The Parsons Ranch made the local news in 1867 with this exciting story: 



EXPLOITS OF A WILD-CAT. 



On Thursday of last week a monster of a wild-cat . . . 

 made its way to the place of Mrs. C. S. Parsons, where 

 a great commotion was manifest among the poultry, 

 and the bones of a dozen or more were strewn upon 

 the ground in a short time . . , 89 



The second parcel of land to come into the Parsons Ranch was a small lot 

 located on a curve in Olema Creek known as "Winan's Place" opposite the 

 original Olema School across the Olema-Bolinas Road. Daniel and Nelson Olds' 

 brother-in-law James Winans occupied the land, part of Rancho Punta de los 

 Reyes Sobrante owned by James McMillan Shafter, from about 1858 to some 

 time in the 1860s. Winans, born in Ohio in 1810, farmed the land and raised a 

 family with his wife, the former Emaline Olds. In 1860 Winans milked fifteen 

 cows, made 200 pounds of butter, and raised almost 1500 bushels of winter 

 wheat, oats, barley and Irish potatoes, and five tons of hay. It is likely that he 

 leased additional land from Shafter, as his small plot could not have supported 

 such an operation. Winans had left the area for San Rafael by 1870, and on 

 October 11, 1875, Shafter sold the small parcel to Charles Parsons. Parsons 

 moved the Winans house across the creek and added it to his existing home, 

 doubling the size. 90 



The third and final parcel to join the Parsons Ranch was 47 acres at the 

 top of Bolinas Ridge above Five Brooks that Thomas Longley had bought from 

 Daniel Olds in 1870. According to the 1959 reminiscence of Bertha Stedman 

 Rothwell, whose family knew the Oldses and the Longleys, Nelson Olds built a 

 two-story house on the ridgetop which was known as "The Home Ranch of 

 Nelson H. Olds" until the Oldses permanent home was built in 1864 at 

 Woodside, today's Stewart Ranch. Rothwell reported that Omar Jewell, who 

 later built a dairy ranch on Lagunitas Creek, occupied the ridge ranch for a few 

 years with his family until purchasing his ranch to the northeast from Nelson 



89 



'Matin County Journal. June 29, 1867. 



90 Deeds Book Q, p. 38. MCRO; Population and Agriculture Schedules, 8th and 10th U. S. 

 Censuses, 1860 and 1880; Olds family notes courtesy of Boyd Stewart; interviews with Emma 

 Benevenga and William Pinkerton. 



197 



