Battle of Olompali
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| Battle of Olompali | |||||||||
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| Part of The Bear Flag Revolt | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 California Republic |
 Mexican Empire |
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| Commanders | |||||||||
| Henry Ford |
Joaquin de la Toree |
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| Strength | |||||||||
| 20 Sonoman Bear Flaggers | 50 Mexicans | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 0 killed 0 wounded | 1 killed 1 wounded | ||||||||
The Battle of Olómpali was fought on June 24, 1846 in present day Marin County, California. It was the first battle of the Mexican-American War fought in California. The skirmish began when Mexican Colonel José Castro’s forces from Monterey, under the command of Joaquín de la Torre, headed north reacting to the declaration of an independent California Republic in Sonoma ten days earlier. Near Olómpali (north of present day San Rafael) they met up with American General John Frémont’s troops who had come from Sonoma in support of the revolt.
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[edit] History of Olómpali
The name Olómpali comes from the Coast Miwok language[1] and likely means southern village or southern people[2]. It is estimated to have been in existence since 500 A.D. It was a major Miwok center in 1,200 A.D. and is believed to have been one of the largest settlements in present day Marin County. The modern history of Olómpali began with the arrival of Sir Francis Drake's freebooters in 1579[3].
[edit] Settlement
In 1828, expansion of Mission San Rafael Arcangel, just ten miles (16 km) south of Olómpali, was underway. It is reasonable to believe that the Miwoks at Olómpali learned adobe construction methods at this time. In a letter from Padre Amoros, dated 1828, a small house is noted at Olómpali. This is the first of two adobes on the village site. It was the home of the hoipu, or head man, of Olómpali and the father of Camillo Ynitia, who was to be the last hoipu of the village. It is disputed whether the first adobe was dismantled to provide bricks for Camillo's adobe at about 1837. The second adobe, whose remains are still visible, measured 24 x 16 feet, 8 feet (2.4 m) high with 3-foot (0.91 m) thick walls. It had a thatch roof of salt marsh tulles. Its long axis is north-south. An adobe addition was made in 1840. The addition is at right angles and is attached on the west wall to form an "L" -shaped structure of three rooms. This is the only adobe home in Marin county; its remains are protected within the Olómpali state park.
In October 1843, General Mariano Vallejo petitioned the governor of the Mexican province of Alta California, Micheltorena, to grant 8,900 acres (36 km²) to Camillo Ynitia, who had become a Christian. The site of the village became known as Rancho Olómpali.
Ynitia traded wheat with the Russians at Fort Ross and livestock with the Mexicans at Sonoma. He was the only native American holding both Mexican and U.S. government land grants in northern California. Ynitia was a cultural link between the California Indians and the Californios. He was respected as being "fine, intelligent, shrewd, clean-cut, capable, and punctual".
[edit] The Battle Itself
During the "Bear Flag Revolt", on June 24 1846, the "Battle of Olómpali" occurred when a violent skirmish broke out between a troop of American Bear Flaggers from Sonoma led by Henry Ford, and a Mexican force of 50 from Monterey, under the command of Joaquin de la Torre, at Ynitia's adobe. The only engagement of the Bear Flag Revolt between Bear Flaggers attempting to seize horses from a corral of Californios, who in turn were planning to recapture Sonoma from the Mexicans whom had taken it earlier that week. One man was wounded and one Californio was killed, the only fatality associated with the brief California revolution.
[edit] United States
After California was annexed by the United States following the Mexican War, many land grant holders were forced off their lands by the new government. In 1852 Ynitia sold most of his land to James Black, who later became one of the largest landowners in Marin county. Ynitia faded into history, and died a few years later.
The history of Rancho Olómpali then became entangled in the lives of James Black, his daughter, Mary, and his daughter's husband, Dr. Galen Burdell. Herein is their tale:
James Black was born in Scotland. At 20 he shipped out on a Hudson's Bay vessel, but at Monterey he was put ashore with typhoid fever. He was married, had a child, and was widowed; he brought home a fortune of gold from the gold fields; he was elected tax assessor of Marin County in 1852; and he became one of the most influential men in the county.
Mary was the only child of James Black, who later married Maria Pacheco. Maria's first husband, Ignacio Pacheco, had married three times. "He rode in a saddle encrusted with silver and gold," Jack Mason tells us in Early Marin. James had been an acquaintance of Maria's for 22 years. The interesting thing about the marriage was that it took a dispensation from Father Lootens, because Black had been court-appointed guardian to her three minor children.
The marriage was ill-fated from the start. Black could read but barely write and he was not his bride's social equal, for she was a Durante and had been brought up in wealth.
Mary's marriage to Galen Burdell in 1863 introduced new tensions into Black's and Mrs. Pacheco's marriage. Dr. Burdell had reached San Francisco the long way around (via Cape Horn). He had first been trained in New York City and went to Brazil, but he had been lured north by the Gold Rush. He had sailed into San Francisco as ship's surgeon on the Dunsbury, which later had a reef named after it. He was well to do, having invented a tooth powder.
Sometime after their marriage a tragedy occurred. Mrs. Pacheco died in Dr. Burdell's dental chair. Although the dentist was absolved of blame, Mary's father could not forgive him. He said, "I don't want Dr. Burdell's name or Mary's included in my will," according to Mason. However, he had given Mary Olómpali Ranch on her wedding day in 1863.
Black then started drinking. Visits to Mary's father were an ordeal. Mary's pregnancy seemed to make him worse. "Black continued to ride about his property on horseback, often too inebriated to sit in the saddle," wrote Mason. "Late in 1869 he took a particularly bad spill, suffering a two-inch wound at the base of his skull. Softening of the brain followed, but he was still able to get about." Later, he died in convulsions so terrible an onlooker thought he had been poisoned.
The 1880 History of Marin said of him, "The leaves of the great book of life closed and another of California's oldest pioneers has passed from time to eternity."
Black's death brought family passions to the surface. Dr. Burdell had gone to the reading of the will at the Pacheco House, while Mary stayed outside. "Later that evening, he brought an attorney to read the will in a private suite of a San Rafael hotel. When the attorney left the room, Mary tore her father's signature off with her teeth, apparently swallowing it, since it was never found. She was arrested but quickly released, a story that was given sensational treatment in the San Francisco press," Mason wrote.
Retribution was only possible in a court of law. Mary hired three top attorneys and filed her contest in probate court in 1870. She claimed her father's mind had been influenced by his drinking, and he had been under the influence of his wife, Mrs. Pacheco. Mary asked for a jury trial and got it. Persons known to Mary testified against her father, and she won her case.
Mrs. Pacheco turned to good works after the trial, and built the San Jose district's first school house. She spent her winters in San Francisco. One of her children, Qumesido Pacheco, was Marin County supervisor for more than nine years. He built a house on Highway 101 just south of the main gate to Hamilton Field. It still stands.
Galen and Mary now concentrated on Olómpali. The 20,000 acres (81 km²), ranging from Tomales Bay to San Pablo Bay, included large portions of Novato and Nicasio. "Here the retired dentist found ample outlets for his inventive mind. On the San Pablo Bay he ran his own soil reclamation project. His orchards were of many kinds of fruit: apple, pear, quince, fig, pomegrante, persimmon, apricot, peach and plum. Fifty acres were planted in 30 varieties of grapes, a kind of experimental vineyard with "a hint of noble wines to come." Dr. Burdell's banana trees did poorly, but his 200 orange trees were the equal of any in Los Angeles, Jack Mason wrote.
Mary's property was hers alone, 950 acres (3.8 km²) at the head of Tomales Bay, once known as the Stocker Ranch. It soon became Point Reyes Station once the North Pacific Coast Railway came into being. Dr. Burdell managed the ranch.
"Mary Burdell, an energetic as her husband, planted the first ambitious garden in the county," wrote Mason. When she traveled to Japan, Mary brought home the first planting of exotics to the county. Mary was a perfectionist in social etiquette. The tablecloth had to be of the finest linen, the silverware polished to the nth degree. She and her husband played lady and lord of the manor. Every Christmas they would deliver turkeys to their friends, and Galen would leave a gold watch at every home they visited.
Mary suffered with gallstones. In 1900, an operation could be put off no longer. She made out her will. Her estate was to be divided three ways between her husband Galen, her son James, and daughter Mabel. She died during the operation.
Son James made major renovations at Olómpali, transforming it into a palatial country estate, including a 26-room mansion and a Victorian formal garden complete with fountains, brick walkways and gazebos. The estate remained in the Burdell family until it was sold to Court Harrington in 1943. Shortly thereafter Harrington sold the property to the University of San Francisco as a Jesuit retreat.
During the 1960s, the University of San Francisco sold Olómpali several times. Each time, the buyers defaulted and the property reverted back to the university. The most famous tenant was the rock band Grateful Dead, who lived here in 1966. During the Dead's brief stay it became a gathering place for San Francisco's rock musicians, including Janis Joplin and Grace Slick.
Don McCoy leased Olómpali in 1967 and turned it into a hippie commune called The Chosen Family. The mansion was destroyed by a fire caused by faulty wiring in 1969, exposing the remains of the old adobe walls. The remnants of three earlier buildings are contained within the remains of the mansion - the original Camillo Ynitia Adobe, an adobe add-on from the 1850s, and the 1866 Galen Burdell clapboard ranch house. Camillo Ynitia's Adobe was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
In 1977, the State of California purchased Rancho Olómpali and made it into a state historical park. The Burdell two-story frame house, built in the 1870s serves as the Ranger Station. Associated ranch buildings include barns, a blacksmith shop, a saltbox house and a ranch superintendent's house.
An Elizabethan silver sixpence minted in 1567 was discovered in the park by archeologists, indicating that villagers had contact with Sir Francis Drake or with people who had traded with the early English explorer. Many Miwok cultural artifacts have been identified during archaeological studies within the area of the present-day park, indicating this may have once been an important trade and cultural crossroads.
[edit] References
- "Olómpali Park Filled With History" by Joan Reutinger, The Coastal Post - September, 1997
- "Historic Spots in California" by Mildred Brooke Hoover, Hero Eugene Rensch and Ethel Grace Rensch, Stanford University Press, Stanford California, 1966
