It is remarkable to me how often people come into our museums to show me something they think is completely worthless, only to see my eyes grow wide with excitement. It all comes down to perspective, I suppose. One person sees a bundle of moldy documents; I see one-of-a-kind historical sources.
A few weeks ago someone brought to the Lower Lake Schoolhouse Museum bundles of these “moldy documents” wrapped in a plastic Wal-Mart bag. She didn’t know what to do with them and she wondered if we wanted them. If not, we could throw them out. Among a series of tax returns dating to the 1950s were three folded pieces of thick paper. Carefully unfolding each one revealed them to be important documents relating to one man’s journey to land ownership in Lake County in the 19th century. There, in my hand, were three pieces of the larger story of how America settled the west.
One-hundred and sixty acres of good western farmland, with or without the white picket fence, was the American dream in the mid-19th century. This dream, and the inexorable national drive to expand, kicked off the settlement of western America. To the Native Americans, Manifest Destiny was the scourge that brought thousands of white settlers to their lands, to those white settlers it was the clarion call that drove them farther west to California and even to the remote Clear Lake Basin. For the American government, this expansion was both a boon and a logistical nightmare. Each acre uncovered meant one more acre of taxable land, but how can land be taxed at all if no one owned it in the first place?
Over the course of the previous decades, a series of laws had been enacted that allowed the federal government to sell this land — on the cheap — to individuals. Attempting to prevent land monopolies, these so-called Homestead Acts favored small, privately-owned farms. When California was admitted into the Union in 1851, she brought with her 100 million acres of land, all of which immediately became the property of the federal government.
Other laws allowed the federal government to transfer ownership of large swathes of land to the states themselves. The Swamp Land Act of 1850 (or the Arkansas Swamp Lands Act), allowed states to identify and sell millions of acres of swamp and overflowed land in the public domain and to use the proceeds for such internal improvements as the development of levees and drainage systems. Land was classified as swamp and overflowed if the majority of a given parcel was “wet and unfit for cultivation.” In 1855 the state of California determined that the individual counties should be responsible for identifying this type of land. Like the other Homestead Acts of the federal government, the California legislature limited the sales of these lands to a maximum of 320 acres (increased to 640 three years later) in an attempt to prevent wealthy monopolists grabbing them left and right. After initial surveys, the state of California eventually identified about two million acres of such land — primarily clustered around streams, lakes and bays.
With the largest natural lake wholly within California smack in the middle of it, you can imagine that Lake County had quite a bit of this land. In fact, between 1868 and 1900 over 14,000 acres were surveyed and identified as swamp and overflowed land in the county. The first official survey of the land that would become Lake County took place in 1855 (Lake County wouldn’t become a county proper until 1861). An additional survey was conducted in 1860 by the county officials of Napa.
It was after the 1860 survey that a man named Robert Gaddy applied for 55.35 acres of land. These acres had originally been surveyed for a certain D.G. Hand. Apparently, Hand’s application for the parcel was thrown out because he already had a large plot of land adjacent to these 55.35 acres on the site of what is now Clear Lake State Park. California law at the time dictated that a single person could own no more than half a mile along a bay or navigable body of water. Taking advantage of this, Gaddy successfully applied for this relatively small parcel. He had accomplished the first step in owning this piece of land and the museum now has the thick, folded document to prove it.
But there was more red tape in store for Gaddy. After successfully conducting a survey of said swamp and overflowed land, the Napa County surveyor had to submit the paperwork to the Surveyor General for edits or approval. From there, the state of California had to submit a list of all swamp and overflowed lands to the federal government for final approval. While his application was making its ponderous way through the bureaucratic machine, Robert Gaddy applied for and successfully received a patent for an additional 160 acres in 1880. This is the second folded piece of paper, now in the museum. Rather than swamp and overflowed land (and so owned by the state), these 160 acres were standard land and Gaddy purchased them directly from the federal government. Gaddy now owned 215.35 acres of land extending from the shores of Clear Lake to what are now Soda Bay Road and Steelhead Drive near Clear Lake State Park.
Or, he almost did.
Although he had, lock stock and barrel, all rights to those 160 acres, he was still waiting for the final patent to the initial 55.35 acres of swamp and overflowed land from 1860. He was about 26 when he started the process to buy those 55.35 acres. He would be 65 when the state of California finally issued him his patent in 1899, and the third piece of folded paper stands as testament to that long wait. The process of selling-off swamp and overflowed land would be so convoluted that even today California can only say that it thinks all such land has been sold.
The drawn-out process of staking his claim in the west lasted much of Robert Gaddy’s life. Now, all that survives of it are three folded pieces of paper rescued from the bottom of a Wal-Mart shopping bag.
Tony Pierucci is Curator of Lake County Museums
