Colusa County Biographies

JONAS SPECT

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


 
            The subject of this brief biography is a native of Berks County, 
Pennsylvania, born March 21, 1817.  His grandfather on the father�s side was a 
soldier of the Revolution and participated in the battles of  Trenton, 
Brandywine, Princeton, and in the siege of Yorktown.  When young Jonas was but 
ten years old, his family removed to Pickaway County, Ohio, then a wilderness.  
After maturity, he carried on farming till 1846, when he concluded to visit 
Missouri, which was then the extreme frontier of settlement.  On arriving in the 
State, he heard much of the advantages of distant Oregon and some meager 
accounts of California, and, resolving to see these new countries for himself, 
he left the Missouri line in a company of forty persons, men, women, and 
children, driving an ox-team for Isaac Bailey.
            Travel was necessarily slow, too slow for the impetuous Jonas, and 
on arriving at the foot of the Cascade Mountains, a halt being called for a long 
delay, owing to the depth of the snow, Spect left the train, alone and on foot, 
after the first crossing of Snake River, and traveled safely to the Willamette, 
a distance of over six hundred miles, a feat never before performed by a white 
man.  He only remained in Oregon a couple of months, when he found his way to 
San Francisco.  During his stay here, gold was discovered at Sutter�s Mills, but 
it then created no excitement.  Spect was so delighted with the country that he 
had actually set out to return to the States and bring back his family, but, on 
account of the mining excitement, he could find no companions for the journey, 
and was thus forced to fall in with the others and go prospecting.
            On June 2, 1848, he discovered gold in paying quantities on the 
Yuba, it being the first discovery of gold north of the American River.  Shortly 
afterwards he established a trading-post on this river and dealt largely with 
the Indians, who paid for their purchases in gold-dust.
            He left the mines in November, 1848, and opened a store in 
Sacramento City.  Five months later he settled opposite the mouth of Feather 
River.  Here he opened a general-store business, laid out the town of Fremont, 
and established the first public ferry in California.  At the same time he was 
conducting a store business on Rose Bar.  In visiting this place in April, 1849, 
he found the miners disputing about claims.  A meeting was called and a 
committee selected to draft rules for this government.  Spect was one of the 
committee, and drafted the first mining laws, as far as then known, in 
California.  These laws were afterwards legalized by statute.
            In the summer of 1849 Spect was elected a delegate to the first 
Constitutional Convention, but did not attend, owing to a pressure of business.  
He was elected to the State Senate of the first Legislature from Sonoma County 
and took his seat in 1850.  Shortly after the session opened, returns came from 
the Trinity mines which gave the seat to General Vallejo.  It was afterward 
discovered that no election had been held on the Trinity River, the returns 
having been manufactured at Benicia.  
            In the summer of 1850 Spect traveled in what is now Colusa County, 
and was so well pleased with the county that he determined some day in the 
future to make his home there.  It was not, however, till 1868 that 
circumstances so shaped his movements as to permit him to locate there.  He 
located in Colusa and began erecting tenement houses.  Previously he had been 
harassed by conflicting titles and lost much by the confirmation of Spanish 
grants.  He determined to steer clear of trouble.  He accordingly bought three 
lots from Colonel Hagan.  Everybody was buying them and his title seemed 
perfect.  But he was d