Walking tracks, west of town. Keep on keeping on.
This offering relates to the preceding, Mark of Conquest; Benchmark and Mortar.
The previous post mentioned the Modoc War of 1872-73 in California.
Emphasis has been added below to highlight portions specifically mentioning the Modoc War and Modoc Road.
Halls of power.
“The Hope Ranch area was first mentioned in written history in Captain Gaspar de Portola’s diary when, with 65 leather-jacketed soldiers, he marched across the mesa April 20, 1769, accompanied by two Franciscan friars, Ft. Juan Crespi and Ft. Francisco Gomez.
[Previous Post: Summer Microburst at Arroyo Burro (2017)]
He was greeted at Arroyo Burro by friendly Indians from Cieneguitas (swamp or little marshes) also identified as Sagspileel, that portion of Hope Ranch which lies between Modoc Road and the old Hollister Avenue, now Highway 101, . . .
. . . Going back to the 1870s and Thomas Hope, Owen O’Neill in his History of Santa Barbara County, says:
‘Hope was greatly opposed to the opening of a country road through his property, and his determined efforts to prevent it resulted in friction between himself and some of the townspeople, especially P. J. Barber, it principal advocate, throughout the early seventies.
Because of the numerous rough encounters at law and with the shillelagh of this fighting Irishman, who had bought the land and considered himself privileged to keep people off it, the road has ever since been called the ‘Modoc Road,’ for at this period California papers were filled with references to the brisk and bloody incidents of the ‘Modoc War’ with the Indians in the north.”
—Harold S. Chase, Hope Ranch: A Rambling Record (1963)
“In October 1854, Hope was authorized to act as Special Indian Agent for the Indians at the Cieneguitas settlement.
It was his duty to protect the Indians and their rights. He received no compensation for this duty.
In 1873, he gave the county at 120-foot wide strip of land running all the way to Turnpike Road for a new road (now Hollister Avenue).
When a deputy county surveyor began putting in stakes for another road which ran through the site of the Indian village, Hope objected.
He sent the ranch foreman, an Indian leader named Juan Justo, to stop the survey at his property line.
Hope followed and demonstrated his intention to stop the process by brandishing his shillelagh, after which he promptly galloped into town and turned himself over to the judge.
He was fined $25 for obstructing a public servant in the commission of his duties and later paid an additional $1,000 for assault and battery when the surveyor filed a lawsuit.
The road went through at a time when newspapers were filled with accounts of the Modoc Indian uprising in Northern California.
Since County officials felt they had encountered a war during the survey, they named the road ‘Modoc.’”
—Walker A. Tompkins, Hope Ranch (1980)
“Stagecoaches bound for Gaviota Pass crossed his property daily.
Farm wagons and other public traffic followed in the stage ruts, giving Tom Hope reason to fear that continued public usage might lead to the condemnation of a right of way across his property.
To prevent this, Hope stationed his Indian foreman, the giant Juan Justo, to barricade the road and turn all traffic out of Hope Ranch.
In 1873 county surveyor J.L Barker began staking out a road across Hope Ranch.
Hope clouted that innocent official over the skull with a fence rail, a caper which cost him a $1,000 fine for assault and battery.
Because of Justo’s role in the controversy, and because the Modoc War was raging in the lavabeds of the Oregon border that summer, wags began referring to the disputed thoroughfare across Hope’s Ranch as the ‘Modoc Road,’ giving the route the name it bears to this day.”
—Walker A. Tompkins, Santa Barbara Neighborhoods (1989)
The title of this here weblog is borrowed from Walker A. Tompkins’ , The Yankee Barbareños: The Americanization of Santa Barbara County, California 1796 – 1925