Tulare County, California History Transcribed by Kathy Sedler This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of the submitter. All persons donating to this site retain the rights to their own work. History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California - History by Eugene L. Menefee and Fred A. Dodge - Historic Record Company - Los Angeles, California, 1913 CHAPTER XI THE KAWEAH COLONY One of the greatest community enterprises ever inaugurated in the United States had its inception in Tulare county in 1886. This was the Kaweah Co-operative Commonwealth, which in spite of certain failures in forethought and some incompetence and perhaps some dishonesty in management, flourished until 1891, when it met the same heart-breaking dissolution that had been the fate of all its predecessors. There is little doubt but that disruption would have occurred sooner or later, on account of the impossibility of harmonizing the discordant elements of which it was composed. There is also a grave question as to whether even if successful for a time in the acquisition of lands and timber, mills and other property, the products of the united labor of the colonists would not have been in large part alienated by some of its first officers. There seems, however, to be no doubt but that these colonists were treated by the United States government in a manner so outrageously unjust as to merit the severest condemnation. J. J. Martin and B. F. Haskell of San Francisco, and C. F. Keller of Traver, Tulare county, were the chief early promoters. Martin and Haskell were in 1885 prominent members and office holders in different unions or workingmen's societies. Haskell was attorney for several of these, and coupled with a pleasing address, possessed unusual gifts of language and persuasion. He was the advocate of many more or less impractical schemes for the betterment of the workingman's condition and had assisted in organizing the California Land Purchase and Colonization association, and the Fish Rock Terra Cotta Co-operative company. Keller was a member of several socialistic societies in San Francisco and conducted a small store in Traver. In October of 1885, Martin informed members of the two associations referred to and also others that their agent had found a large body of splendid timber land in Tulare county, and that an association would be formed to acquire it. The first plans were vague but seemed to be in the nature of a mutual company to get possession of this tract and hold it for speculative purposes. Between forty and fifty applications were at once filed on lands lying along the north fork of the Kaweah river, eastward across the Marble Fork and including what is now known as the Giant Forest. The government price for these lands was $2.50 an acre, and as but few of the applicants were possessed of the requisite $400 to complete the purchase of a quarter section, a plan was in view to raise part of the money by hypothecating lands to which title had been secured. This, of course, would be a violation or evasion of the law, but was considered justifiable. It was agreed by the applicants that one-half the proceeds of the first sales of timber be devoted to a fund for publicity and propaganda. The Tulare Valley and Giant Forest railroad company was also organized and its stockholders assessed $60 each for the cost of a preliminary survey. Many were unable to pay this small sum, but the difficulty was met by some contributing more liberally. It will be seen that the undertaking, however profitable potentially, bade fair to be wrecked at the launching by reason of lack of capital. Then another snag was struck. Land Commissioner Sparks became suspicious at the large number of entries made within three days for lands lying in one body, especially as seven of the applicants gave as their residence one San Francisco lodging house. He therefore suspended the lands from entry pending an investigation. Upon this action each of the applicants tendered to the receiver of the Visalia land office the sum of $2.50 per acre, which was of course rejected. This money was secured by using the same sum over and over again. Undeterred by these difficulties, the enthusiastic colonists proceeded. As to the action of the government, they believed that the report of the special agent sent to investigate would be favorable to them, that he would approve their claims and bear witness to their good faith so that they could soon claim title. As to finances, a co�operative plan was thought out by which some capital for immediate use could be obtained through membership fees of non-residents, and by the labor of those on the ground rapid results be secured in the way of getting salable goods to market. The Kaweah Co-operative Commonwealth Colony was organized. Plans in great detail were elaborated. There were to be three divisions under the control of managers; these subdivided into thirteen departments under superintendents and these again into fifty-eight bureaus under chiefs and the last into sections under foremen. The grand divisions were those of production, distribution and commonwealth, and in their ramifications these included almost every activity, whether mental or bodily, known to man. The purposes of the association, it was set forth, were to insure its members against want, to provide comfortable homes, to educate and to maintain harmony, upon the principles of justice, fraternity and co-operation. It was the intention to place within the reach of all members "a cultured, a scientific, an artistic life." An idea of the high aspirations of the embryo colony can be obtained by the following extracts from an article by Haskell, which appeared in the official organ, "The Commonwealth." "We shall have schools there�not for the children alone, but for youths and maidens, for the babes and for the men and women. We shall have songs and a band and the music of tinkling guitars under summer stars by the rushing waters of the white North Fork." * * * "It may well be that among us alone of all the people of the earth shall be taught courage as a creed, fidelity as a dogma, truth as a commandment, love as a law, and purity. as a truth." * * * "We shall tell our children of the heroes of the world, not the butchers; of the moralists, not the priests." * * "The measured dances of Athenian days to teach them grace, the quaint ceremonials of the middle ages to teach them beauty, modern wonders of light and electricity to show them truth, the songs of old Sparta to move their hearts to valiant deeds; the cruelly pitiable histories of the modern wage slave to stir their hearts to heroic ire and bind their wills to freedom's cause and creed alone." "We shall have painters and sculptors, I hope, in time, though it will be enough now for us all to be humble students." * "Upon one of the flats by the river we shall build, out of the colored marble of Marble canyon, a temple and a theater for ourselves alone, and here also will we pursue the Beautiful, the True and the Good." The membership fee in the colony was $500, $100 payable in cash and the remainder, if desired, in labor or material. C. F. Keller was made general manager, J. J. Martin, secretary, J. Wright, purchasing agent, and B. F. Haskell, legal adviser.. Besides these, J. H. Redstone, P. N. Kuss and H. T. Taylor were among the first on the ground. About the last of 1886, work was commenced on a wagon road to the forest, and on March 1, 1887, articles of incorporation of the "Giant Forest Wagon and Toll Road" were filed. The plan was to pay the men in time checks at the rate of thirty cents per hour, or $2.40 per day, redeemable in such supplies or material as the association had or in labor at the same rate. It was pointed out that while nominally working for a low wage, the workers, on account of sharing in the wealth created by the labor of all, would, in reality, be laying up fortunes. For example, the material for a house, valued in the outside world at $1,000, could be secured for time checks equal to the hours that had been consumed in felling the trees and sawing and hauling the lumber, which would not amount at the thirty-cent rate to over $200. Plans of the propaganda. were distributed throughout the country and many persons joined the colony. Some of these were workingmen socialists, others had wealth, culture, refinement. The beautiful pen pictures of Haskell served to throw such a glamour over the proposition, that statements as to lands owned were not investigated before the entrance fee was paid in. On the north fork of the Kaweah, about three and one-half miles above Three Rivers, a town was started which grew- until it contained upwards of one hundred dwellings. There was the company store, a blacksmith shop, planing mill, box factory, postoffice, newspaper, etc. Work on the road was actively prosecuted, and a survey made for the projected railroad. There were brains and brawn and energy a plenty and excellent work resulted. Homes, too, were made on the level land, by the river, crops were sown, pastures fenced, orchards planted and barns built. Troubles, however, soon commenced. The laborers were insufficiently supplied with food, their diet at times being confined to flour, beans and coffee. There was a deficiency of clothes and supplies of all kinds at the company's store. Dissensions arose, and there was general dissatisfaction with the management. The commonest necessities of life were secured from outsiders in return for time checks ridiculously discounted. A number of disaffected members demanded to see the books and especially the membership rolls, but were refused by the officials in charge. The disgruntled ones considered that this was because they feared exposure to the non-resident members of the arbitrary, incompetent and perhaps dishonest way in which the affairs of the colony were being conducted. Martin was an executive of ability energetic to a degree and his sincerity and honesty of purpose were questioned by but few. Haskell, however, was generally regarded as a slick rascal whose aim was to sell all the bites possible from the rosy apple before a sign of its rottenness reached the surface. In spite of these troubles, the road had by 1890 been completed to a point about twenty miles from the townsite of Kaweah and at an elevation of 5,400 feet had entered the pine belt. Here a little saw mill was erected, and a small quantity of lumber cut. This road passing through a difficult mountain region, had been solidly constructed at a good grade and had cost approximately $100,000. Modern tools were not employed and powder was used sparingly. In places the grade traversed precipitous mountain sides, making long, high rock restraining walls necessary. No better evidence of the equal and good faith of the colonists is needed than the fact that most of these walls have stood without repair to this day. In the meantime, land patents were still withheld, although B. F. Allen, the special agent sent here, had reported favorably. As late as 1891 Land Commissioner Groff recommended that the colonists should not be deprived of their lands, stating that they had complied faithfully with the law under which they had made filings ; that they had expended over $100,000 in roads and improvements and had for five years guarded the giant trees, saving them from damage or destruction by fire, quoting details from Allen's report. However, the congress of 1890 had created the Sequoia National Park, which included these lands, and Secretary of the Interior Noble denied all claims of the colony, but expressed the opinion that the settlers should be reimbursed for the improvements they had made. In addition to the internal dissensions mentioned, the officers quarreled among themselves and factions took sides in a row between Haskell and Martin. The former was accused of the misappropriation of colony funds and was in '91 arrested on a charge of embezzlement preferred by Thomas Kennedy, but the case was dismissed. The greater portion of the colonists perceived that the end was at hand and disbandment began. Bitter hard it must have been, this giving up of home and friends and bright dreams of happy future after the sacrifice of former ties and after the giving of years of toil and devotion to a cause. How sickening the thoughts of what might have been! How bitter the thoughts of the false men who had betrayed their confidence and of the government that had unscrupulously confiscated to its own purposes the magnificent road they had builded! Early in 1891 a troop of cavalry under Captain Dorst was despatched to guard the park and these ejected the colonists from government land. In April, Henry S. Hubbard, Henry T. Taylor, James J. Martin, B. F. Haskell and William Christie were tried in the United States district court at Los Angeles on a charge of cutting timber on government land, and found guilty. On appeal the case was dismissed. A few of the remaining colonists leased as a private enterprise a quarter section of land on the Mineral King road, from Isham Mullenix and started another sawmill. Work here was stopped by the soldiers, but when the Interior Department learned that it was on deeded land they were allowed to proceed. Quite a number of the colonists remained in the vicinity of Kaweah, many having secured other land locations or perfected entries made on lands outside the park. These have all proven worthy, industrious citizens and now possess comfortable homes and a fair share of worldly goods.