blankets over the empty window and door frames. Jeremiah Olds wrote of the 

 work involved in setting up a ranch: 



There was only the squatters house on the tract not a 

 fence anywhere, but there was redwood timber on one 

 corner of the property, then the real work began 

 cutting timber for fences and lumber for buildings. 

 When they built the first barn they underestimated 

 the force of the wind in that section; sometime later 

 during a severe storm this barn was blown down 

 killing several cows and horses, one fine black mare 

 was blinded by the crash although apparently unhurt 

 otherwise. 103 



The first documented resident of the site of today's Stewart Ranch was 

 Andrew Powell; his name appears on a grant survey map dated 1858. Powell 

 married a sister of Nelson and Daniel Olds, but apparently left the area or died 

 by 1860. According to census figures that year, his wife Martha Olds Powell 

 continued to live at the site. 10 ' 



Next at the site was the elder Daniel Olds. Olds and his wife Lois, both 

 75 years old, lived in a house with his daughter, the abovementioned Martha 

 Powell, as well as a laborer and housekeeper named Sylvester and Mary Davis 

 and another laborer named Burton Shippy. Apparently Shippy and Davis 

 operated Olds' dairy, as the 1860 census noted that Olds owned 37 milk cows 

 but made no butter, and Shippy owned no cows but made 1600 pounds of butter 

 and supported two farm laborers. Martha Powell owned 23 milk cows. In all, 

 the ranch supported 60 milk cows, 50 other cattle, six horses and 25 pigs, most 

 owned by Olds. Also, Daniel Olds, Sr. did not own the property he was living 

 on; his sons Daniel Jr. and Nelson did. Lois Olds died at the ranch in June, 



103 



13 Jeremiah Stanley Olds, "Recollections of Woodside," handwritten manuscript, February 18, 

 1939, p. 6, Boyd Stewart Collection, photocopy at PORE. The black mare, probably one of the 

 Morgans that the family had brought from the east, was given to neighbor James McMillan 

 Shafter for breeding purposes. 



04 Plat of Rancho Tomales y Baulines, 1858, PRNS; Olds family notes; Population Schedules of 

 the 8th U. S. Census, 1860. Andrew Powell may have been temporarily out of the area at the time 

 the census taker visited. 



212 



