SOCIETY. 405 



inense wagons are used in great numbers, hauling goods out 

 to the mining camps and to Visalia. Some of these wagons 

 have bodies sixteen feet long and six feet high, and are drawn 

 by teams of eight or ten mules. Occasionally a smaller wagon 

 will be fastened on behind the larger one, and then at any 

 steep hill one Avagon is hauled up at a time. During high 

 water, a steamer runs up the San Joaquin River from Stockton 

 to Fresno City, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles 

 by the river. A steamer runs every day from San Francisco 

 to Stockton, and stages leave the latter place every morning 

 for the principal towns of the southern mines. 



The first settlement on the place was made in 1844 by 

 Charles M. Weber and Mr. Gulnac, the latter of whom ob- 

 tained a grant of the land from the Mexican government in 

 that year. They had some trouble with the Indians, and Gul- 

 nac sold out to his partner, who would not give the rancho 

 up, and afterwards, when the place became important for its 

 commercial advantages, he became the founder and father of 

 the town, where he still resides. The name was selected in 

 honor of Commodore Stockton, who commanded the Ameri- 

 can naval forces on this coast during the war with Mexico, and 

 contributed much to the conquest of California. The town, 

 like Sacramento and Marysville, was overflowed during the 

 great flood of 1862, the water having covered all the streets on 

 the lUh of January, and stood for days more than a foot deep, 

 in the highest of them. 



§ 276. Marysville. — Marysville, the third town in the state, 

 containing a population of seven thousand, is situated between 

 the Feather and Yuba Rivers at their junction. The site, 

 like that of Sacramento, is flat, and in the midst of the large 

 valley, and has been raised artificially above its natural level, 

 to protect the houses against floods. Marysville resembles 

 Sacramento, though smaller, and its residents claim that it is 

 the handsomest town in the state. The first settlement was 

 made in 1841 by Theodore Cordua, a German, who built a 

 couple of adobe houses and called the place New Mecklen- 



