We were never from here. Though Maggie’s great uncle, Arthur Catron Jessee was the first sheriff of Napa County back in the 1850’s, he didn’t hang around long. But he was here to witness some Donner Party survivors make Napa County their home. When we moved here in the '50's, I remember how kids laughed at us. What was a boy doing here whose last name didn’t end in a vowel? I didn’t have the courage (or the knowledge) to bring up names like Berringer, Lewellyn, or Krug. Though we were told the Valley had been founded by Germans and Italians, the vowel-less last name was a burden.

Sure, my class had Beitlers, Wagners, Coopers and Wights, but they were outnumbered by the name-ending-in-a-vowel set. Those kids had Italian surnames, but their first names had been anglicized by their assimilating, WWII veteran parents. Their had names like Larry, Ron or Roger. It wouldn’t be until they grew up to be parents, that they would revert back, embrace the old country, and name their children, Giancarlo, Mario, or Dante. But I digress.

The point is, we all came from somewhere. Some had pasts filled with pride. Some with shame. If truth be told, most of us we were too hung up with teenage psychosis to be concerned with what the various heritages were.

Owning a Chevy with legsters or playing ball was far more important.

No one mentioned back then that the families who now call Pope Valley home were descended from pioneers who left Tennessee and Kentucky to come west, before the Civil War.

Today, we all know that George C. Yount set up shop in 1831. We also know Krug opened up the first winery in the Upper Napa Valley around 1861. Sure, Sam Brannen, ever the promoter, built Calistoga in 1859 and brought a railroad up there to service it.

However, for some reason, we pay slight attention to the pioneer families that crossed the Sierras and ended up here as ranchers—mostly in Pope Valley.

Joseph B. Chiles, born in Kentucky in 1810, first came to California with the Bartleson party in 1841. We all know about his mill. What few of us are aware of is that he {probably) left his original equipment on the Eastern side of the Sierras when it had to be abandoned in peril of losing his life. A tough guy, he went back and forth several times.

The hero of them all was his friend, Joe Walker. We’ve all heard about Jim Bridger and Kit Carson, but a great book, The Westering Man by Bill Gilbert, makes the case that they couldn’t hold a candle to Joe. He died on his ranch at the foot of Mt. Tamalpias, while his brother Joel (perhaps the first to cross the Sierras in a covered wagon) died on his ranch, right here in the Napa County. Their grandfather was Samuel Rutherford—a fiery Presbyterian preacher.

Joe Walker was a stud. 6’5” tall, he had married a Crow Indian. He could cross cultures. Racism was not his bent. He was tough. A great tracker, it was said no man could find water like he could.

He didn’t mince words. Schools taught us John C. Freemont, was a hero. Joe Walker had a different take: “Frémont, morally and physically, was the most complete coward I ever knew. I would call him a woman, if it were not casting an unmerited reproach on the sex.”

Though he was here for Marshall’s discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, Walker had no truck for standing still with a sluice bucket.

Turns out he was Scotch Irish—like so many of the families that settled Pope Valley.

Maybe you knew this, but I sure didn’t: From Jamestown to the 1720’s the early settlers faced east. Their focus was on trade with England. Plus: There were mountains and Indians. Why leave a good deal?

Finally, someone figured out that Appalachians had to be “civilized.” The thought was that it should be done “gradually.”

Speculators went back to Great Brittan, and recruited the toughest, meanest S.O.B.’s on the island. They were found in Ulster. Think Cave men—or at least sod busters, who were clannish and used to scratching out meager livings on arid land.

Politically oppressed back home, these Scotch-Irish had a “guerrilla’s mistrust of cities.” For them “authority had become synonymous with oppression.”

They were straight shooters--and gave us trenchent phrases like, "Don't Tread on me. Fish or cut bait. Root Hog or die."

Strict Presbyterians, thanks to the "Good Book", they were amaziningly literate.


They found the absence of law and order east of the Appalachians “utopian.” Soon, they pushed further west into Kentucky and Tennessee.

They were the first ones with the chutzpah to break out and follow Lewis and Clark to the wilds of California.

A number of them ended up settling here.

So who cares?

Probably no one. It’s just interesting that certain government officials today, want to tell the descendants of the roughest, toughest pioneers on the block that they can’t burn fires in their fire places. They can’t grow grapes. They can’t build homes in the hills. They have to fence their cattle from the streams. They aren’t entitled to the water from their wells. They can’t have “ponds” on their property. They have to “de-commission” fire roads in the hills. They have to take down their dams.

The list goes on. Via over regulation, today’s bureaucrats are on course to end the family farm in Napa Valley. It’s all being done for the greater good—of course.

It's fascinating that today’s politicians and bureaucrats have such little respect for the families which settled this county. Really tough men and women built this Valley. How interesting that slump shouldered bureaucrats from outside can tear it apart so easily.

























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