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Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Totten Family Story

Recorded from an oration given by Herbert R. Totten at Fort Crook Historical Museum June 20, 1976.

My grandfather Peter R. Totten was born near Quincy, IL in 1838. He had two brothers, Marc Totten and Joseph Totten, two sisters, Anna Totten Noel and Cornelia Totten Brewer.

In 1853 at the age of fifteen and one half he set out for California by way of the isthmus of Panama. The crossing was made about thirty-seven miles from the new city of Colon on the east coast via the Gorgona route to Panama City on the west coast. Now the city of Colon, I believe was founded the year before. It's part of the Canal Zone now.

The crossing took five days. Three days by large canoe and two days by mule back. The canoe fare was ten dollars and pack mules rented for three dollars per day. The railroad was not completed until late eighteen fifty three.

From panama City he secured passage on a steamer bound for San Francisco. It was a top heavy side wheeler. I recall this description of this passage. He told of a storm which lasted for three days. At the end of which time several passengers were unaccounted for. With an expansive grin he used to jest that they may have jumped overboard rather than eat the food that was offered.

From the time of his arrival in San Francisco and up to the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Getz in Illinois of Camp Point there is little of record. I recall bits and pieces of his trip back to Illinois part of which he made by horse back. One thing bibbed in my memory was his account of killing a rattlesnake with his revolver while mounted on his horse. You know how kids remember things.

From a family portrait it is known he returned with his family to Colusa, CA in eighteen seventy. Means of transportation unknown. At that time his family consisted of two girls and two boys. The youngest being my father. Later in the eighteen seventies two daughters and a son were born. The family: Helen Totten Hawes of Oakdale, CA; Emma Totten Larison of Redding, CA; Carolyn Totten Gregory of Woodland, CA; Lucy Totten Moss of Pittville, CA; Leroy Totten of Pittville, CA; Frank Totten of Reno, NV; and Silas (Hub) Totten of Pittville, CA.

His brother Marc Totten lived in Colusa, CA where he applied his trade as a gunsmith and inventor. In nineteen sixteen he was riding a bicycle to which he had attached a gasoline motor. It went out of control and he was killed at the age of eighty-four.

My grandfather moved his family from Colusa to Anderson, CA in the early eighteen eighties where he was engaged in farming and the nursery business. Some of his children attended the Anderson High School. From Anderson the family moved to McCloud, CA where he had acquired some timber land. While there, he served for a time as Justice of the Peace for McCloud township. My father also acquired some land at Warmcastle, no longer in existence (there used to be a Post Office there)where I was born in 1903. My father, my uncle Roy, and my grandparents moved to Fall River Valley in 1906 where they had acquired the Frederick Z. Palmer holdings from Frank Palmer near Pittville. It was a family project and involved the grandparents, my father, my uncle Roy, and my grandfather's son-in-law Len Moss.

My mother died in 1905 leaving the responsibility of raising the five bereaved children to my grandparents. Four brothers and one sister aged two through twelve. Their names in descending order were Nora, Clarence, Phillip, Peter, and Herbert. Much assistance was given by my mothers sisters' Josephine Bosworth and Lydia Joiner. Much credit should be given to my late sister Nora Totten Arnold for supervising Saturday night baths and guiding the family through its formative years.

Two years after purchasing the ranch my grandfather set about building a new house. A nine-room two story structure which still stands. It has withstood a succession of repairs and alterations including electric service, running water, and plumbing.

The family attended elementary school on the bench the first two years, and then attended Pine Grove School which was in the Pitt River School District. It was a one room one teacher school and I am convinced that basic education was not overlooked at that time. I wish that I could say that at the present time. Some of our children also attended this school. The school building is presently occupied as a residence by Mazzella and Jesse Cae.

It is well to keep the proper perspective relative to the advances in educational services and opportunities when I recall the school bus service available in nineteen seventeen from our area to the high school. It may have been in nineteen eighteen but I'm reasonably sure it was nineteen seventeen. The means of transport was a Wells Fargo type coach, leather springs and all, drawn by two horses and owned by Wallace Herford, was driven by his son Hubert. We have come a long way.

In nineteen thirteen upon the insistence of my grandmother the family purchased a hundred and sixty acres of land form the Johnson estate in Shasta County near Pittville. Eighty acres of which was subsequently deeded to my father as an anchor for his family. My brother, Peter and his family now own and occupy this property.

At this time I would like to remind myself and you too, of life as it was for a child living with its grandparents at that time. We were necessarily very self sufficient in those days. My first ride in a motor vehicle was in nineteen ten. We raised our own food. A large summer garden was a must. Corn was cut from the cob and dried in the sun. Apples were peeled, quartered and dried in the sun. Apples were made in to cider which was stored in fifty gallon casks in the cellar. Some cash income was generated from this vinegar, fifty cents a gallon. Cabbage converted into sauerkraut in ten gallon crocks also the last of the cabbage heads were stored in a bin in the root cellar and were good until December. Carrots, beets, potatoes, and onions were stored for winter use in the root cellar. Apples grown on the ranch were stored in bins and some lasted until March.

Hogs were slaughtered in November, fourteen head and converted to sausage, ham, and bacon. They were smoked with green oak wood and mahogany in our own smokehouse. Casings for the sausage were made out of muslin about fourteen inches long and when filled were about three inches in diameter.

Very little beef was consumed. Primally it was a cash crop, no way of keeping it for more than three days. Purchases were limited to infrequent visits by the Rock Bros. and Joe E. Bruce with their traveling butcher shop.

Another minor source of cash income was a vehicle and stock scale. A small charge was made for each weighing.

There was an ice house on the ranch where blocks of ice sawn from eight inch thick ponds in the swamp were stored. The blocks about fifteen inches square were neatly stacked into a huge cube interstice were laced with snow to facilitate their removal. This ice was not used for drinking purposes but for making ice cream and emergency food cooling during the summer months. The huge cube was covered with a two-foot layer of sawdust on the sides and top.

A planting of blackberries and logan berries was another source of cash income. Logan berries were sold in five gallon cans at five dollars each. Another source was from the traveling freight wagons. The ranch was an overnight stop for the four and six horse freight wagons over the mountain using the toll road to Big Valley. Horses were barned and fed for twenty-five cents each and my grandmother charged a dollar for meals and lodging. This was her private preserve and did not enter into the general cash stream. The sight of the freight wagons approaching a mile away in the dust and the gradual intrusion of the pleasant sound of the bows of bells on each of the lead horses is as if it happened yesterday. The last of the freight lines was owned by Frank Gasaway.

There were no banks within a radius of sixty miles. The savings account was three hundred dollars in twenty dollar gold pieces in my grandmother's trunk.

Flour was obtained by hauling a wagon load of ranch grown wheat to the Creighton Flour Mill in Glenburn where it was exchanged for twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour plus other by-products such as bran and shorts, used for hog feed and a sack or two of wheat germ which was used as a staple breakfast food. A few of the sacks of flour would be sold to the Indian family in residence on the ranch at cost.

A family of Indians lived in a separate residence on the ranch. The head of the family worked on the ranch and was paid in cash. Advances of bacon, flour, coffee, and so forth were made and accounts were settled monthly. Their children went to our school and we played together. Theirs was a different culture, of course, but ours was adaptable to theirs and theirs to ours. The head of the family's name was Beiber Quinn. Here was a man who had never attended school, was scrupulously honest, a dependable worker, and an accomplished violinist. He and his two children played both the violin and guitar none could read music at that time. The children did go to school and learned to read and write. They had never been out of the Fall River Valley.

Perhaps I should dwell for a time on the Indian culture as it was in the valley sixty five years ago. Little has been put on record regarding this topic. Life was not easy for them. The transition from a lifestyle of open living to closed housing with poor ventilation took its toll. Consumption or tuberculosis was endemic. I recall that when an elderly Indian died his or her living quarters and possessions were put to the torch by other tribal members. Medical care was not readily available. There were members who surreptitiously practiced there own primitive cures which were used as a last resort. There were no aspirin available at that time. There were two doctors in residence in Fall River Mills at that time. They both made house calls but the Indians did not avail themselves of their services. The doctors were Dr. Pratt and Dr. Wheeler, and were both dedicated men.

I recall the tremendous Indian Fourth of July celebrations which were held in a clearing in the Pine Grove area, the land belonging to Charley Green who was an unofficial tribal leader of the Pit River Tribe. The celebration would start about July first and end about July tenth.

A dance floor was constructed. Sandwich stands where all kinds of soda pop, firecrackers, ice cream, etc., were available, were operated by whites. Indians from as far away as Alturas and Klamath Falls were very much in attendance. The dances were attended by both Indians and whites mostly locals.

The big attraction for the Indians was the gambling. There would be several "grass games" going all day. Blankets were spread, opposing sides were seated on the ground, usually three to four opposing each other about six feet apart. A board was placed on the ground directly in front of the opposing sides. The game, as I remember it, was to guess in which hand the bone with the black band (about 3/4 inches in diameter and about 1 1\2 inches long) reposed. Each game lasted about twenty minutes, with a group of at least ten women gathered around the contestants, chanting in time with the pounding on the board with short sticks. The chant sounded something like this "Hun-ne-ah, Hun-ne-ah, Hun-na-ah," slowly. While the chanting was in progress, the two bones wrapped in grass were passed to and from the contestants. Suddenly the chanting was stopped by a shout. The contestant who at that moment had possession of the bones, with ritualistic arm-waving would suddenly and ceremoniously fold his arms in front of him and would gaze into infinity without and expression. Silence for about one minute, then another shout and the contestant exactly opposite would point to the hand which he thought had the bone with the black band. If he guessed it, the winnings would be distributed evenly to the players on his side.

The "Big Joo-Iy" as it was called, was not very compatible with the local demand for field and haying hands at that particular time of year. It took precedence over any type of gainful employment.

There were many poor people during those times, but no one went hungry. The government had not yet gotten around to telling people they were poor.

Health problems were met head-on with home remedies. Liniments, poultices, rest in bed and all kinds of patent medicines were available for specific ills. Malaria was prevalent, particularly in the Pittville area. No one knew it was caused by the malarial mosquito. Grove's Chill Tonic was on every medicine sheif. Quinine was widely used. Many thought it was caused by vapors from Pit River.

All farm work was done with horses and mules. We had two saddle animals, one buggy horse, a matched team of mules for the surrey "with the fringe on top," and at least seven work horses. It took all the hay in one barn for the horses and work animals, and the hay in the other two barns was for the freight teams, milk cows, and stock cattle, There were usually eight milk cows from whose milk both butter and cheese was made. The butter was packaged in two pound rolls and sold for fifty cents each. Prices of other produce on the farm as of November 1907 were as follows:

  • 100 pounds potatoes     $1.25
  • 100 pounds onions          2.25
  • 80 pounds apples            1.70
  • 28 pounds dried apples   2.25
  • 3 gallons apple butter      3.75

The McArthur Cheese Factory became operational and provided steady cash income. Milk was hauled daily to the plant, usually it was picked up by a neighbor and delivered for a small charge.

Telephone service in those days was by local cooperatives, usually not more than ten subscribers. Single tines with wall phones. A central switchboard was at the John Lamburth store in McArthur and at the M. D. Pratt residence in Fall River Mills. There was no direct long distance to the outside world. Ours was The Peoples Telephone Company. Annual switching assessment was six dollars per year.

We kept about fifty laying hens from which cash income was derived. Income was seasonal as was the laying season. A market glut was expected in the springtime. Eggs were traded for coffee, etc. at the local stores. The prices ranged from a low of ten cents per dozen to a high of fifty cents per dozen in the wintertime.

Time did not drag, for there were so many things a growing boy could do. Squirrel hunting in the summer, duck and goose hunting in the winter were important diversions from milking cows, hoeing weeds in the garden, thinning onions, picking berries, driving the cows to pasture, feeding chickens, carrying wood and dozens of minor chores.

The food was good, sourdough hotcakes or biscuits, with ham, bacon or sausage for breakfast. We were awakened every morning by the grinding of the ranch-roasted coffee beans in the wallhung coffee mill strategically located just under our upstairs bedroom.

Politics were the basis of general discussion which reached fever pitch at four-year intervals when county, state, and federal offices were sought. Events were discussed every day, either at the hot-stove league at the Pittville Store or at Press Fine's blacksmith shop. Although some of the news may have been a week old upon its arrival it was given the full treatment as though it had just happened that morning. I was always fascinated by the forthright political views of Len Moss and Press Fine. They had ready solutions for every problem, some of which were quite practical and far ahead of their time. The two major political parties were predominant with the Socialist party far out on one side. If the Socialists had only known!

I graduated from Fall River High School in 1921. From there I attended Heald's Business College in Sacramento and San Jose during the winter month of 1922 and 1923. My first job was as camp clerk for McCloud River Lumber Company at their main camp north of what is now Pondosa. From there a years employment in one of the large downtown Los Angeles hotels, then as a carpenter's helper for a San Francisco contractor, then to a four-year stint as office manager and estimator for a large contracting firm specializing in highway and dam construction. Married Marian Nevada Hicks in 1928, whom I met while on a dam construction job in Quincy, CA and she was manager of the local Western Union office. I spent thirteen years in a supervisory position for the California Division of Highways in the San Francisco Bay area, twelve years as owner and operator of the Totten Ranch near Pittville, during which time I served four years as an elected member of the Lassen County Board of Supervisors, also a one and a half year stint as a member of the Fall River Joint Unified School District's Board of Trustees. Three sons and two daughters were born to us: James, 2nd lieutenant in the United Stated Air Force, killed while training in a jet fighter plane; Mark, County Planning Director and Purchasing Agent, Susanville; John, professional real estate appraiser, Salem, OR.; Gail Totten Ashe, secretary to Intermountain Fair Manager, McArthur, CA; Sara Totten Musch, Irvine, CA, attending Saddleback Community College near Irvine, studying to become a registered nurse.

I sold the ranch in 1955 to Lem and Marjorie Earnest. Moved to Salem, OR where I worked for thirteen years as Right-of-Way Agent for Marion County. My wife, Marian attended business college in Salem. She worked for a short time as a real estate agent, and for ten years as an accountant for a wholesale electronics firm until our retirement in 1968.

Signed, Herbert R. Totten, June 1976

2 comments:

  1. Wow, it's nice to have someone in your family who not only remembered, but also preserved your legacy. Nice!

    Gary Totten
    Columbus, IN

    ReplyDelete