THE REDWOODS AS REFUGE

"Ten minutes from the plumes of surf rolling in on the crescent beach with its hundreds of bathers in front of the Casino at Santa Cruz, and the motor carries one into the midst of the Redwood, into the great Fremont Grove of Big Trees and into that mysterious twilight of the gods which reigns perpetually under these giants of the forest."

 

California Views No. 8 Redwood Trees, Santa Cruz Mountains - Library of Congress

"Thirty centuries look down from some of these great trees upon puny human beings. No wonder people try to be of consequence and tack up their futile visiting cards in the hollow trunk of a great Sequoia. The cosmic quiet of these temples of the woods affords healing to shattered nerves and world-worn spirits. There is no rustling among the branches of the big trees, for the Sequoias stand firm and unmovable, there is only the (sibilant) crunch of the needles with which the floor of the forest is carpeted. Somehow the spirit of the red man seems to (descend) upon one in these marvelous groves. One grows impatient of the trammels of civilization. The habits of the man pack seem contemptible and the forest calls with an (insistent) droning song and something in one's self, older than civilization, wakes up and demands recognition."

 

"Further investigation into the mountains, and one enters into the very heart of the wild woods — one moment great vistas of blue peaks and mountain ranges, and then one is all screened in with green and growing things. Ferns as high as a man's head, enormous sword - like fronds, ever green tree and shrub in Nature's wild gardens, the tender beauty of wild flowers lining the canyons. Looking down, down, down, one sees a river tumbling over the rocks, crystal clear. There is the sound of waterfalls, and way below are people fishing, and catch the limit of trout, they say, any day, for if the supply ever should run short there is the State fish hatchery near by and the little streams are stocked continually …"

 

"One finds hundreds of little cottages through the Santa Cruz mountains close besides the Redwoods. Mary Pickford has a house up there, but it is only a ‘movie’ house, a front and nothing more. The divine little Mary stayed at Santa Cruz while the Romance of the Redwoods was taken, and the scene was set here for ‘Freckles’ in which (her brother Jack) … took the title role."

 

Motion Picture Magazine, July 1917

"The California Big Trees or the Fremont Grove containing the biggest trees in the world, so the guide informs us, is only six miles from Santa Cruz by motor or by the Southern Pacific train which runs right along the edge as it comes from San Francisco … Many of the trees in this grove are from fifty to sixty feet in circumference and two to three hundred feet tall."

 

Photoplay, September 1919

In March 1916 Mary Pickford and a movie crew of twenty-five arrived in Santa Cruz to commence filming Romance of the Redwoods. The story revolved around an orphaned girl who comes to California during the gold rush only to learn upon arrival that her uncle was killed and his identity was stolen by an outlaw. The young film star and her entourage resided at the Casa del Rey hotel and motored each morning up to the Big Trees for filming. The following year Mary came again to Santa Cruz, but this time to visit her brother who was filming the movie Freckles. When the media caught a glimpse of her, they noted that she had cut off her beloved trademark curls. When Mary tried to dodge the media, they responded by reporting that "America’s Sweetheart" was now a snob. Fortunately, her brother had developed a friendship with a local reporter, Josephine Clifford McCrackin. He even referred to Mrs. McCrackin as "Grandma". Jack privately told Mrs. McCrackin that his sister was depressed already because her studio had ended her script approval and her recent films were flops. Jack encouraged Mrs. McCrackin to befriend Mary, which she happily did. Mary confided to her new friend that arguments with her alcoholic husband led her to Santa Cruz for some needed refuge. McCrackin arranged a Reception Ball for the movie star and in an "outpouring of affection, Mary announced she had made McCrackin her adopted grandmother." The two ladies remained life long friends. 

 

Source: “The Convention City – Santa Cruz,” The Retail Growers Advocate, [California Grocers Association], August 31, 1917; “’Strawberry Flat’ in the Redwoods,” San Bernardino County Sun, June 28, 1917; “’America’s Sweetheart Made Santa Cruz News,” by Ross Eric Gibson, Santa Cruz Sentinel, July 26, 1998.

 

 

 

 

 

 

COLORFUL ENCOUNTER

 

Author's Personal Collection

A visitor on his way to Big Trees Grove in 1913 documented a colorful encounter along the San Lorenzo Canyon route.

"As I was eating my lunch by a spring beside the road, a sound of shouting began to come up out of the canon. It was in a peculiar sing-song drawl, and came nearer and nearer until, when it arrived close to where I sat, I stood up to see what phenomenon was about to appear. There was a creaking and crackling of underbrush, and then the heads of a yoke of oxen rose above the level of the road, and so remained while two pairs of solemn eyes took stock of me and my companion. Gradually six yoke emerged, followed by a man with a goad, who was the author of the melancholy music, and then by a wagon and trailer on which was a single huge log of redwood. They went quartering about from side to side of the road, and when four similar processions had followed them, and they had all come to anchor, the hubbub ceased, half the oxen lay down, and the drivers gathered at the spring for the noon meal. They were swarthy, bullet-headed fellows, and proved all to be Portuguese, speaking no English, so that our conversation was limited. However, it was full of good-will, expressed in a friendly interchange of wine and tobacco."

I personally find this description compelling because I am half Portuguese. Though I do not know of any loggers or lime workers in my family background (so far I only know of dairy farmers), the description of this encounter along Big Trees Road hints at an important part of the history of the Santa Cruz Mountains and the San Lorenzo Valley.

Workers at the Cowell Ranch lime kilns, circa 1890-1910 - Special Collections, University of California, Santa Cruz

Initially the lime industry's labor force was entirely composed of English, Irish, Scottish, and Canadian laborers, primarily from the lime region of Maine. By 1880, Azorean Portuguese immigrants composed most of the lime workforce. The second largest contingent of lime workers were Swiss-Italian while Irish immigrants dominated management positions.*

The Azores Islands are a nine-island volcanic archipelago located 700 miles from the coast of Portugal. By the mid-1600s the islands became overpopulated. As food shortages and poverty increased, a wave of immigration to the New World commenced. By the early nineteenth century, American whaling ships regularly stopped at the Azores to resupply and soon the Portuguese became a large part of the whaling profession. The first Azorean Portuguese in California were those who jumped whaling vessels in the ports of Monterey and San Francisco. By 1880 California was home to 13,159 people of Portuguese descent.

During the nineteenth century the immigrant Portuguese, Italian and initially the Irish, were often seen as "not quite white" and thus ranked lower in society. This was a young workforce with most in their teens into their early thirties. Many Portuguese and Italian workers had little education and many could not speak English.  

Some archeological work at the sites of various lime operations in the Santa Cruz Mountains reveal that the Portuguese and Italian immigrant workers lived in small cabins or bunkhouses, "ate company-provided meals at the nearby cookhouse, but supplemented this food by foraging for local resources like fish, shellfish, and small game animals … they wore American-made work clothing, they drank wine and liquor, they smoked Prince Albert tobacco, and they were self-medicating with patent and proprietary medicines to treat a variety of maladies and complaints." Another uniting factor for the Portuguese and Italian laborers, as well as their Irish managers, was their shared Catholic faith where in local churches they gathered weekly for mass. 

Henry Cowell's I.X.L. lime kilns at Fall Creek - Author's Personal Collection

Though at the lime kilns, the living quarters remained segregated, workers did share communal mess halls. For the most part, these groups worked together without incident. But there was one violent scene in 1889 which, unfortunately, received a lot of attention.

"The most well documented conflict among workers was a violent altercation that erupted between Portuguese and Irish workers at the I.X.L. kiln complex near Felton in 1889. Referred to as 'a conflict of races' in local newspaper headlines, accounts detail how an Irishman named 'Dennis' and an unnamed Portuguese worker got into an altercation at the dinner table in the shared company mess hall. This argument erupted into a wider brawl, with sides being drawn based on ethnicity/nationality, and two Irishmen being badly beaten before fleeing to their cabin. Once account alleges that the Portuguese workers assaulted the cabin by throwing rocks badly damaging the structure and forcing the Irishmen to flee to the woods. Another account claims the Irish went to the Portuguese workers' cabin and beat them with clubs. In the end, two Portuguese and five Irish were arrested."

After 1900 the number of Portuguese lime kiln workers began to decline as they slowly assimilated into society and found better paying jobs. Some became lime kiln foremen. Many left the lime industry altogether, opting for farming, particularly dairy farming, an occupation which they eventually dominated in California throughout the rest of the 20^th century.

* For further and more detailed reading on the lime industry and lime workers in the Santa Cruz Mountains please refer to Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County by Frank Perry, Robert W. Piwarzyk, Michael D. Luther, Alverda Orlando, Allan Molho and Sierra L. Perry, 2007.

Sources: California Coast Trails; A Horseback Ride from Mexico to Oregon by J. Smeaton Chase, 1913; Life in an Industrial Village: the Archaeology of Cabin B at the Cowell Lime works Historic District, Santa Cruz, California, by Patricia L. Paramoure (Thesis, Master of Arts in Cultural Resource Management, Sonoma State University), July 12, 2010; Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County by Frank Perry, Robert W. Piwarzyk, Michael D. Luther, Alverda Orlando, Allan Molho and Sierra L. Perry, 2007; Intra-Action, Emergence, and Community-Making in the Industrial Far West: Archaeological Investigations at a Santa Cruz County Lime Kiln, 1858-1909 by David G. Hyde, (Dissertation, Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley), Spring 2019.

UPCOMING BOOK EVENT

On Saturday, April 10, 2021 from 10:00 a.m. to noon join me for a Zoom presentation at the next Researchers Anonymous Meeting. 

I'll be discussing my experience as a first time author and the research conducted for the preparation of my book, Historic Tales of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park - Big Trees Grove.

For more information and instructions on how to join the presentation go to the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History

FOR TWO BITS

A group of tourists stand under the Boy's Industrial Association Tree circa 1920s - Author's Personal Collection

"In returning this morning from Santa Cruz, we passed through a small grove of Sequoias, called the 'Big Trees,' and it is a favorite place for campers to locate and tourists to stop. But our train was not scheduled even to stop, unless there was a passenger. I asked the conductor about stopping, as I had just told Clair I would, and he told me as above. I said a few words further, and he passed on. In a few minutes he came back, and said if we would like to see the trees, he would hold the train a short time. I asked how long. 'Oh,' he said, 'two or three minutes; long enough to go inside!' I asked the charge. 'Two bits,' he said."

 

"Then he told me about the different trees. 'One that was still growing, but would hold 45 people in its hollow, another 20 feet in diameter and 260 feet high, with 80 feet blown off the top, etc.' And also that scientists declare that a certain circle of very large trees were merely the suckers or succeeding trees, following the death of a venerable giant parent tree, which must have been 120 feet in diameter. In a few minutes he said, 'Here we are,' and out we ran and paid our two bits, and he called back the guide who was just boarding our train, but he was lame and slow, and with, 'Oh, you are no good,' he ran around with us himself and showed all the chief attractions."

 

"The hollow tree was lined, almost wadded, with cards and pieces of paper with names. Probably two or three thousands. Another large half-burned tree was a similar depository.* 'Jumbo' had a large knot, like an elephant's head."

 

"The conductor called 'All aboard,' after about five minutes, and we scrambled back to find some disappointed passengers, who 'didn't know the train was going to stop.' The conductor told them 'he stopped long enough' or something to that effect."

 

* The visitor was likely referring to one of the Three Sisters which fell in 1915 and is now known as the Fallen Sister. Therefore, the visit mentioned above took place in 1915 or earlier. 

 

Source: Samuel L. Allen – Intimate Recollections & Letters, compiled by Elizabeth R. Allen, 1920.