Early settlers shaped Petaluma’s history

In 1850, the population of Sonoma County was only 560. Just two years later, it had quadrupled, and the village of Petaluma had become the northern nexus of navigation for the great San Francisco Bay.|

In 1850, the population of Sonoma County was only 560. Just two years later, it had quadrupled, and the village of Petaluma had become the northern nexus of navigation for the great San Francisco Bay.

The Petaluma River is a tidal slough and a tributary of San Pablo Bay. In 1850, it was only navigable at high tide, and then only by shallow draft scow schooners for 16 miles upstream.

The water was certainly clearer then, and great schools of sturgeon and steelhead trout were abundant. The skies were filled with clouds of feathered game and deer, elk and bear roamed the countryside. It was a hunter’s bonanza.

Due to the ease of living here, the local Pomo and Miwok tribes were gatherers rather than warriors, and they cultivated blackberries, apples, grapes and oats. Tragically, these Native American tribes became victims of the “white man’s diseases” of smallpox and cholera.

California’s ranch population had grown rapidly and by 1850, the state’s population was 92,000. Many of those successful gold rush “49ers” settled in the verdant Petaluma Valley, bringing valuable skills and trades, as well as their gold.

In Petaluma, the best way of making a living in the early 1850s was to supply the fast growing communities of San Francisco, Sacramento and Stockton with badly needed food. Professional game hunters, such as Thomas Lockwood, David Flogdell and Tom Baylis, trapped, fished and shot here in Petaluma Valley, and sold their goods to the markets of those communities.

In San Francisco, a deer carcass went for $20, and a dozen quail cost $9 – big money in those days indeed. But often game was traded for items needed here, such as matches, bullets, whiskey, gun powder and cigars.

By 1851, Petaluma’s drinking water was still brought in by barrel from Sonoma Mountain springs and you could buy a bath in a tin tub, upstairs over the saloon. The choices included “cold water, warm water, first water or second water.”

A saloon girl to wash your back was extra, and if you wanted more than that, it was a lot extra. There were a lot of saloons in Petaluma then, and tired, hard-working men drank heavily and often gambled away their troubles.

Petaluma’s population began soaring by 1852 as new settlers were bringing in hogs, sheep, chickens and cattle. The town’s inhabitants were still almost entirely male then, with the exception of the girls working upstairs in the saloons.

Sanitation and hygiene were almost non-existent. There were no sewers, penicillin or even band-aids. Doctors were unskilled and typhus, cholera and smallpox were the major killers. A simple cut or burn could have been lethal. Popular medical treatments included pouring whiskey on wounds or splashing on a favored Miwok poultice of wet cow dung.

By 1854, Petaluma’s population had grown to 1,200, and that year game hunter Baylis constructed his wild game warehouse at the slough on what would become B Street. Its walls were 18-inch-thick stone, and it still stands as the oldest structure in town, known today as the Great Petaluma Mill shopping center.

Just four years after that, Petaluma was incorporated, and such civilized improvements as cobbled streets, piped-in water, churches, schools and a bright red fire truck pulled by a horse had arrived. The town’s growth had been amazing, and Petaluma was no longer just a village by 1858. Those improvements, of course, meant taxes were just around the corner. Hardly anything is perfect.

(Historian Skip Sommer is an Honorary Life Member of Heritage Homes and the Petaluma Historical Museum. Contact him at skipsommer@hotmail.com.)

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