Contra Costa County, CA History

Transcribed by Sally  Kaleta

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SOURCE:  The History of Contra Costa County, California
Edited by: Frederick J. Hulaniski
Publisher: Elms Pub. Co., Berkley, CA 1917
 
CHAPTER XIII
 DOCTOR JOHN MARSH
BY R. G. DEAN
 
              CONTRA COSTA COUNTY'S history would not be complete unless it gave 
prominence to the man around whose name clusters so much of historical interest 
- to one of its earlier and most intelligent pioneers - to the man who paved the 
"way for future empires" and whose acts and utterances appear to us to have been 
inspirational and prophetic. It is to Doctor John Marsh the country, and 
particularly Contra Costa County, owes a debt of gratitude which it can never 
repay, even though it inscribe his name high on the roll of honor and write its 
acknowledgment in letters of gold into the tomes of history. When the destiny of 
our Golden State was hanging in the balance, when the question of its remaining 
a Mexican province or becoming a part of United States territory was being 
debated, when Daniel Webster from his seat in the Senate was thundering his 
stentorian invectives against the confirmation of its purchase, asserting that 
the "whole country west of the Rocky Mountains was an arid waste that a crow 
could starve to death to fly over," it was the historical letters of Doctor 
Marsh addressed to the Honorable Lewis Cass, then  Secretary of State, that 
largely influenced him to close the deal and take over California with its eight 
hundred miles of coast line. Had he done no more than this, the great service 
was monumental and deserving of our highest consideration.
               Quoting from one of the Doctor's letters, under date of 1846, 
wherein he referred to the productive capabilities of the wonderful land, he 
said: "The agricultural resources of California are but imperfectly developed, 
the whole is remarkably adapted to the cultivation of the vine, olive, and figs, 
and almonds grow well. It is the finest country for wheat I have ever seen; 
fifty for one is an average crop with very imperfect cultivation, a hundred-fold 
is not uncommon, and even one-hundred and fifty has been produced." When we 
reflect that these words were written nearly seventy years ago, when California 
was an unbroken wilderness; when these broad plains were the undisturbed 
stamping-ground of vast herds of elk, antelope, wild cattle, and wilder 
mustangs; when the only homes were the scattered missions and the haciendas of 
the cattle barons, and the only commerce a limited traffic in hides and tallow, 
we are impressed with the inspirational and prophetic character of the 
statement, and at once credit the Doctor with being a far-sighted and practical 
observer.
               He had drifted into this summerland of the Pacific imbued, no 
doubt, with a wonderlust, a love of primitive conditions, and the unrestrained 
freedom of the frontier, although he had tasted of Boston estheticism and 
culture, having graduated from Harvard. He knew the country from Yuma to the 
Oregon line, but, ignoring the opportunity of selecting a location in other 
parts of the country, had with excellent judgment chosen the eastern portion of 
Contra Costa for his future home. He had with truly prophetic instinct looked 
forward to the day when this broad domain would be under the protection of his 
native flag, when the great watercourses of the State would beat as throbbing 
arteries with life and commerce, when great and growing cities would be planted 
along their margins, or seated by the Golden Gate, watching the full-freighted 
argosies of the world riding in imperial splendor upon the bosom of the 
magnificent bay, represented by every national emblem. Undoubtedly, he had 
pictured to himself the incoming tide of humanity, rising higher and higher in 
the great West, flowing with steady and irresistible sweep across the great 
plains, until, stopped by the Western ocean, it would eddy and flow back into 
the valleys, over these "arid wastes", and along the sunny slopes, until 
California would become a great, populous, and wealthy state.
             Hides and tallow, as  articles of export, he saw would be relegated 
to the past and other enterprises and industries engross the attention of the 
coming multitude. Then the vision of limitless wheat-fields with their 
"hundred-fold" waving a ripening luxuriance in these fertile valleys, the 
vine-clad hills and olive orchards, and caught in the summer wind the fragrance 
of almond-blossoms. It was no Utopian dream - his prophecy has long since passed 
to its fulfillment, and its verification justifies the judgment of the Doctor in 
the selection of his home.
            Here under the shadow of Mount Diablo, in a sequestered spot, shaded 
by grand old oaks that stand like sentinels, at the very portal of one of the 
most romantic and picturesque canadas of the State, he located and builded his 
home. The building itself is a prototype of the man - grand in its outlines, 
massive in its manorial proportions, solid as the enduring hills by which it was 
surrounded. Here he was content to sit down and bide his time when the surging 
tide of immigration that was eddying around him, turned by natural barriers from 
its path, returned to seek beside himself the advantage that he had considered 
so fully years before. It came ere he was aware, clamorous for his acres, 
restricting him to the lines of his original concession.
              Then some careless or designing hand scattered wheat upon the 
soil, and lo! the scene changed as by the touch of an enchanter's wand. 
Wheat-fields pressing upon and overspreading the limits of his grant were spoken 
into existence and their yield was indeed "fifty and an hundred-fold." No vision 
or prophecy was ever more truthfully fulfilled, and at this writing, if the 
Doctor were alive, he could see the sunlight reflected from the sheen of emerald 
fields and glinting cottages through clumps of shade-trees that mark the 
habitations of prosperous cultivators of the single cereal. 
             More than this, he could see the thriving town of Brentwood on his 
ranch, with all its concomitants of hotels, stores, business houses, churches, 
and schools - a smart enterprising, and progressive people, who have built in 
the fullest confidence of the future prosperity of this locality. And, if the 
Doctor so desired, he could see from his own door the passing trains that haul 
their unbroken cargoes from ocean to ocean, or bear their passengers in hurrying 
cars to and fro from all parts of the world, and read his daily paper three 
hours from the press. Probably his greatest surprise would be to see the 
elaborate system of canals created and completed for irrigating the beautiful 
valley and the hundreds of acres of alfalfa to which it has been seeded, and to 
note the spirit of change that is weaving its silken web over the destinies of 
the ranch, of which, notwithstanding his remarkable foresight, he could scarcely 
have dreamed, or its possibilities, as developed by the modern system of 
scientific farming by the application of water to the soil, to intensify 
production and render its happy possessor independent of the variable seasons 
and the drought, thus yielding in multiples beyond the visionary estimates.