Yes, I know I have been a very poor blogger this spring and summer. It's not that I've stopped being a history fanatic. It's just that I'm in the middle of learning how to be a math and science teacher! I know, can you believe it? Last year I taught social studies at a continuation high school here in the central valley of California. As you might have seen in the news, there is a definite shortage of math teachers. There was a need at the alternative education high school where I teach and I have a math and science background from my undergraduate days (35 years ago!). So I stepped up, or stepped in it, depending on how poorly I do teaching math and science during the next school year. However, I still made time to read some history, so here's a recommendation for you.
Book R & R: "Back Over There" by Richard Rubin.
Back in 2013 I read Richard Rubin's first book on WWI titled "The Last of the Doughboys" and really enjoyed it. In that book Rubin described interviewing the last few remaining WWI veterans who were still alive (must to most people's surprise). In "Back Over There," the author goes to France and tours the battlefields of the Western Front of World War I. Both of these books are very timely since we are currently in the one hundred year anniversary of the war.
I have to admit that I am jealous of Richard Rubin. You can tell by his writing that the author truly enjoyed his research. One of my favorite things to do is to walk a battlefield. In "Back Over There" Rubin travels on his own to the ground where battles of the "Great War" happened, not just American Expeditionary Forces but also our allies, the French and British. These battlefields are near the French border with Belgium and Germany, in many cases what is today and was then, in rural areas dotted with small farming villages. Often he makes contact with locals who know the history of the ground as well as any park ranger would at a National Historic Site in the United States. But the majority of the fields that Rubin walks are not protected national parks. They are farm fields where people continue to find artifacts, typically in the form of unexploded ordinance. The interesting thing about Rubin's trip to France is that while we have largely forgotten the battles and sacrifices made by our soldiers WWI, but other nations have not. They continue to That is evidenced strongly from Rubin's description of the formal remembrance ceremony at Belleau Wood to his interactions with the locals who drop what they are doing to take Rubin on a tour of a battlefield near where they live.
"Back Over There" is an enjoyable read with good pacing. The author seamlessly switches back and forth between historical background and travel narrative. He provides self-deprecating humor in describing his poor French language skills and the occasions where he gets lost looking for the spot where a particular event happened. These are two things that everyone who travels can relate to. So you see that this book is both historical and travel narrative. During this 100-year anniversary of an event that changed the course of history and our standing in the world, "Back Over There" is a good book to read and reflect on. Find out the sacrifices made by us, and more so by our allies. Ask yourself why other nations honor and remember, and are still grateful for what past generations of Americans have done, but we seem to have forgotten.
Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park
One of my favorite historical fantasies includes the wonder of
what certain places in California looked like before the modern world took over.
I would love to be able to go back in time as an immigrant to California in the
1840s and be able to experience the sight of the Sacramento Valley before there
was a city of Sacramento. Well, a trip to Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park
doesn’t make that visualization any easier. The park is located in a quiet
neighborhood on the corner of L Street and 28th, just a block or so
west of Interstate 80. The fort used to be in the middle of rolling grassland
in sight of the American River to the north and the Sacramento River to the
west. Now it is surrounded by residential streets of Sacramento, less than two
miles from the state capital.
Johann Augustus Sutter left his family in Switzerland and
came to America in 1834 to escape debts and gain a fresh start. He was
reportedly a huckster with a tendency to inflate his own resume, but by hook or
crook he made it to California in 1839. When Sutter saw the land around the
American River, he started making plans to build a farming and ranching empire.
He sold his plan to the Mexican government of California and not only won
Mexican citizenship in 1840, but also a land grant of 48,827 acres the
following year. All he had to do was maintain order among the local Indians. He
was also authorized to issue land grants and passports to American immigrants
to California.
With the help of Native-American labor, Sutter built his
fort with adobe walls that were two and half feet thick. The compound was
reported to be 425 feet by 175 feet. Inside the fort there were carpenter and
blacksmith shops, a gunsmith, a distillery, bakery, grist mill, and a blanket
factory. Over the next several years, Sutter welcomed immigrants arriving over
the California trail. Many new arrivals went to work for him. Eventually
Sutter’s “New Helvetia” would encompass approximately 191,000 acres.
When James Marshall brought the gold nuggets to the fort in1848, Sutter initially tried to keep the discovery a secret. But once word got
out, the flood of fortune seekers overwhelmed him and his holdings. Sutter lost
his empire faster than he built
Although the park was surrounded by the growth of Sacramento
long ago, don’t let that give you the impression that this is not an enjoyable
park to visit. And if I was going to recommend a starting point for a
California Gold Rush trip, this would be the place, followed by a drive up to the Marshall Discovery site. For one thing, the drive up to Coloma would give
you a feel for the expanse of land that was under Sutter’s control, if even for
a brief time. The fort itself is a real treat to walk through. It is on par
with the mission at La Purisma for the re-creation of the shops. There are
plenty of artifacts in each to view as well as a period wagon. Check the park
website for a schedule of events. If possible, visit on a day when one of the
“living history” events is taking place. And while outside the fort there is a
quiet modern neighborhood, inside it is easy to transport yourself back to the
1840s. Imagine what an oasis this settlement must have been after arduous
months on the trail.
Russians in California? Our Trip to Fort Ross State Historic Park
I've wanted to see Fort Ross State Historic Park for a long
time. The village is not represented, but the recreated
stockade and interior buildings are awesome to explore.
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We had a rather warm couple of days after Christmas, so
Sheila and I took the opportunity to drive up the coast to Mendocino County and
check out Fort Ross State Historic Park. This place has been on my radar for
several years, and since it is too far for a day trip from our house, we made a
weekend out of it, staying in Mendocino and visiting the Point Cabrillo Light Station State Historic Park (which I’ll tell you about in the next post).
Fort Ross is located on the northern California coast, an
approximately 2-hour drive north of San Francisco along Highway 1. The area
receives about 44 inches of rain a year, 35 of it between November and April.
So typically a visitor in the winter would take the chance of encountering
coastal storms with rain and gale force winds. However, on the day that we
visited we hit the weather jackpot with the sun shining, highs in the upper 50s
and a very gentle breeze.
The weather was perfect on this winter break. Check the
forecast before you go.
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Russians had been crossing the Bering Strait in search of
furs since the middle of the 18th century. By the end of the 1700s,
the Russian-American Company had settlements from Kodiak Island in the
Aleutians to Sitka in present-day Alaska. Operations expanded with the
contracting of American ship captains to use native Alaskans to hunt sea otters
along the California coast. To help in these operations, the Russians chose to
build a settlement at Metini, 18 miles north of Bodega Bay. The Russians
arrived in 1812 with 25 Russians and 80 Alaskans, who built the first houses
and a stockade. The site was populated with a native American village, plenty
of fresh water, forage, and pasture. There were nearby forests for an ample
supply of wood, and best of all, since they were technically encroaching on
Spanish territory, the site was defensible. They named it Fort Ross, to honor Imperial
Russia, or Rossiia.
I have never seen so many hand tools! |
As it turned out, a defense was not necessary. The site was
about sixty miles from the nearest Spanish mission, in Sonoma, and eighty-five
miles from the Presidio at San Francisco over rough terrain. Moreover, the
Spanish (and later the Mexican Californios) seemed to be more interested in
trading with, rather than expelling the Russians. Which is a good thing, since
the marine mammal population began to be depleted by over hunting by 1820. Along
with trading and hunting fur, the settlement also farmed and ranched. They were
productive enough to send foodstuff to their outposts in Alaska. In 1841 the
Russian-American Company sold their holdings to John Sutter, of Sutter’s Fort
fame. After the Gold Rush and the American annexation of California, the area
was ranched by a succession of owners that ended with the property being transferred
to the State of California in 1906. This makes Fort Ross one of the oldest
California State Parks.
Did I mention the weather was perfect? The coast the best
part of the trip.
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Fort Ross is definitely a destination. I highly recommend a
picnic lunch, which is what we chose to do. The nearest inexpensive restaurant
is more than an hour’s drive in either direction. But picnicking is really the way
to go if the weather is nice, which it was on the day we visited. Besides the
drive, give yourself a half a day to go through the visitor’s center and the
grounds. Along with the buildings and the stockade, take the time to walk out
to the sea cliff and sit on the bench for a little while.
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