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In the early 1870s, Hubert H. Bancroft and his assistants set out to record the memoirs of early Californios, one of them being eighty-three-year-old Don Jose Maria Amador, a former Forty-Niner during the California Gold Rush and soldado de cuera at the Presidio of San Francisco. Amador tells of reconnoitering expeditions into the interior of California, where he encountered local indigenous populations. He speaks of political events of Mexican California and the widespread confiscation of the Californios' goods, livestock, and properties when the United States took control. A friend from Mission Santa Cruz, Lorenzo Asisara, also describes the harsh life and mistreatment the Indians faced from the priests. Both the Amador and Asisara narratives were used as sources in Bancroft's writing but never published themselves. Gregorio Mora-Torres has now rescued them from obscurity and presents their voices in English translation (with annotations) and in the original Spanish on facing pages. This bilingual edition will be of great interest to historians of the West, California, and Mexican American studies.
A ghost town is only as good as the stories about it. The legends of bar-fights, famous visitors, and big findings of gold are throughout this book. It also has a good map and directions on locating the towns, some of which are "alive" today.
Francisco Xavier Alviso, son of Domingo Alviso and Maria Angela de Trejo, was born in San Miguel de Horcasitas, Sonora, Mexico. His family moved to Alta-California when he was fourteen. He married Maria Augustina in 1787 in Carmel, California. They had seven children. He died in 1803 at the age of 38. Descendants and relatives lived mainly in California.
A travel guide to northern California's 50 deserted mining towns, plus the "ghost prison" of Alcatraz and a couple of Chinese fishing villages in the San Francisco Bay area.
"A guide to the best ghost towns of California. Once thriving, these abandoned mining camps and pioneer villages still ring with history. Philip Varney equips you with everything you need to explore these sites, including maps, directions, history, and photos"--Provided by publisher.
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The county was formed on March 25, 1853, from a large portion of Contra Costa County and a smaller portion of Santa Clara County. Much of what is now considered an intensively urban region, with major cities, was developed as a trolley car suburb of San Francisco in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The historical progression from Native American tribal lands to Spanish, then Mexican ranches, then to farms, ranches, and orchards, then multiple city centers and suburbs, is shared with the adjacent and closely associated Contra Costa County. This detailed narrative gives an in-depth view of the county's history.