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Native American Settlement of Avery

By Judith Marvin

 

Although ethnographic Native American sites have not been specifically recorded for Avery, there is ample evidence of villages in the area. C. Hart Merriam, visiting the area ca. 1905, mentioned the village of Yoong’-ah-ko-te, located one mile below Avery. According to the Kelsey Census of Native Americans, there were 50 Me-Wuk in residence in Avery in 1905-1906. Taber records a population of 60 persons at a “rancheria” located at Avery in 1911. This relatively large population at Avery in the early 1900s could have resulted from the migration of people from the Murphys area. The Bureau of Indian Affairs lists 20 “Indians” at Avery in 1928. (1)

Post-contact settlement distribution may not accurately reflect that of the pre-contact period because many of these traditional village sites were moved short distances as a result of white hostility and use of the land. The Native Americans tended to relocate on public lands or on ranches where white owners were amenable to their presence. The Avery area must have been hospitable, as numerous informants recall Native American groups residing or camping in the area as late as the 1940s. (2, 3, 4)

In addition to the indigenous Me-Wuk population, Avery was for a long time a summer encampment place for the Washoe Indians of the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada who came to Calaveras County to gather the black oak acorn and to trade. While waiting for the acorn to ripen, they collected piñon nuts, chokecherries, wild grass seeds, and hunted deer. (5) Informants recall the Washoe bringing hand-woven baskets and pine nuts to trade for coffee, tea, sugar and whiskey. They stayed on into the fall, gathering acorns for their winter food supply and pounding some into meal for daily fare. They also collected willow shoots for basket-making, as the ones from the Avery area were reportedly more moist and easier to use than those of the eastern slopes of the Sierras. (6, 7)

Informants remember the Washoe camping in the Avery Meadow, but not the presence of any structures; they simply “camped out.” (8, 9) One individual recalled that as late as 1940 Washoe were in the meadow collecting acorns. (10) The schoolchildren assisted them during their lunchtime, sometimes having “acorn fights” and being admonished by their teacher not to squash them so as to render them useless for the Indians. (11, 12)This same teacher, Hazel Fisher, recalled in a 1967 interview that she had bribed the Indians to reveal the location of their cemetery and roundhouse. They were very fond of tomatoes and fruit and for the gift of same they told her that the location was “on the old Sheep Ranch Road, through the meadow and around the hill to the right.” (13)  The old Sheep Ranch Road, designated as the “Road to Half-Way House” on the 1875 GLO Plat, originally ran through the center of the meadow, but was abandoned in the late 1940s and the route moved further north. (14, 15)

Two or three Native American families, including Elsie Butler and her two boys, resided in the pine trees on the west side of Moran Road between the Malespina/Davies ranch and Avery. The present Davies Ranch house was built ca. 1903; the original house was a long building with a porch and several doors. (16) Mrs. Golob also recalled an arrastra in the area, with a wooden wheel.

Euro-American Settlement

The first Euro-American settlement of the area now known as Avery was by Joseph and Sarah Goodell, pioneer operators of the hotel and stagecoach relay station. In the 1850s they built a four-room house for a hotel and family home which was later incorporated into the present Avery Hotel. It was called the Half-Way House, so named because it was halfway between Murphys and the Calaveras Big Tree. Following the discovery of the Comstock Lode in 1858, Half-Way House became a busy way-station on the route of the Big Tree-Carson Valley Road, used extensively as an overnight stop by logging and freighting teams.

In 1869 George Avery purchased Half-Way House from the Goodells, greatly expanding the operation. By further pre-emption and homesteading, Avery eventually acquired a total of 800 more acres. The land in Section 13, T4N, R14E was patented in June of 1879 and that in Section 18, T4, R15E, in May of 1884. Avery enlarged the hotel in 1874, and again in the 1880s. In 1885 a post office was established and the name of the station was changed to Avery. By this time the station consisted of the hotel, two large barns, a stable, drive-through wagon shed, bunkhouse, three large corrals, a post office, store, and dance hall. In 1886, Avery donated land and paid to have a school constructed. As he now had nine children, it was a necessary addition to his settlement.

George Avery used the meadow on the west side of State Route 4 for growing hay and as pasturage for horses and cattle. His son, Morton Avery, owned a water right which brought irrigation water from the Union Ditch down Moran Road to the south side of the meadow where it was used to irrigate the hay. Although the hay was cut, George’s granddaughter Marcelle never remembered the meadow being plowed, the Averys simply cutting the “volunteer” hay crop annually. The ditch was abandoned in the late 1930s. (17)

Logging

In the early 1900s, George and his son Morton went into the lumber business. A year or so later, George, wife Henrietta, and the four youngest children moved to Stockton, dividing the property between their five elder children. Morton and his wife Louise (Reinking) bought out the interest of the other four and continued to operate the store, post office, hotel, and logging business; again expanding the station. During this time they also ran a herd of over 40 head of cattle. (18)

The property surrounding the meadow was logged at least three times during the 20th century, once as recently as the 1970s, during the 1940s, and in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In the early years the trees were taken to the Raggio Mill near Arnold (located about one-half mile down Cowell Creek from the Meadowmont Golf Course), and in later years to other mills, where they were cut into boards.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, a mill was erected at the southwest end of the meadow just above the headwaters of San Domingo Creek. This property was leased by Morton Avery to a man named Flite who built a combination mill, producing shingles and other lumber products. The mill was operated by an underflow water wheel and sat on two concrete footings (extant in 1986), and housed in a large frame building, no longer in existence. Water to power the mill was derived from Love Creek and through the Avery meadow along the original irrigation ditch. After running through the mill, the water was dumped into San Domingo Creek. (19, 20) During the 1940s the western portion of the meadow was cleared and the old stumps pulled up, piled on the north side, and burned.

When a new highway was built to replace the old Highway 4, the store, post office, and dance hall were moved away from the hotel to the site of the present store. In 1944 the Sam Lodato family purchased the Avery holdings and in 1944 constructed a new store, hardware store, and real estate office and proceeded to subdivide much of the original Avery family acreage. A fire destroyed the Avery barns, wagon shed, and bunkhouse near the hotel.

After World War II, the area began to develop as a supply center for the rapidly burgeoning construction of second homes and retirement homes. The land in the meadow area was subdivided in the late 1960s and new houses and house pads dot the fringes of the meadow. (21)

Footnotes

  1. Miwok Ethnohistory, Theodoratus, Dorothea J; Parsons, Marion, (1980)
  2. Granddaughter of George Avery and daughter of Morton Avery, Avery, Marcelle, (1986)
  3. Local Historian, Bishop, Frances E., (1986)
  4. Local cattleman who worked and lived in the area from the 1920s., Eltringham, Bill, (1986)
  5. Miwok Ethnohistory, Theodoratus, Dorothea J; Parsons, Marion, (1980)
  6. Local Historian, Bishop, Frances E., (1986)
  7. Local cattleman who worked and lived in the area from the 1920s., Eltringham, Bill, (1986)
  8. Granddaughter of George Avery and daughter of Morton Avery, Avery, Marcelle, (1986)
  9. Local cattleman who worked and lived in the area from the 1920s., Eltringham, Bill, (1986)
  10. Attended Avery School in the late 1930s and early 1940s., Brooks, Dale, (1986)
  11. Granddaughter of George Avery and daughter of Morton Avery, Avery, Marcelle, (1986)
  12. Attended Avery School in the late 1930s and early 1940s., Brooks, Dale, (1986)
  13. Half-Way House, Avery Station, Bishop, Frances E., (1984)
  14. Local Historian, Bishop, Frances E., (1986)
  15. Cattleman whose family were early residents of the area (Blue Lake Springs) and whose name was given to the road., Moran, Bill, (1986)
  16. Resident of the Malespina/Davies Ranch in 1912-1914, who attended Avery School., Golob, Esther Williams, (1986)
  17. Local cattleman who worked and lived in the area from the 1920s., Eltringham, Bill, (1986)
  18. Half-Way House, Avery Station, Bishop, Frances E., (1984)
  19. Granddaughter of George Avery and daughter of Morton Avery, Avery, Marcelle, (1986)
  20. Local cattleman who worked and lived in the area from the 1920s., Eltringham, Bill, (1986)
  21. Son of Sam Lodato and one of the owners of the Avery property 1940s-1960s., Lodato, Jack, (1986)