An interesting component in Fruit Growers’ box factories. This press imprinted box shook with the name of Sunkist or the names California Fruit Growers Exchange, the co-operative marketing company of the citrus growers.
Tim
Toll Roads of Lassen
Last week we explored the Red Bluff-Honey Lake Toll Road. For some odd reason, in 1866 saw the creation of two toll road companies—Gold Run Road Toll Road and the Honey Lake-Black Rock Toll Road, depicted in the above illustration. These proposals were doomed from the beginning. Both routes were already existing public roads, so there was no incentive by public to pay a toll.
The last toll road proposal was that of the Big Valley Toll Road Company of 1871. The individuals behind it were attempting to capitalize from the traffic going to the Hayden Hill mines. Just like their predecessors it was impossible to enforce a toll on an existing road.
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The 1-0-1 Cemetery
This is a private cemetery located on the former 101 Ranch, near Coppervale. In 1864, David Johnson and his family came to California. While en-route to the Sacramento Valley, his wife Martha, who died on October 12, 1864 at Devil’s Corral. Johnson transported her body to Mountain Meadows and buried her at this location. On September 26, 1884, Johnson’s son Ralph was buried there. David Johnson, who was better known as “Peg-leg” and for whom a nearby mountain is named after him was buried in this cemetery in 1904.
Of note, I never know where I locate certain photographs. I was not expecting to find the above photograph in the archives of Lassen Volcanic National Park.
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Herman Brince, Photographer
Herman Brince was a photographer in Lassen, Modoc and Plumas counties during 1878-79. I have always been impressed with his photographs, though only dozen or so are known to be existence. Whatever, became of his negatives is unknown, but we do know that he died in New Zealand in 1882.
Fortunately, the Nevada Historical Society in their collections had these two Brince photographs of Adin and Cedarville. There are newspaper references of photographs that Brince took. In 1878, Brince did a portfolio of 25 scenes of what would become Lassen Volcanic National Park. One of these was Malgin’s Sheep Camp, known today as Drakesbad. However, known of these photographs have been found.
This 1879 photograph of the Susanville Masonic Hall is another Brince photograph. This I found on Ebay and which I purchased for a tidy sum. I inquired with the seller how he acquired the photograph, which he informed at a yard sale in San Francisco. One never knows, where something might surface. On a final note, the above photograph is the only known one in existence of Susanville’s original Masonic Lodge.
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In Search of Painter’s Grave
First a little background. For those not familiar, Painters Flat is a remote location in northeast Lassen County, not far from the Nevada border. It was so named after Alexander A. Painter who died and is buried there. On June 19, 1860, Painter was part of a posse after a band of renegade Indians who killed Horace Adams in the Honey Lake Valley. They followed the Indians’ tracks north to the Madeline Plains. From there, they headed east through a canyon. Just before entering a valley there, they were ambushed by the Indians, Alexander A. Painter was mortally wounded. Painter’s body was moved a mile northeast from where he died. He was buried there beneath a cedar tree.
Fast forward to the mid-1990s. Terry Mallery and I made several expeditions there in search of Painter’s grave. We used the Lander’s written account of the event for reference. We struck out. In the spring of 2020, Brent Espil sent me the above photograph, with the question, “Is this Painter’s grave?”. Unfortunately, I do not have an answer.
Coming soon in search of another grave expedition in the Smoke Creek Desert.
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How Cold?
It has been some time since this region has experienced prolonged sub zero temperatures, which is fine with me. When it does get that cold things happen. In January 1949, the temperatures plummeted to nearly thirty degrees below zero at Westwood. The millpond froze. When the Red River Lumber Company designed the facility, they placed piping from the powerhouse that forced steam air directly into the millpond near the sawmill. This system was no match for Mother Nature. To keep the mill operating it was necessary to use dynamite to blast loose the logs in the millpond. Continue reading How Cold?
Jensen/Sifford Water Wheel
Fortunately, I happen to have a copy of Mary Eloise Sifford Thomas’ unpublished memoir, My Girlhood on the Ranch. She wrote this back in 1974 at the urging of family members. She was born on the family ranch on November 20, 1892, the oldest five. The Tom Sifford Ranch was in the vicinity of the intersection of Main Street and Johnstonville Road. She noted at the time of her birth, the family lived two miles from Susanville.
Anyhow, from her memoir, it is the only account about this water wheel. Mary wrote: “I will have to tell about our water wheel. It was in the branch of the Susan River that ran through our ranch, half-way between our place and Winchester’s. We loved the old water wheel. It turned a big drum with a heavy belt on it. It carried small galvanized buckets that dumped water into a wooden trough and it ran out into a ditch to irrigate the alfalfa. We used to take little picnic lunches out there and sit and watch the wheel turn.”
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Your Tuesday Tidbit—A Volunteer
This view of the east end of Susanville was taken in 1951. A lot of changes had taken place in the last seventy years. I know there are a few readers who have drones. If you happen to be one of them, and if you are up to the challenge to take a similar view, so. everyone can see the difference, that would be great.
Tim
The Never Sweat Name Enduring Legacy
For whatever reason, the Honey Lakers embraced the monicker of Never Sweats. By the 1870s, visitors and new residents were perplexed by this name and some of them attempted to decipher its meaning. In 1878, one writer, who used the pseudonym of Rover, observed what a Never Sweat was not. “Honey Lakers are here designated Never Sweats.
Why not because of laziness, sickness or old age, nor previous
condition of servitude, not for lack of possession of time or money; not from any physical imperfections, imaginary or real. It is no doubt a political or religious peculiarity.”
The term would drift in and out like the tides. However, when Asa Fairfield published his Pioneer History of Lassen County in 1916, he proclaimed Honey Lake Valley as the Land of the Never Sweats forever cementing the name in the area’s history. Since then, numerous organizations have used that name, and in 2000 in part of the City of Susanville’s Centennial used the slogan of Land of the Never Sweats.
There is, of course, a landmark the Never Sweat Hills in eastern Honey Lake Valley on the Nevada side. Hopefully, one fine day I will make out there. It has best example of the lakeshore terrace effect from the receding waters of the ancient inland sea known as Lake Lahontan. Another feature near there, worth exploring again is Max’s Masoleum—another story for another time.
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The origins of the Never Sweat Name
Whether you are an old timer, or a recent arrival, Honey Lake Valley is referred to the “Land of the Never Sweats.” Surprisingly, very few are aware of the origin of the name and its meaning. So as a public service I provide you with my research findings, that a visit to a museum in Victoria, British Columbia and some library research at Twin Falls, Idaho provided the following revelation.
For starters, it was an obscure mining term of the early 1860s. To be a Never Sweat was considered to be a non-conformist. In Nevada, for instance, one could hold an interest in a mining claim and not work it. One could wait for others to prove the claim. Should the prospects be favorable, the Never Sweat could recover his interest by paying an advance on the accumulated costs. In 1865, Nevada passed an “Act for the Encouragement of Mining.” That change in laws abolished the practice of a Never Sweat and the term faded into oblivion, with the exception of the bestowment on the Honey Lakers.
It was the Honey Lakers who used the Never Sweat practice in the political arena. A perfect example was in 1860, when the Honey Lakers petitioned California Governor M.S. Latham, requesting military assistance during the Pyramid Lake Indian War. Yet, at the same time, they refused to pay California taxes, claiming they were a part of the Utah Territory.
By 1863, the Honey Lakers were designated as the Never Sweats. The Humboldt Register of Unionville, Nevada of June 27, 1863, wrote about the Honey Lakers at the Prince Royal Mining District: “It is surpassing strange that these hard working callous backed gentlemen should answer the honest inquiry with a sneer and say there was a place somewhere in the mountains by the name of Prince Royal, but so little repute they had actually forgotten it for the moment. . .Because they were owned by a parcel of Honey Lake ‘never-sweats’! Ha! Ha! What a pity.”
Tomorrow: The terms enduring legacy
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