*** Source: Thompson, Robert A., Historical and descriptive sketch of Sonoma County, California. Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1877, 122 pgs. Notice: This data is donated to the Public Domain by TAG, 2004, and may be copied freely by anyone to anywhere. *** ---page 11--- rebuilt, and flourished until the decree of secularization, (promulgated by the Mexican government in 1833, and enforced in 1834), led to the overthrow of the authority of the fathers, the liberation, and dispersion of the Indians, and to the final partition of the mission lands and cattle; in short to a complete revolution in the ecclesiastical government of California. Whatever may have been the effect on the Mexican population, the result to the Indians was disastrous. It is stated that some of the missions, which in 1834 had as many as one thousand five hundred souls, numbered only a few hundred in 1842. The two missions of San Rafael and Sonoma decreased in this time, the former from one thousand two hundred and forty souls, to twenty; and the latter from one thousand three hundred, to seventy. On the other hand, those who most favored the secularization scheme, contend that in this section at least the decrease of the Indians was caused by the small-pox, which broke out among them in a virulent form in the year 1837--contracted from a subordinate Mexican officer, who caught the disease at Ross. The officer recovered, while sixty thousand Indians are said to have perished from this scourge, in the territory now included in the counties of Sonoma, Napa and Solano. In 1834, Governor Figueroa visited Sonoma, for the purpose of establishing a presidio, which was to be named Santa Anna y Farias. The site selected was on Mark West creek, on the land now owned by Henry Mizer, near to a well- known red-wood tree, which is still standing. The future city was to be called after the then President of Mexico, Santa Anna, and the Vice-President Farias. That the city did not survive the infliction of such a name, is not surprising. It was killed in its baptism. This town was intended to be colonized by a company of Mexicans, known as the Cosmopolitan company, who came to California under the command of one Hijas. The leaders of the scheme disa- greed with the head of the government here, and though they arrived in Sonoma, the whole party were returned to San Francisco. The town on Mark West was abandoned, and the same year General Vallejo laid out the town of Sonoma as it now exists, and established his headquarters as the military commandant of California. General Vallejo took command in 1835, and was ordered to extend the settlements in the direction of Ross. For this purpose he sent three men, McIntosh, James Black, and James Dawson, in that direc- tion, and they settled on what was afterwards the O'Farrel tract, near the present site of the town of Freestone. The tree men built a house there, and agreed, as we have heard the story told, to get a grant of land. One of the party went to Monterey for that purpose, either Black or McIntosh, and pro- cured the grant in the name of the two, leaving out the name of Dawson. Dawson was so incensed that he sawed off one-third of the frame house, and moved it over the line of the grant which his companions had secured, and applied for a grant in his own name adjoining them, which grant was after- wards confirmed. Black and McIntosh continued to reside for some time on the Jonive grant, and built a kind of mill there, the remains of which may still be seen near the residence of the late Hon. Jasper O'Farrel. The Russians were then occupying the tract afterwards known as the Bodega ranch, but six miles from the new comers, and disputes soon arose, as it was *** end ***