Individual Details

Jane CADD/CODD

( - )



JANE CADD SMITHSON

Written by Jane Cadd SMITHSON, who left Australia in the month of June in the year 1855, and arrived in San Bernardino in September of the same year. I have seen it grow from its infancy. There was only one small store in the town, and two small school houses, one where the Fourth Street School now stands. I have lived here since that time with the exception of one year.

I was married to John Bartley SMITHSON in the year 1866. He came here from Alabama in the year 1851, with his father Allen Freeman SMITHSON. He had worked on the road and in the year of 1866, we went over this road to what was then known as the Old Saw Mill in Little Bear Valley, which derived its name from the Grizzly Bears, which were quite numerous there at that time. The Indians were very bad -- regular savages. Three men were killed at one time by them, and one was killed by a Grizzly. Another man, a Mr. Houston who was owner of a Saw Mill in Houston Flats, was almost killed. Another time, as he and Dick Curtis and my husband were going over this road on horseback, they were met in the canyon by three Grizzly Bears, an old mother and two cubs. Mr. Houston's horse became frightened and threw him off, but he was not badly hurt. Several years later, while hunting in the mountains, he was badly hurt by bears but recovered.

We loved the mountains, so we spent twenty two years of our married life in them during the summers. We were at Little Bear two summers, at Sawpit one, and Grass Valley nine, and Pinecrest fifteen. We put in the great apple orchard at Pinecrest. We lived there all the time the famous Arrowhead Road was being built. We saw the first log laid in the building of the Squirrel Inn Resort.

We were a happy family. We had eight sons and four daughters, and we always made pleasure for our children at home, so they never had to go away to seek pleasure. I could say a great deal more about the mountains, but guess this is enough. I don't doubt but that there are many people who will say there never could be a road up this canyon, there sure was. I rode up on an Ox wagon, and down on a load of lumber drawn by horses.

JOHN BARTLEY SMITHSON

John Bartley SMITHSON was born in Alabama October 6, 1841. He arrived in California in 1850. When he was a boy of ten years, he came across the plains from Alabama with his Father who had two ox teams. He helped drive one of the teams most of the way. They were a long time on the road, and saw great herds of buffalo and many wild Indians. They had to stop many times, and make treaties and feed the Indians, to get through safely. They came through, but he lost his dear Mother on the road, leaving motherless, two little boys and girls. They have all passed away now, and he was the only one of that family of Smithsons who remained here. The rest went back to Utah. He remained here the rest of his life. We were married January 22, 1866.

As a small boy he carried water on horseback to the men who erected the first road that went into the San Bernardino Mountains. He always loved the mountains, and most of his work had to do with them. We spent twenty-six years of our married life in the mountains, first at the Saw Mills, then we had the first Hotel that was in the Mountains. It was located at Saw Pit. Then we had the place known as Pinecrest which was then known as Strawberry Valley, as the wild strawberries grew there so abundantly. We were there fifteen years, and put out that apple orchard which is there now.

We raised all kinds of vegetables and had a dairy. There were Savages there when the Arrowhead reservoir was put in, and he helped do some of that work. He was Foreman on the County Road for fourteen years, so you see we almost raised our family there and still love the mountains and go up every summer. When at the ranch, our latch string was always out for whoever came, as many and as often, and to stay as long as they wanted to.

We were the parents of twelve children, all born in San Bernardino:

Thomas Allen SMITHSON b. Jan. 24, 1867
John Bartley SMITHSON b. Sept. 18, 1868
James Albert SMITHSON b. Feb. 13, 1871
Rosadell SMITHSON b. April 13, 1873
Effie Jane SMITHSON b. Aug. 25, 1877
William Francis SMITHSON b. Aug. 20, 1878
Adolphus Henry SMITHSON b. July 17, 1880
George Alma SMITHSON b. May 13, 1882
Mary Ellen SMITHSON b. Dec. 20, 1883
Freeman Joseph SMITHSON b. Dec. 20, 1883
Lena May SMITHSON b. March 15, 1885
Charles Fredrick SMITHSON b. Oct. 16, 1889
[a daughter, Nellie Smithson d. bef 1910]

The End.

Families