PHOTO COURTESY OF SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Colonel John C. Fremont, hero to some, villain to others
By Elenore Meherin and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
This week we conclude the saga of how the Bear Flag revolt impacted life at William Richardson’s Saucelito Rancho. Ramon de Haro, beloved of Richardson’s daughter Mariana, has been away from the hacienda since word arrived about the revolt and capture of Colonel Vallejo in Sonoma. Here is Elenore Meherin’s lightly edited account:
The young girl in her bright flowered dress, the blue rebosa [scarf] fluttering, glided swiftly through a lane of rose trees. She whistled softly. An Indian boy appeared, leading a spirited black mustang. He pointed to the distant hills where two horsemen were just coming in to view. The girl nodded and sprang to the saddle. She was quick and vivid with beauty, but her red rippling mouth held no smile and her strange lilac-blue eyes were deeply shadowed. She was off with the morning breeze, eager to learn what new disaster the night may have brought. Ten days had passed since that ominous Sunday when Don Jose had brought to the dancers in the Richardson hacienda the stunning news of the war on Sonoma. They had been 10 appalling days for the ranchos of Northern California, every night horses and cattle were driven off by unseen thieves; men were arrested and thrown into prison without cause; homes were plundered. rumors flew thick and fast. It was known that Colonel Vallejo, his nephew and other native Californians of high rank and known friendly attitude to the Americans had been brought before Captain John C. Fremont in camp on the embarcadero in Sacramento. Fremont refused conciliation, ordered the prisoners taken to Sutter’s Fort where they were locked up in a bare room and kept without food till late the next day.
The war which the Californians did not want, had come. But as [Richardson’s young daughter] Mariana galloped through her father’s lush domain, the thousand cattle grazed in the sun, horses on the many hills nibbled the grass in their quiet, meditative way, a lark sang and the pines murmured in the early morning serenity. The peace of the woodland entered the girl’s heart and lifted it. Perhaps the trouble would pass. She caught up with the two riders, one was Pedro, her father’s Indian vaquero, the other her brother, Steve. He was but 16 but already one of the finest horsemen in the province. Steve’s young face, usually carefree and laughing, was haggard. He had been riding all night in an effort to learn if the terrible news brought yesterday to the Richardson Rancho was correct. He rode to his sister’s side and said briefly, “It is true. The Gringoes were murdered.”
The blood dropped from Mariana's face leaving it a stark white. She said through clenched teeth, ‘‘They were spies going through a friendly country, gathering weapons and starting war. It was right that they should die!”
Steve said, "It was not right to murder them. And it was not meant by Juan Padilla who captured them, that they should die. But Garcia, that cut-throat Bernardino Garcia, stole into camp in the night and killed the prisoners. It is a thing unheard of in this land. All California will suffer.” They rode on in stricken silence. For now, even the youngest knew the trouble would not pass. Cowie and Fowler were the two men who had been murdered. They were sent by the Bear Flag rebels to get gunpowder from the Fitch ranch on the Russian river. They had no right to make this hostile journey through a country still at peace with theirs. They were captured by a band of Californians and, as Steve had learned, they wore murdered, without the sanction of the leaders, by the disreputable Garcia. Steve said, "The Gringoes will take the land. General Castro has mustered 200 men to fight them. But they have no guns. He is sending 60 to Sonoma under Joaquin de la Torre. They camped at Olompali just below Petaluma last night.”
The girl said, anxiously: "And Ramon. You heard nothing of Ramon?”
"No . . . Nothing,” said the boy, noting his sister's pale set lips. He reached out and patted her hand in a young clumsy tenderness. “Don't worry about Ramon, he is so brave, so swift. Ramon will come through.”
They reached the hacienda just as the morning hymn fluttered on the breeze. First it was Dona Maria Antonia’s rich husky contralto, then ancient Monico's mighty tenor, then ten, then a hundred voices joining in the winged, many-tuned anthem.
"Singers at Dawn, in the heavens above
"With celestial voices people all regions.
“Gladly we too greet the kind God in His morn.”
The hills took up the song and flung it with the perfume of the roses down the wind. Mariana listened with dulled heart. How could her mother sing? She had just leaped from her horse when glancing moodily to the waters now named after her father, Richardson’s Bay, she saw a man riding a dark horse and leading a white one, a superb, fiery, proudly-stepping horse. Tears flew to her eyes. Ramon and the snow white stallion!