*** 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 14--- plain between Petaluma and Santa Rosa. This tract belongs to an estate, and under the will cannot be divided until the youngest child comes of age. This is the largest farm in the county, the railroad passing through it for six miles. The dairy is supplied with the milk from two hundred and fifty cows; there are five hundred head of cattle on the place, and ten thousand head of sheep; each cow averages daily one pound and a quarter of butter during the season, and the sheep shear an average of six pounds of wool each. We brought the early history of the county up to about 1845, when the twenty- three grants we have just described were held by their original owners, who kept herds of cattle and horses upon them, and cultivated enough corn, beans and peas, to supply the Spanish population, a light tax indeed upon the most fertile of the rich agricultural valleys of California. In the early part of 1846, it was estimated that there were at least two thousand foreigners of all ages and sexes, scattered over the territory of California. They were mainly in the Sacramento, Santa Clara and Napa valleys; a few had drifted into Sonoma, among them Cyrus Alexander, for whom Alexander valley is named,--and Mose Carson, a brother of Lindsay Carson, of Lake County,--and Frank Bedwell, the genial and sturdy old pioneer, who has resided in Sonoma ever since he purchased his place of Mr. Alexander, which was in 1845. The venerable Joel Walker, now a resident of the county, assisted in driving the cattle and horses from Ross to Sutter's ranch, in the Sacramento valley. There are a number of anti-territorial pioneers in the county, who did not reside here at the time of which we write, among them Major Snyder, of Sonoma, the Marshals, James Gregson and the McChristians, of Green valley, and doubtless others whose names and date of arrival we do not know. Of those here, some came by sea and some came by land, none dreamed that they were the forerunners of a great tide which would gather from all climes, and that their footfall on the unaccustomed path was but "the first low plash of waves, where soon would roll a human sea." But we anticipate. Events in California in the early part of 1846 were rap- idly approaching a crisis. The Unites States and Mexico were at war. An American fleet was on the coast; Fremont, with a small command of regular soldiers, was hovering on the boundaries of California, ostensibly on a topo- graphical survey; England and France, through their representatives, were watching with eager interest the turn of affairs, and were anxious and willing to assume a protectorate, or to take forcible procession of the country. The native Californians were comparatively few in numbers, were scattered over a great space, were badly armed, and divided in council. The crisis was approaching, and the town of Sonoma was destined to become the theatre of the first act in the drama which ended with the acquisition of the territory of California by the United States. On the morning of the 16th of June a company of thirty-three Americans from Sutter's fort, Napa, and Sonoma vallies, marched into the town of Sonoma about daylight, captured the garrison, and took General Vallejo, the command- ing general of the province of California, a prisoner. They garrisoned the town, and a few days after the capture they sent General Vallejo, his brother Salvadore, Jacob P. Leese and Victor Prudon to Sutter'a fort, on the Sacramento *** end ***