How politics shaped Tuolumne County 171 years ago
On this day in 1850, the California State Legislature met for the first time and honored Tuolumne as one of the state’s original 27 counties. There was a major glitch in the naming of the county seat, but nothing compared to the political turmoil associated with the creation of Stanislaus County four years later.
California’s first legislature convened in San Jose on Dec. 15, 1849, with representatives from 10 geographical districts drawn by Brigadier General Bennet Riley as ex-officio civil governor. With the state experiencing explosive growth due to the Gold Rush and settlers moving West, there was a pressing need to bring formal governance even before statehood, which finally came on Sept. 9, 1850.
Six days after commencement of the session, a committee on counties and county boundaries was formed in the state Senate, which had few accurate maps and even less reliable knowledge of the geography it was to address. California and most of the West had been part of Mexico until that country ceded it to the United States following hostilities ending in early 1848.
Oro County (“oro” being Spanish for “gold”) was the first choice of a name for what became Tuolumne County. “Oro” was changed to “Tualumne” in a report prepared by State Sen. Mariano Vallejo, who wrote: Tualumne derives from “the Indian word ‘talmalamne’ which signifies (a) cluster of stone wigwams.’ “
Tuolumne County’s expansive borders stretched from the crest of the Sierra Nevada to the summit of the Coast Range and abutted San Joaquin County on the north and the Merced River watershed on the south. The legislature accepted the committee’s report, and the layout of California’s inaugural 27 counties was officially in place. It was intended that most of the counties would be subdivided as their various regions became more populated. Somewhere along the line, the spelling of “Tualumne” was changed to “Tuolumne.”
Local indignation arose when a copy of the act reached Sonora and people began reading it. A deft maneuvering of one of the new county’s representatives in San Jose showed “Stewart” as the name of the county seat, not Sonora.
It didn’t take long to figure out that San Joaquin District representative Malcolm M. Stewart was aspiring to immortality. Outraged citizens soon petitioned the
legislature, strongly urging that body to reinstate Sonora as the town’s name on the basis of its historic association with miners from Sonora, Mexico, who found the first gold there.
Over 100 citizens, including more than two dozen Hispanic people, politely but firmly informed the legislature that any name but Sonora would “be attending with great inconvenience, annoyance and injury to the citizens of the town and the population of the adjacent placers.” Because of the abundance of Sonorans, it was “by universal consent it took its name from the character of its first miners” and the petitioners further insisted that “as such it is known throughout the State of Sonora, in Chile and Peru, in the Atlantics States and throughout California.”
They had a point, for when the proposed law was under consideration in the senate most — if not all — of the members were unfamiliar with a town named Stewart. Thus, on Jan. 21, 1850, they amended the bill by retaining the name Stewart but adding the words “formerly known as the Sonoranian Camp.” The local petition was apparently so compelling that the legislature amended the act in only five days, and Sonora was proclaimed the official name of the county seat. Mr. Stewart was later honored with a street named for him in downtown Sonora.
In 1855, there was one more flap regarding the county seat. Some residents of Jamestown successfully qualified a petition for the ballot that would have moved the location of Tuolumne County government to Jamestown just two years after the completion of a courthouse in Sonora. The measure was defeated by more than two to one.
There were three challenges to Tuolumne County’s territory. Proposals for a “Louisa County” in 1853 and a “Yo Semite County” in 1858, both composed of acreage from Tuolumne and Mariposa counties, never were formalized. In the late 1940s, Alpine County brought suit against Tuolumne County, alleging the legislature erred in drawing Alpine’s southern boundary. Tuolumne County ultimately prevailed in court, and the 110,000 acres claimed by the Alpine County Board of Supervisors remained as originally placed.
The frantic plotting prior to Stanislaus County’s birth in April 1854 would confound even the most jaded political observer of today. The catalyst of the big todo was a continent away in New York. His name was David C. Broderick, and he followed his father in the masonry trade.
Broderick, however, had political ambitions and gravitated to Tammany Hall and other Democratic strongholds for support. With a fierce desire to be a U.S. senator, he ran for that office but was defeated. Infuriated, he vowed never to set foot again in New York unless it was as a senator.
In 1849, he left the Empire State and headed for California to mine the emerging electoral landscape for a U.S. Senate seat. Broderick settled in San Francisco and quickly rose to power, first as a state senator from that region in 1850 and then acting lieutenant governor for a short time. He cultivated a large following among Senate Democrats as a prelude to claiming the U.S. Senate seat held by William M. Gwin, which was set to expire in March 1855.
The state Legislature chose U.S. senators at the time, and it was scheduled to meet in January 1855 to re-elect Gwin or choose his successor.
Broderick had sufficient votes to win in the 1854 legislature but not that of 1855. He had a bill introduced into the Assembly to move the election to 1854, and it passed by three votes. However, getting state Senate’s support was another matter.
Gwin had an ardent following among the senators and half of them lined up behind him. Then things got interesting. State Sen. Elisha Peck of Butte County, a Whig, revealed contemptuously that he had been offered $5,000 to vote for Broderick. State Sen. Jacob Grewell, also a Whig, said he was opposed to the early election bill, then changed his mind following intense lobbying by Broderick partisans.
With the Senate evenly split, Peck and Grewell were kidnapped by Broderick supporters to keep them from voting. Peck would have been a “no” vote, and there was great risk that Grewell would change his mind again. Heated oratory and posturing in the senate chamber and in the hallways outside marked this titanic fight for political power.
The measure finally came up for consideration and passed after Lt. Gov. Samuel Purdy broke a tie with his “yes” vote.
Adherents of prominent Democrat David S. Terry, an attorney and avowed opponent of Broderick, soon found the kidnapped pair of senators, who by then were in a drunken stupor. They coerced Grewell to move for reconsideration of the early election bill at the next day’s legislative session. Grewell did as he was told. In a roll call vote, he changed his mind again and voted “no.” Broderick’s self-serving measure was defeated.
During the raucous goings on in the Senate, a parallel effort to find another vote for Broderick’s bill was being led by Tuolumne County Assemblyman B.D. Horr, who resided in the valley portion of the county. Some settlers there were anxious to break away from Tuolumne County and form their own government. There was no opposition to that action locally.
Horr, scheming with Broderick, introduced an assembly bill in January 1854 to create “Stanislaus County” and shepherded it through that chamber where it was approved.
Sharp eyes in the Senate noticed a provision to give the new county its own senator, a provision supported by the petitioners who agreed to a speedy election of a pro-broderick representative who would rush to the state capital for the senate vote.
With the potential to tip the early election bill in Broderick’s favor, the state Senate quickly amended out of the new senate district. In April 1854, Stanislaus County came into existence and remained a part of the Seventh Senatorial District with Tuolumne County.
Gwin succeeded himself as a U.S. senator, but not until 1857 because the legislature was unable to agree on an appointment in 1855 or 1856.
Ironically, the other U.S. Senate seat expired in 1857, and Broderick was able to pull off a win. His term in Washington was cut short two years later when he was killed in a duel with Terry, who also met a violent end when he was shot dead by a deputy sheriff after assaulting Stephen J. Field, a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Both bloody incidents took place in San Joaquin County.