goldfields

April 6th is California Poppy Day, honoring our state flower. The California Poppy was designated the state flower in 1903, and in 2010 April 6th was named an official state holiday (but not one where anybody gets the day off, sorry to say). Instead, according to Senate Bill 944:

. . . all public schools and educational institutions are encouraged to conduct exercises honoring the California Poppy, including instruction about native plants, particularly the California Poppy, and the economic and aesthetic value of wildflowers; promoting responsible behavior toward our natural resources and a spirit of protection toward them . . .

So I hope you learn something about the California Poppy today. Here are some tidbits of information, with which you can stun your friends and family.

The California poppy (Eschscholzia Californica) is one of 12 species in the genus eschscholzia, which is named for botanist Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz. 

Before they flower, the plants look a bit like carrots. But don’t try to eat the yellow taproot — it is mildly toxic. I am not sure what constitutes “mildly toxic” and I do not plan to experiment and report my findings.

Other species of eschscholzia grow in Western North America and you can find pictures and descriptions at the wonderful website CalFlora.

As you know, I like to visit Table Mountain Ecological Reserve in Butte County every year for the wildflower display. The true California poppy is not a native of Table Mountain, but two of its cousins are there:

One is Eschscholzia caespitosa or foothill poppy, which is nearly identical, except that it lacks a collar below the petals. These are only found in a few rocky outcrops.

The other is the smaller, paler cousin of the California poppy, Eschscholzia lobbii, or frying pans. (Yes, the flower is called frying pans. I’m not sure why, but you can think of it as a little pan full of melted butter, ready for your morning eggs.)

Frying pans are very common on Table Mountain. You see them everywhere — swathes of little yellow poppies.

More information on California’s state symbols can be found at https://statesymbolsusa.org/states/united-states/california

After his log cabin on Chico Creek burned down in 1852, John Bidwell built this two-story (with a one-story wing) adobe building. It was his home, his ranch headquarters, as well as a tavern and a hotel for travelers on the Marysville-Shasta Road.

Although the year of the photograph is 1868, the year that Bidwell Mansion was completed, the mansion does not appear in the photo. It would have been outside the photo, off to the left. It was set quite a way further back from the road.

The adobe stood for several years after the mansion was built. It was still standing in 1872 when the newspaper reported it being using as a polling place for the “Mill” precinct. It appears on a bird’s-eye map of Chico made in 1872.

This undated painting by an unknown artist hangs in the Butte County Pioneer Museum in Oroville. (It is impossible to get a good photograph of the painting because of the bright light that shines on it.) Across a lively scene on what is now the Esplanade, you can see the adobe on the left, the mansion in the center, and another residence on the right. (That same house shows up in the 1868 photograph.) Here is a close-up of the adobe:

By the end of 1874, it was gone. The Weekly Butte Record reported on April 25, 1874, that it was “Disappearing.”

The old adobe on the Bidwell premises, so familiar to old residents of Chico, is undergoing the process of demolition. In a little while it will have entirely disappeared, and those who have known it long will know it again no more forever. In its time it has witnessed Chico’s growth from nothing to be the most flourishing town in Northern California.

In Bidwell’s diary for April 21 he notes: “Tearing down adobe house.” Later that year he had the cottonwood trees by the former adobe torn out as well.

I don’t like to go back. When people talk of the “good old days,” I like the present better. I don’t want to return to those days. . . . I had an old adobe house that was built in ’52 — an insect-infested house. A great many people say “let it stand.” But I removed every vestige of it. It had no charms for me.

John Bidwell: 1891 Dictation.

Spring is running a bit late this year. With all the cool and cloudy skies we have had lately, the flowers are only just getting started. But with all the rain, the wildflower season will only get better and better.

My daughter and two granddaughters went to Table Mountain two weeks ago and almost the only thing we saw was carpets of California goldfields. That’s mainly what we saw again today, but the lupine, bluedicks, popcorn flowers, and frying pans are beginning to show up.

The streams are rushing along, full of water, and the waterfalls are throwing themselves down the hills. Here are two girls by one of my favorite waterfalls, with more water than I have ever seen.

The section of Table Mountain set aside for hiking is officially known as North Table Mountain Ecological Reserve. A Lands Pass from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is required to visit. I have never seen anyone checking for passes, but it only costs $5.40 for a day pass and the fee goes towards upkeep and improvements.

As long as you have made the drive to Table Mountain, why not visit Oregon City while you are there? Oregon City is a tiny community with a gold rush history. It was settled by a group of Oregonians, led by future California governor Peter H. Burnett, in 1848. (Click on the link if you want to find out why Burnett was not a very good governor.)

Oregon City boasts a covered bridge and the oldest schoolhouse in Butte County. Go on a weekend during wildflower season and you will find the school open and staffed by volunteers from the Butte County Historical Society. It’s worth a visit.

Fairview School’s Community Read-In is back and that makes me happy. Ever since I worked at the Orland Free Library, I have enjoyed visiting Fairview School in the Spring for the Community Read-In. All kinds of adults come to read and talk about books with the kids — police officers, firefighters, business owners, city officials, park rangers, and even librarians.

Fairview School hasn’t had a Read-In since 2019. Now it’s 2023 and I am looking forward to it — next week on April 6.

I visit 4th grade classes and talk about California history. How did people get to California? What did it take to make the journey? What did California look like when John Bidwell arrived here in 1841?

It’s so much fun to talk to the students. They ask great questions. They have imaginative ideas. I always have a good time.

If you are a teacher, or if you know a 4th grade teacher who would like a visitor to give a presentation about California history, please get in touch. I don’t charge anything as long as the school is in my area (Butte, Glenn, or Tehama Counties). I might want some gas money if I’m visiting a school further afield. 🙂

Mrs. Abby Fisher must have been some cook. Her friends persuaded her to put her recipes in a cookbook, the first published by a black woman west of the Mississippi.

Abby and her husband Alexander came to California in 1877. In 1879 she won the highest award at the State Fair in Sacramento for her pickles, sauces, and preserves. In San Francisco she became a popular cook and caterer, her cooking rated so highly that everyone wanted her recipes.

Abby Clifton was born into slavery in South Carolina around 1831. Sometime in the 1850s she met and married her husband, Alexander Fisher, in Mobile, Alabama and the couple and their children (they had a total of 11) eventually migrated to California. In the 1880 census Alexander is listed as a “Pickle and Preserve Manufacturer” so it was a joint venture, but Abby was the one who was in demand as a cook and gained fame as a cookbook author.

As she states in her “Introduction and Apology,” Abby Fisher could neither read nor write, and that gave her doubts that she would “be able to present a work that could give perfect satisfaction.” But she didn’t let her doubts hold her back.

But after due consideration, I concluded to bring forward a book of my knowledge based on an experience of upwards of 35 years in the art of cooking soups, gumbos, terrapin stews, meat stews, baked and roast meats, pastries, pies and biscuits, making jellies, pickles, sauces, ice creams and jams, preserving fruits, etc. The book will be found a complete instructor so that a child can understand it and learn the art of cooking. Respectfully – Abby C. Fisher

I learned about Mrs. Fisher from an article by the California State Library: “Mrs. Fisher Pens a Cookbook.” You can read more about her there. Her cookbook, containing 160 recipes, is available from the Internet Archive. The recipes are brief, but certainly usable, with a little imagination. She never tells you how hot to set the oven, for example.

Here is a page with some recipes for pies, in case you want to make a sweet potato pie. Sounds delicious! (A gill is a half-cup.)

Luzena and her husband and their two little boys were on the western, downward, side of the Sierras and close to the end of the trail—

The first man we met was about fifty miles above Sacramento. He had ridden on ahead, bought a fresh horse and some new clothes, and was coming back to meet his train. The sight of his white shirt, the first I had seen for four long months, revived in me the languishing spark of womanly vanity; and when he rode up to the wagon where I was standing, I felt embarrassed, drew down my ragged sun-bonnet over my sunburned face, and shrank from observation. My skirts were worn off in rags above my ankles; my sleeves hung in tatters above my elbows; my hands brown and hard, were gloveless; around my neck was tied a cotton square, torn from a discarded dress; the soles of my leather shoes had long ago parted company with the uppers; and my husband and children and all the camp, were habited like myself, in rags.

A day or two before, this man was one of us; today, he was a messenger from another world, and a stranger, so much influence does clothing have on our feelings and intercourse with our fellow men.

Ah, the “languishing spark of womanly vanity”! Poor Luzena, to be seen in that state.

We can scarcely imagine how bedraggled and filthy one would become on the overland trek. Think of how grubby you feel after a week of camping and no shower. Then multiple that by twenty. Give yourself at best one change of clothing.

And just try to find a picture that fits this description! No woman would be caught dead having her photograph taken in that condition. Photos of women on the trail are exceedingly scarce. This picture of the Joseph Byington family is an oft-repeated one. Notice the barefoot children. What the women were wearing on their feet is hard to see. Their clothes look clean though, and I am sure this is the beginning of the trail and not the end.

Hollywood has given us a more appealing image:

Imagine what those clothes would look like at the end of the trail. Picture the roughened hands and the sunburnt faces. Not a single woman has a bonnet or an apron. They wouldn’t last a week on the trail.