Tag: Monterey

New Year’s Eve in Monterey

Post author By rachelsp
Post date December 31, 2021
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This is the season of dancing and there has been a good deal of it, in fact one is looked for every Sunday night.
February 3, 1848, Sherman’s Family Letters

Writes Sherman to his family from Monterey California. More than a year earlier, that is New Year’s eve of 1846 he was still en-route by ship to his new assignment. The voyage lasted close to one year. And the new year celebration of 1846-1847 was marked by a pleasant stretch of “fair wind and truly Pacific sea crossing the equator in Longitude 117 West”.

Nautical Clock 1759, By Tatters ❀ from Brisbane, Australia – Wikimedia Commons

While the passage to California provided enough adventures to satisfy anyone looking for them, the tasks that lay ahead at first seemed to young Sherman dull with little prospects of career advancement which he deemed essential to eventually supporting a family. The war with Mexico including the battle of Monterey in July 1846 ended by the time Sherman arrived six months later. Thus, instead of participating in combat, he was assigned tedious duties of managing military affairs in an outpost that also served as the port of entry of foreign goods in Alta California.

The young lieutenant’s reaction to his assignment in California was ambivalent. Letters to his family and future wife reflect his mixed feelings. On the one hand he lamented that there’s no hope for military promotion and more pay now that the Mexican war had ended. On the other, he was clearly enjoying hist post in a bustling port town still heavily dominated by Spanish and Mexican customs and ways of life. At that time it seems that theater productions, dances and horse racing far surpass church activity despite the cathedral being one of the oldest and most prominent building of the town. And so, after complaining of the scant career opportunities he reports on the party life and leisure activities even as he critiques the frivolity with his typical ironic humor.

“The officers gave the ‘great ball’ of the season on New Year’s Eve – wrote young Sherman. ‘You have no doubt heard of the Mexican custom of filling eggshells with cologne and other fragrant water to break upon passers by. Here it is carried to a great extent but confined to the house and chiefly at balls and dances.The shells are mostly filled with gilt and colored paper cut very fine, which broken overhead leave it covered with spangles. The ladies break over the gentlemen’s heads and the reverse, and so great are the liberties taken to accomplish the feat that some from behind will clasp your arms tight whilst others shower on the Cascarones’ (filled eggshells). They do not like the shell filled with perfumed water as it produces stains on the dresses and also causes colds to which these people are very subject. It is polite to avoid a Cascacron and even to grasp a lady’s hand to crush the shell in it, if she be in the act of breaking it, but when a gentleman gets a Cascaron on his head he is bound to return it which is sometimes quite difficult when the ladies are skilled in dodging. You can scarcely imagine the extent to which this is carried [out]. At a small party a few nights ago, there were upwards of four hundred Cascarones broken among a party of not over twenty-five persons. “
February 3, 1848, Sherman Family Letters

Women’s Evening Dress c. 1842 By MET Museum –

He continues describing how ‘the ladies’ can spend the whole day preparing the cascarones, which apparently are still in use today in Mexico to mark various celebrations. And he concludes:

I have often laughed to see a whole party of grown men, myself included sitting round a table clipping this stuff in preparation for a coming dance, but the customs of Monterey are as sensible as the customs of other places, and must be respected.
Sherman Family Letters 1848

While cracking egg shells on the heads of our family, friends and neighbors may not be our thing, may our own welcoming the New Year be as festive and safe as Sherman’s in Monterey.

Tags California History, Cascaron, Monterey, New Year's Eve, W.T. Sherman

Culture and Value History of the West US History

Round the Horn to California: Sherman’s first voyage, Part 3

Post author By rachelsp
Post date April 23, 2021
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A few weeks ago, after a few days in Carmel I made my return trip by way of Highway One from Salinas to Half Moon Bay a drive of 100 miles and much of that on the proverbial ‘ribbon of highway’ with open fields on the east and the Pacific on the west. It was a beautiful spring day and some fields were speckled with California poppies now in bloom. In less than two hours even despite the traffic congestion in Santa Cruz I arrived to my destination. Having read Sherman’s memories of his days in Monterey, it was easy for me to imagine what it was like for him to travel along the coast in a small sailing vessel to San Francisco or Bolinas or by horseback on the inland route across Salinas valley to get to the neighboring mission towns of San Juan Bautista and further north San Jose and Santa Clara. While driving the coastal route past Año Nuevo and Pigeon Point, I eventually arrived to Half Moon Bay, a small farming, fishing and tourist town. In Sherman’s time the area, was known as Rancho San Benito and it was little more than a collection of farms and ranches on or near the former settlement sites of the Ohlone. The afternoon commute, enabled me to imagine the youthful enthusiasm of Sherman as he first landed on the western coast of the northern continent.

While still en-voyage to his destination, Sherman was delighted with his one-week stay in Rio de Janeiro as the ship Lexington collected supplies and new cargo to begin the last stretch of their voyage to Monterey, California. He enjoyed the cuisine, the topography and learning how water was delivered to the city from the surrounding majestic mountains:

“Mr. Wise enlarged on the fact that Rio was supplied from the “dews of heaven,” for in the dry season the water comes from the mists and fogs which hand around the Corcovado, drips from the leaves of the trees, and is conducted to the Madre fountain by miles of tile gutters.”
W. T. Sherman Memoirs-Volume I

He arrived in Monterey the end of January after close to five months at sea. The last stretch of the voyage which resumed after a brief stay in Brazil and later Chile included passing through the waters of Cape Horn and then northward in the Pacific waters.

The ship resumed its voyage around Cape Horn an island, which according to Sherman resembled an oven hence its name in Spanish Ornos/oven. “Rounding the Horn” was the expression to describe the difficult and often perilous task of navigating the ever swelling seas and converging currents of the Atlantic and the Pacific. It took them another sixty days to navigate the waters and make way for Valparaiso, a coastal town of Chile. While the name denotes “Valley of Paradise”, Sherman thought it unimpressive, “nothing more –he writes– than a few tiled cottages along a beach”. Located south of the equator, the season of spring was just beginning and while Sherman didn’t consider the landscape to be anything worth noting, he enjoyed the pleasant climate and the fresh strawberries then in season.

“All the necessary supplies being renewed in Valparaiso, the voyage was resumed. For nearly forty days we had uninterrupted favorable winds being in the “trades” and having settled down to sailor habits, time passed without notice. ”
W.T. Sherman Memoirs – Volume I

Along the way they encountered other ships and learned of news of their destination of California. Mexico recently ceded their territories and the U.S. navy had already taken possession of the ports. John C. Fremont and his exploration party were scouting the area and General Kearney was en route by overland. The news coupled by avid reading of books stoking everyone’s imagination of what they would find in this new land, made Sherman and his colleagues ever more eager to press on to their military or peace keeping assignments (they didn’t know which) in Monterey.

Sherman reports that they arrived to the coast of California by the end of January. But while both the Spanish and English maps concurred on the currents alongside the coast they did not agree on the longitude. This coupled with a fierce storm, typical in January caused them to overshoot the Monterey port and they weren’t able to make a correction southward for several days. Once the storm subsided Sherman writes;

“Slowly the land came out of the water, the high mountains about Santa Cruz, the low beach of the Salinas, and the strongly-marked ridge terminating in the sea in a point of dark pine trees, marking out the Monterey Bay.”
W. T. Sherman Memoirs-Volume I

Tags California, Half Moon Bay, Monterey, W.T. Sherman

Culture and Value US History

Round the Horn to California; Sherman’s first voyage, Part 1

Post author By rachelsp
Post date February 4, 2021
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Ordered to California by Sea round Cape Horn! Is not this enough to rouse the most placid?
June 30th 1846 Letter

Wrote a young Sherman who was summoned as an army officer to travel to California recently claimed by the United Sates following their war with Mexico. Even before the discovery of gold the value of the land and its strategic location on the Pacific was appreciated if not coveted. John Fremont and other 19^th century fortune seekers had written copiously about its bounty. Sherman was assigned to assist in a ‘peaceful possession’ of of Monterey through the Sierras. In one of his first letters he instructs his sister:

You have Fremont’s map on the parlor table. Look at the map and you will see Monterey and San Francisco with the back country. It is in that region I believe we will be for some time…
Letter to Elizabeth Sherman, 1846

At that time there were two ways to cross the landmass we now call the United States. One could travel overland by foot or beast which beyond the Mississippi was fraught with dangers, mainly from Indians protecting their homelands. Or by sea, which took much longer since it was necessary to travel around the tip of South America and present day Chile. The voyage included crossing the equator line twice, a stay in the ports of Rio de Janeiro and Valparaiso and tumultuous passage around the tip of Cape Horn, where waters of the Atlantic and Pacific furiously intermingled. What Sherman understates succinctly almost laconically in his Memoirs, most likely an editor’s call, he humorously expounds in great detail in letters to his family.

New York Seaport late 19th century Print by George Schelgal, (Library of Congress)

The seas of water known as oceans are the “high road that leads from Africa and Asia to the United States” wrote Sherman. On July 17 he along with close to 100 crew, army personnel and some passengers sailed from the port of New York on the USS Lexington, a sloop of war, converted into a cargo ship, which still carried six guns for defense on the spar/or upper deck. Sherman writes that it was well stocked with food, ammunition and other supplies that would be needed on their arrival to California. He appreciated that logistics for the voyage were well planned; “by foresight, the greatest of evils may be avoided”. But he also surmises that

“the certainty of the vast journey bids me be prepared”.
Letter 1846

Copious and amusing descriptions of the ship and voyage abound: The upper deck included a strong floor and was surrounded by bulwarks ‘about breast high’. “Our cargo is very heavy as we carry out so may guns for California service, and the magazine of the ship could not contain half our powder which amounts to about eight hundred barrels”. A coop full of chickens and a few dozen pigs were also in transport perhaps some to be used for upcoming meals. The berth/lower deck included the sleeping quarters. He concludes: “We have many books of all kinds but our voyage will be so long that we will be forced to read even the tables in Bowditch”, a 19th century handbook of navigation by Nathanial Bowditch.

Indeed the first part of the voyage seems like a cruise on a luxury liner. Soldiers and officers including young Sherman bound for California watched while sailors nimbly coiled ropes and rigged sails. Sherman notes however, that all of the men, himself included were assigned tasks and were required to assist in the event of storms. There were four women, wives of the officers and finally two children: “ to whom the sailors are fast teaching them all the oaths in their calendars”. I take that to mean expanding their vocabulary in ways that their mothers blushed, lamented and reprimanded. Or all three. After 57 mostly pleasant sunny days days, USS Lexington crossed the line (the equator) and made port at Rio de Janeiro for close to two weeks giving Sherman and his companions time to explore the colonial city and its surrounding mountainsides.

Rio de Janeiro in the 19th Century Capricio Views-
Mutual Art https://www.mutualart.com/

Tags 19th Century Sea Travel, California, Monterey, RioDeJaneiro, Sherman, Sherman Bicentennial, USS Lexington, William Tecumseh Sherman, WTS

Culture and Value

A Winter Day in Monterey

Post author By rachelsp
Post date March 13, 2020
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hills of Monterey –https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ord

“The intervals between rains give the finest weather possible”
Memoirs of W.T. Sherman Volume I

So writes W. T. Sherman of his first stay in Monterey, California in February of 1847. Recently I spent a few days close to the Carmel River just south of Monterey. While gazing along the Carmel valley, river, mountains and sea I thought about how it could have been like for my grandfather Sherman mounted on horseback exploring these very same places.

As in Sherman’s time this year’s winter rains marked their recent visit with “bright green grass with endless flowers”. While Sherman experienced something of a warmer tropical climate in Florida his growing years included winters in Ohio and later New York. Thus, a February of flowers and green fields remained vivid enough in his memory to write of it in detail years later in his memoirs.

Having grown up in New England I recall my initial disbelief of green hills and flowers typical in northern California in February after five days of precipitation. Similarly, I was shocked at the dryness and barren shrubbery of August. The hills of the ‘Golden State’ seemed highly over rated. But now like rain water I store expansive vistas of green hills and flowers for the arid dusty days of summer. I’ve now come to think of the hills that have turned a dreary brown as golden.

Before reaching Carmel I drove past the artichoke fields of Castroville and Salinas Valley. Then on through Seaside and Sand City the “pretty valley and sandy country covered by oak bushes and scrub” that Sherman writes of. Closer to the Monterey shoreline, dilapidated buildings of old Fort Ord, strip malls and parking lots have replaced oak bushes and scrub that Sherman once traversed with his horse.

However, once closer to Carmel the valley and river bird, fish and foul life resemble in kind if not in numbers what Sherman would have seen. Birds of all sorts were gathering for nesting, ducks and mallards were busy fishing for their breakfast, deer emerged from thickets and walked by their intruder (that would be me) towards the river’s edge to quench their morning thirst. A flock of geese flew overhead. “The Carmel is a lovely little river –John Steinbeck writes in Cannery Row—It isn’t very long but in its course it has everything a river should have.”

“It’s everything a river should be “
John Steinbeck Cannery Row Viking Press-Compass Book Edition, 1963

The river adroitly reflects the rainy and dry seasons of Carmel. Accordingly during rainy season it floods even violently and then subsides to what can seem a little more than a large stream as meanders through the valley and on to the Pacific a dozen miles or so to the west. This time the river was burbling with excitement as if its fresh waters knew the course would soon end-or begin in a vast ocean on the horizon.

Carmel River and Lagoon, *photography by H.McK*ay

Curious, I went with a friend to the Carmel River beach north of Point Lobos where the river shifts into a lagoon before flowing to the Pacific. When overtaken by high tide the seemingly small pool of water merges with the ocean. We learned that the hard way. We parked our car and enchanted with the afternoon sunlight and migratory birds in the lagoon we quickly walked over a sandbar to continue along the beach toward the southeast. However once the sun was setting we started heading back only to find that river waters of the lagoon and surf waters of the Pacific swallowed our little land bridge. Wading through the waters didn’t seem to be an option given the incrementally growing relentless surf of the Pacific.

Perhaps Sherman camped on this very beach, as the Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola did while running low on food supplies in 1769 as did the Ohlone-Esselen. But I had no desire for such similar adventures.

The parking lot was within sight. But access was not. Immediately surrounding us was beach, water and no clear way of returning to the car without a ten-mile hike. Thankfully we encountered a local resident out for an evening stroll. She led us up the pathway from the otherwise isolated beach into adjacent streets and drove us along the coastal highway. Following the north side of the river we past the legendary Carmel mission, a turn of last century ranch now a restaurant-resort and made a quick turn through quaint neighborhood streets. With the sun setting over the Pacific, We reached the beach parking lot shortly before its closing.

With Steinbeck’s and Sherman’s descriptions of Carmel river and valley in mind, the river’s final egress to the Pacific emphatically declared as it were of convergence of memories of time and place flowing back into the sea.

“ When the wind blows – the grass whistles and whispers in myths and riddles and not in our language–the sea is always the sea”
Mary Oliver The Oak Tree Loves Patience Collection Blue Horses, Penguin Books 2014

And so it is.

Tags Carmel River, Memoirs of W.T.Sherman, Monterey, ShermanBicentennial, W.T. Sherman

Culture and Value

Monterey, California 1847

Post author By rachelsp
Post date February 7, 2020
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Recently rereading volume one of the W.T. Sherman’s Memoirs, I discovered this past January 26, marked the 173rd anniversary of his arrival to Monterey California. By his own description he was a young army officer, hoping to gain fame and glory in the Mexican War. Instead he was sent to keep the peace in the main port of entry in Alta California recently transferred to U.S. possession. His first stay lasted just short of two years yet a pivotal time and watershed moment in California’s history—the discovery of gold. Sherman’s eyewitness accounts are descriptive and sometimes entertaining though not particularly insightful. Except for one observation—that the discovery of gold would forever change the landscape and history of California.

I live in the Bay Area and over the years I’ve visited Monterey, California several times. This coming February 8th marks the 200th year of WTS’ birth in Lancaster, Ohio. Since I’m not able to attend the upcoming festivities hosted by the Sherman House Museum and Fairfield County Historical Society, I commemorated the upcoming occasion by visiting the historic old town of Monterey imagining what it must have been like when a young army officer set off for adventures on the other side of the continent and lived there in the wake of times that shaped its own story.

“[Monterey bay] is shaped somewhat like a fish-hook, the barb being the harbor, the point being Point Pinos, the southern headland.” p45

Tags Bicentennial, California, History, Monterey, U.S. History, W.T. Sherman, William Tecumseh Sherman