansas. What is less known is that long before the names Yuba and Feather were applied to the rivers where he was camping, he gave them other names.
Earl Ramey's 1935 book, "The Beginnings of Marysville," described Smith's arrival in a chapter called "The First Visitor" by quoting from Smith's diary:
"14th March I made my calculations for crossing the fork which came from the East on the Morrow. To this river [the Yuba] I gave the Indian name Hen neet...
"15th March I went with the trappers across the Hen neet and directed them to encamp near where they would set their traps. I recrossed to camp. A considerable number of indians crossed the River a short distance below. 14 Beaver taken.
"16th March Moved N E about 1 mile up the river and crossed over above the forks without any difficulty by the help of my skin canoe in which my goods were carried over, the horses swimming. The indians near my camp still continue friendly and were singing when I left. 12 Beaver taken.
"17th March I went with the trappers 8 or 10 Miles up the River [the present Feather] which came from the North and united with the Hen neet near my camp. To this River I gave the name Yaloo which was the name I applied to the indians of the village last visited [probably the Hocks on the west bank of the Feather]. We found but little Beaver sign as far as we went up the river. I passed two indian villages of 20 or 25 dirt lodges each the inhabitants were much alarmed at our approach but after some time I prevailed on them to come to me and take some presents."
Jedediah Smith and his trappers remained in the area about 10 days, according to Ramey. It would be another dozen years before the Maidu in the vicinity of Marysville encountered any other "visitors," when John Sutter came up the Feather River after acquiring a grant of land from the Mexican government, which had little interest in a region heavily populated with natives and prone to flooding.
Pictured: A drawing of Jedediah Smith made from memory by one of his friends after Smith's death.

Last Friday, August 6, was the 171st anniversary of the first edition of the first newspaper in Marysville.

Below is the first editorial from the first edition of the first newspaper in Marysville, published August 6, 1850. Editor R.H. Taylor was bullish on Marysville, and his Marysville Herald vowed to be independent in politics but not neutral on issues.

He describes the situation in California still waiting on statehood, citing delays as the result of Californians preferring a free state to a slave state. Five weeks after this editorial is published, California's wait to enter the union is ended.

The piece is called "Our First Leader," but Taylor was not referring to a person. He was being very literal: this is his first lead editorial; it states the paper's purpose and how it intended to do its work.

"Our First Leader:
"Now, leaders, as a general thing, are particularly dull affairs, tedious to the reader, and irksome to the writer. But though “brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the outward limbs and flourishes,” yet we must have our say, even if we cannot therein be brief, and although we may subject ourselves to the charge of being tedious.
"Having made our best bow, therefore, we will at once enter upon the subject about which we desire to say a few words, hoping that they may lead to the reader’s and our better acquaintance.
"After a long exercise of patience under the delay to which we have been subjected, we are enabled to lay before our fellow citizens, the first number of the Marysville Herald. Our intention to publish a paper here was announced so long ago that we fear our friends, as well as ourselves, have had their patience overtaxed.
"Peculiar circumstances have prevented our appearance so soon as we had anticipated. But here we are. We have taken possession of our “stamping ground,” and it shall not be for want of strenuous exertion on our part if we do not run a goodly race.
"A word or two as to our position, and the course we intend to pursue.
"In politics we shall be independent, lending all the influence in our power to the advancement of every public good, without regard to the party by whom it may be originated. We shall strongly advocate whatever shall seem to us to be “for the greatest good of the greatest number:”
"In reviewing the acts of public men, we shall “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” giving every man his meed of praise for well-doing, and being withheld by no fear from expressing a condemnation of wrong, however lofty the position of him who perpetuates it.
"The political aspect of affairs in our new State requires sound heads and true hearts; better for her will it be, in our humble judgment, if the wranglings of party be quieted and subdued by a lofty zeal to enhance the political virtue of the commonwealth, by placing in political power, men of known integrity of principle, of high honor and intellectual worth, whether they be avowedly Whigs or Democrats. For ourselves, we shall not ask, when a candidate is presented for our suffrages, --Is he a Democrat? Is he a Whig? Bur rather, is he a man whose honor and capability are equal to the office he solicits? Is he one to whom we can confide, and to whom we can look as an able advocate for the people, and of the people’s rights? Is he friend to California for her own sake, and not for the sake of her loaves and fishes? Worth, not partizanship, should be the test; therefore, should we speak in view of an election, of the merits of candidates, it shall be of their merits, not of their party fealty. After election, we shall judge of their course by the same test.
"The anomalous attitude in which our State, (for it is a State, without a State’s rights and privileges,) now stands in reference to the Union, is lamentable and vexatious. California is without a territorial government—she becomes, in an incredibly short space of time peopled by industrious, law-abiding citizens, but she is without law—American citizens are cut off from the protection of law at home, and they are without its protection here; they wait for Congress to give them a government, but they wait in vain; with true Anglo-American zeal they set to work themselves—they frame a Constitution, not differing in any essential particulars from those of nine tenths of the old States, and they put into active and successful operation all the machinery of a state government.
They elect their representatives to the Council of the Nation, and they send them to the Seat of the General Government to ask the admission of California as one of the States of the Union. They have every confidence that they will be admitted to a seat in the great Family Circle; but lo! a little innocent article of their Constitution is the great stone at the entrance, and they are shut out from the communion. And what is it? Simply that the vox populi of California has declared that she shall be a free State. This powerful little provision of the Constitution raises a fearful storm, which shakes the tree of Union to its very roots!
"How long the storm is to continue, Heaven only knows, but we have no fear of the result. We are not alarmists; we do not apprehend any danger to the perpetuation of the Union. We say therefore, let the storm rage! And, when its fury is spent, we shall see the political atmosphere clearer and brighter than before, and the sun of harmony shine forth in pristine glory!
"In the meantime, California must arm herself with all the powers of endurance and patience which the peculiarity of her situation demands, and though she may suffer in the contest that is waging, and though delay may stretch her patience to the utmost tension, she cannot fail to reap a rich harvest of blessings for its exercise. Let her raise no cry of Disunion! Let her be true to herself, and true to the common bond which binds in one holy embrace the great American Brotherhood!
"With what ability we possess and what fitness we can, we shall urge the speedy consummation of our hopes as a State, and as an integral portion of that Union we have all been taught to revere.
"We have chosen Marysville as a home, for more than one consideration. Placing the most selfish one, then, first; we have chosen it because we deemed it to our pecuniary advantage to do so; believing that the importance of the place required just such an undertaking as we propose to ourselves and that consequently its citizens would liberally support it. In this we hope and trust we shall not be disappointed. Certainly, towns in California of less magnitude and importance, have already their newspapers, and it will be a wonder if Marysville do(es) not maintain one. Another reason for our taking up a residence here was a preference for its climate over that more uncongenial one in which we have been living, since our advent to California. (We hope our San Francisco friends will forgive us!) This reason was, if anything, paramount in our mind, to that first stated. Then, (but our modesty almost forbids the expression,) we came here because we thought we could be of some service, not only to the town of Marysville, but to this section of the country generally. We shall therefore be jealous of its prosperity, and advocate those interests in a becoming manner and spirit.
"We deem the present prosperity of Marysville to be but the dawn of a more brilliant and lasting career in the future, and we shall be most happy, if any exertions of ours can aid in making that prosperity permanent, and bringing her bright prospects to a rapid development.
We shall aim to make our sheet a medium of correct information from the Northern Mines, and have made such arrangements as will secure us authentic statements in reference to mining, and items of news from the diggings. We invite, also, to further this end, communications from the miners themselves.
"A synopsis of the most important news from distant portions of this State will be given; we shall also keep our citizens and the miners advised of matters of interest occurring in the Atlantic States, by publishing a summary of news upon the arrival of every steamer from Panama.
"The merchants of San Francisco and Sacramento City have in our sheet a ready means of making themselves known to business men here, and in the many flourishing towns on Feather and Yuba Rivers; also in the mines, where permanent agencies of this paper will be established. Look to it gentlemen, that you do not neglect to embrace the opportunity, of which you yourselves know the advantage.
"In all things, and under all circumstances, the Marysville Herald will be independent, but not neutral. Our voice (be it feeble or powerful,) will be heard upon all matters of public interest; but we sincerely trust that we shall never be found battling for the wrong, upholding abuses, or promulgating error. Whatever opinions we may feel called upon to express, shall at all events, be from a firm conviction of their justice; and whatever degree of force our opinions may carry with them we shall be satisfied if they tend to good. We shall strive to make the Herald worthy of the interests which it will advocate, and of the support of those whose goodwill it shall be our pride to obtain."

It's a Saturday in May, 1960, and it's time for the weekly "Rough Notes & Casual Thoughts" column in The Appeal-Democrat. There are two Socialists registered in Yuba County, and two Prohibitionists, Chiseler's Inn is getting a photo of the last hanging in Yuba County, Cotton Rosser is in third place in Team Roping, and faster bar service is demanded at Plumas Lake Golf Club.

Youboom City?
There’s an historical debate over the derivation of the name Yuba City. And the most interesting piece of evidence presented in the debate appears in the Memorial Museum of Sutter County’s book on Yuba City history.
Many believe the name Yuba, given to a county on the east side of the Feather River, a city on the west side of the river, and to a river that empties into the Feather River, comes from the Spanish word uvas, pronounced u-bas, for the grapes which grew wild along the river’s banks.
But the name which appeared on the first map of the town was Yubu City, and it was written that way to preserve the original Indian name of the native village located across from the confluence of the two rivers, according to Earl Ramey, a World War I veteran who indexed 100 years of local newspapers and wrote several histories of the area.
According to “Yuba City, Our Home Town,” Ramey said the native Californians pronounced the name Yubum (Youboom). It wasn’t until the Gold Rush that newcomers changed the name to Yuba, disregarding a pronunciation that had likely existed for centuries.
Several histories claim the Spanish explorers who were among the first foreigners to encounter the Sacramento Valley—the same ones who named the Sutter Buttes Los Tres Picos and the Feather River Rio de las Plumas— named the Yuba River as well.
The Museum’s book offers an alternative version of events, and it quotes an Aug. 30, 1850 letter to the Marysville Herald. In the letter, Sutter claims to have discovered the name of the village located at what would become Yuba City—Yubu, he said, and it was pronounced, “Yuboo.”
Sutter told the editor of the Marysville newspaper that he named the river Yubu, after the native village, and that “the river does not derive its name from the Spanish name of the vines which shroud its banks, nor is the name of that river Yuba or Uba as my friend (General Mariano) Vallejo supposes but Yuba which cannot be derived from uvas.
Its true origin not withstanding, Yuba City it became. And in a bit of cruel irony, not many years ago a reggae band on its way to Chico called into a radio station to announce they were running late for an on-air interview. When the DJ asked where they were at that moment, one of the band members said, “Some place called why you be a city?”
Perhaps someone should have dropped the Youboom on them…
One other note to this story. The natives had their own names for the river, too, according to a diary kept by Jedidiah Smith, whose trapping party may have comprised the first Europeans and Americans to visit what we now call Yuba City and Marysville in March of 1828. Those names: the Hen-neet for the river now bearing the moniker of Yuba, and Yaloo for the river now called Feather.
Yuba City: Our Home Town is available at the incredible Sutter County Museum book store.

What does the lost continent of Atlantis have to do with Marysville? And how did the Cortez Room get its name?

One of the tens of thousands who came to California in the Gold Rush was French archeologist, photographer, and author Augustus Le Plongeon. He may have arrived on the steamship Linda, but at what was then sometimes called Yubaville, sometimes New Mecklenburg, and more often Nye's Rancho, he was hired to survey and map a city.

Following his brief time in California, he became one of the first archeologists to photograph the pre-Colombian ruins of America, particularly those of the Maya civilization on the northern Yucatan Peninsula. His hypothesis that the Maya sites in the Yucatan were the cradle of civilization, with civilization then traveling east, first to Atlantis and then to Egypt, were derided by his peers and earned him a reputation as one of the early proponents of Mayanism, described as an eclectic collection of New Age beliefs influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology. (Think 2012.)

He was only 23 when he landed at the confluence of the Yuba and Feather rivers. What follows is a description of his work here by Marysville historian Earl Ramey, in "The Beginnings of Marysville":

"During the same month as the arrival of the Linda, the partners of Covillaud and Company employed a French surveyor named Auguste LePlongeon to lay out a town on the site of Cordua's headquarters, including his gardens, corrals, and some of his wheat fields. It is quite probable that this French surveyor, about whom we know very little excepting that after he left Marys­ville he engaged in archaeological work in Yucatan, was responsible for giving Marysville a plan which is to be found in few American cities founded before 1850. At the water's edge a space had been allotted as a temporary rest­ing place for merchandise between the time when it was unloaded from boats until it could be packed on mule-back. This space was conveniently located beside the group of three adobe houses which were used as the trading post and residence of the proprietors. This unloading space was reserved as a plaza and was officially designated as such. The surveyor, evidently with Paris or some other similar French city in mind, ran a broad street north from this plaza twenty blocks in length to the city limits. At the tenth block on this "Champs Elysees," but which is designated as "E" street, he established a "Place de Ia Concorde'' of octagonal shape which occupied half of four square blocks. This was called Washington Square. Through this square at right angles to "E" street he ran another wide boulevard on which at "J" street he provided a second generous octagonal space with the designation of Lafayette Square. Alas, the succeeding generations of citizens did not respect this Frenchman's plan; one of these squares today is unkempt and devoted to carnivals and circuses, while the other has been given over largely to the Southern Pacific for a turning "Y" and switching tracks for the industrial area. Three public buildings have been erected on its border but have been backed up to it rather than faced upon it. Only two or three residences have been made to face on what no doubt was designed as a community center. Eight other squares each of an entire block were distributed through the city. Only five of these are maintained, although all of them are yet retained by the city. The greatest tragedy for the city plan was the necessary destruction of the original plaza for the construction of a levee which was run along the waterfront street in later years."

The Cortez Room? Well, it is just down the street from one of Le Plongeon's squares, Cortez Square, named after the famous explorer, the location in 1858 of the last California State Fair other than Sacramento, and currently occupied by the Courthouse and Jail.

Pictured: Augustus Le Plongeon, presumably somewhere in the Yucatan, from the Getty Research Institute's digital collection of his work.

At one time, the streets of Marysville were among the best in California--better than any city other than San Francisco, according to some. This item from the Marysville Daily Appeal, Tuesday morning, January 14, 1862, also mentions the 1861 construction of the sewer system, which may be the genesis for the claims there are "tunnels" under much of Marysville. The winter of 1861-62 was the winter of a super flood that inundated much of California, but Marysville came out relatively well.

Friday, October 2, 1970 feature article in The Appeal-Democrat describes from beginning to end (well, at least until 1970) the efforts that have gone into trying to freshen the slough, a portion of which became Ellis Lake, before filling it in. Turns out the lake park and the ball park constructed in 1939 were mostly paid for with Works Projects Administration funds provided to the city by the federal government to pay for public works projects. This kept about 80 people employed for almost an entire year.

The Marysville City Cemetery is the oldest city-owned cemetery west of the Mississippi River, and there are about as many people buried there as there are current residents of the city. Among the interred are gold miners of a variety of national origins, a U.S. Ambassador to Japan, one of the brothers who founded the first Macy's store in the United States in Marysville, the first African-American mayor of a California city, the crew of a steam ship that exploded in the Feather River, a stage coach driver who tangled with Black Bart (there's a contemporary argument the bandit himself is buried there), survivors of the Donner Party, and City founder Charles Covillaud. Vandalism of the cemetery is about as old as the cemetery itself. This is from the Friday, May 29, 1959 edition of The Appeal-Democrat, reporting on 30 head stones vandalized.

Merium Marjory Murphy Johnson Covillaud gave more to Marysville than her name. Perhaps because she was part of the Donner Party, whose survivors ate their dead to outlast a cruel winter trapped in the Sierra Nevada three years before Marysville was established, she devoted much of the remainder of her life to taking care of the sick and homeless.
“…From all I have been told of her, she was one of California’s first social workers,” said a frequent letter writer in The Marysville Appeal in 1871. “ Although she had servants in her home to send on her errands of mercy, she always went herself to carry what was needed to the poor, and with her own hands cared for and nursed the sick.”
Mary Murphy was 14 when her family of 13 headed for California in April of 1846. The Murphys, from Weakley County, Kentucky, were the second largest family, after the Donners, attempting the arduous journey from Missouri, across the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, into California. Six of the family died on the trip, one by accidental gun shot, the others due to starvation.
The majority of Americans who migrated to California after gold was discovered were men. But those who migrated prior to gold discovery included families seeking new opportunities.
In 1896, Mary’s brother William G. Murphy, who went on to become the City’s attorney, gave a speech in Marysville describing the lure of California.
“In 1845 we heard wonderful stories of a wonderful country in the far West, between the Pacific Ocean and Rocky mountains, a country of salubrious climate, perennial spring time indeed, of deep and inexhaustible soil; why they said that wheat grew wild higher than a man’s head, and the Mexican Government that exercised some kind of control over it, would grant land to settlers. So my mother, as a widow, with seven children, two sons-in-law and three grandchildren, suggested that we emigrate to the far off fairy land.”
The journey to far off California by the Murphys and the rest of the families in what became known as the Donner Party was always going to be difficult at best. But inexperience, a wrong turn, squabbling, homicide, all played a role in slowing their progress. On the evening of October 31, 1846, approximately 85 emigrants became trapped in the snow near a mountain peak in the Sierra Nevada, their food supply of oxen and cattle badly diminished in raids by Indians, and a long, harsh winter ahead.
In a letter mailed home from the “California Teritory” dated May 25, 1847, Mary described events, including the accidental shooting of one of her sister’s husbands by the husband of another sister, the loss of her brother, Lemeul, and her mother, Lavinah, and the 10 men and five women who set out over the summit in search of help. “It was on the last day of October. We was then about 2 hundred miles from the settlements that evening it commenced to snowing. In three days we got to the dividing ridge of the Sierra Nevada or snowy range of the California Mountains. It was snowing so that we could not find the road and we stopped by the mountain lake. It snowed 2 weeks. It was beyond hope almost for us to go so we killed what few cattle we had left. We made several attempts to go on foot but the snow was soft and we would almost sink to our neck. After we had been there 2 or 3 months a company of ten men and five women went over on snow shoes. Foster, Sarah, Harite [Harriett] and Lemuel was in this company. They ware thirty days coming 100 miles. They starved till they ware so weak that they could not stand up and they lived on thare friends that ware dying every day. Lemuel died among the rest. There was but 2 men got through. Foster was one that got through. All the women got through and a company went out after the rest that were in the mountains. When they got there half the company had starved to death and Landrum, George and little Catherine, Harriettes baby and my poor ill fated and persecuted Mother was all dead. William, Simon, Naomi and myself came through but as for me I have nothing to live for, a poor orphan, Motherless and almost friendless. Charlotte, you have been the companion of all my thoughts now just think of me in a strange country and to think on my poor Mother and brother that are dead, their bodies to feed the hungry bears and wolves for there was no burying them the snow was so deep. This is a very small sketch of what we have sufard [suffered] but I hope I shall not live long for I am tired of this troublesome world and want to go to my Mother. I know that she is in a better world. I must close these few lines. This is for all my friends and relations. I have not mind enough to word a letter. I will bid you all a long and perhaps a last farwell.”
After being rescued in February of 1847, Mary married William Johnson, who owned Johnson’s Rancho in present day Wheatland. But she soon divorced him, complaining of his abuse, and later married Charles Covillaud, who had purchased a part of John Sutter’s land grant. That property became known as Marysville, named after her on January 18, 1850. She died in 1867, at the age of 36, and is buried in the Catholic cemetery across Highway 70 from the Marysville City Cemetery.

January 21, 1978, Appeal-Democrat. Good thing he left early to help his wife at the snack bar.

January 23, 1960, Appeal-Democrat. Turns out the mighty peach was here before the first gold miner...have a peachy day.

The day James Cagney fished the Bypass. Appeal-Democrat, July 13, 1953.

"FISHERMAN--James Cagney, Hollywood movie star, was in Yuba City today with friends, where he purchased a fishing license and inquired about the best fishing spots. Cagney, who bought his license at Bremer's Hardware store, told clerks he has a new spinning reel he wants to try out and was sent to the bypass area to fish."

Marysville was the last location for the California State Fair anywhere other than Sacramento. From the California State Fair website: "The California State Fair may have grown into one of the most popular events in America today, but its origins go all the way back to October 4, 1854. That was the starting date of the first California State Fair, which was held at the Music Hall on Bush Street in San Francisco. The event, which was designed to emulate the titanic world fairs and state fairs on the east coast, was supposed to call a different city host every year. So in 1855, it was Sacramento’s turn, and then San Jose in 1856, Stockton in 1857, and Marysville in 1858."

The fair was conducted over the course of five days in Cortez Square, in the block bounded by B Street and C Street, Fifth Street and Sixth Street. Among those in attendance, reportedly, was Kit Carson, but two individuals of significance with more roots in Marysville were Warren Miller and Edward Duplex.

Miller was a prominent architect and inventor, who designed Yuba County's first courthouse, his own home which is now the Mary Aaron Museum, the spire of St. Joseph's Catholic Church, and the agricultural pavilion used for the state fair. He won $450 in prize money for three inventions he brought to the fair: a self-regulating windmill, a tractor-crawler, and an excavator-grader pulled behind the tractor. He became wealthy inventing replaceable teeth for industrial saw blades.

Duplex moved to California in his early twenties from Connecticut, where he was born to free African-American parents. He operated the Sweet Vengeance Mine at Brownsville, and ran the Metropolitan Barber Shop on D Street for two decades. At the fair, he hired seven barbers who cut fairgoers' hair. In 1888, he was elected mayor of Wheatland, the first African-American elected mayor of a city west of the Rockies.

The pavilion designed by Miller, and the original courthouse, are both gone. In the 1960s, Yuba County constructed a new courthouse over Cortez Square, and the original courthouse was razed.