*** 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 8--- EARLY HISTORY. Sonoma is an Indian word which means "Valley of the Moon," and was the name originally given to the beautiful valley from which the county was afterwards called. The tribe of Indians inhabiting the valley were called the Chocuyens. On the arrival of the first expedition to establish a mission, the name Sonoma was given to the chief by Jose Altimira, the priest in charge, and after that the chief, the tribe and the valley they inhabited took the name Sonoma. In 1775 Lieutenant Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, a distinguished navigator of the Spanish navy, in a vessel called the Sonora, entered and ex- plored Bodega bay on his return from a voyage to the northeast coast. The port thenceforth took the name Bodega, from its discoverer. He was the first of the old navigators, as far as the record shows, who touched on the coast of what is now Sonoma county,--though Sir Francis Drake landed, in 1579, just below it; and, in 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo had discovered Cape Mendocino, and had named it in honor of the "illustrious Senor Antonio de Mendoza," the viceroy under whose patronage the voyage had been undertaken. From this it will be seen that Cape Mendocino was baptized, and the coast of Sonoma was seen, by European navigators, sixty years before there was any settlement by the English on the eastern side of the continent of America. After its discovery, however, the country lay for two hundred and thirty-five years in the undisputed possession of the aborigines. There was no attempt made to occupy it. Father Begart, a Jesuit, who lived many years in Lower California, is au- thority for the statement that no white man ever lived in California before 1769, just one hundred and seven years ago. The first expedition made inland into Sonoma was the year after the dis- covery of Bodega, for the purpose of finding out if there was not a connection between the waters of San Francisco and Bodega bays. It must have been supposed by the missionaries who had but recently occupied San Francisco that the peninsula now included in the boundaries of Marin county, was an island. Captain Quiros made a boat voyage up Petaluma creek, and proved there was no such connection as had been supposed. The port of Bodega was occupied for a short time, in 1793, by a Spanish gar- rison and four guns, which were soon removed, however, to Monterey, there being no indication of the threatened English occupation which had caused the alarm. We now come to the first permanent settlement of Europeans north of the bay of San Francisco. In January, 1811, Alexander Kuskoff, in a Russian ship from Alaska, occupied Bodega bay, under the pretext that he had been refused the privilege of getting a supply of water in San Francisco. He claimed that he had purchased a small tract of land on the bay from the natives. To the bay of Bodega they gave the name of "Romanzoff," and called Russian river the "Slavianka." Kuskoff, the commander of the Russians, had a wooden leg, and was called by the Californians, "Pie de Palo." General Vallejo says, as the Russians "came without invitation, and occupied land without permission, they may be called the first 'squatters' of California." *** end ***