The Olds brothers split their Olema Valley landholdings exactly in half 

 on February 11, 1863, Nelson taking 1,955 acres of the northern half and Daniel 

 the same amount to the south. Nelson Olds sold off much of his northern half, 

 including 680 acres of the eastern portion to Omar Jewell and 100 acres on 

 Papermill Creek to the Pacific Powder Mill Company in 1864, and acreage on 

 the northern portion to Levi K. Baldwin and to William L. Johnson. Omar 

 Jewell may have lived on the Stewart Ranch site before settling a short 

 distance to the east; Jewell's biography noted his early residence at "the Home 

 Ranch of Nelson H. Olds," with his family from September 1862 to 1864. Olds 

 kept 850 acres of perhaps the choicest land for himself. 108 



Shortly after the Olds family land split of 1863, Nelson H. Olds built a 

 house on the site of the old corral and developed a respectable dairy ranch on 

 his 850 acres, which he called "Woodside." According to his son Nelson, Jr., Olds 

 hired McMarion "Mac" Miller of Olema to haul lumber up from Bolinas, building 

 the house about the time of Rafael Garcia's death, or 1864-1866. Dairy 

 buildings may have remained from Daniel Sr.'s business. A lithograph of the 

 ranch dated 1869 (see cover) and interpreted by Nelson Olds, Jr., showed the 

 mam house, a dairy house built about 1863 ("designed to suit the old tin pan 

 system, long before the separator came into use"), a barn he dated 1869, and 

 the original squatter's cabin in which the family had spent that stormy 

 Christmas Eve. A previous barn on the site had fallen in an earthquake in 

 1868. 109 



Nelson Olds and his wife Lavina had five children, Kate, Nelson, Jennie, 

 Edgar and Stanley, the youngest being born at Woodside. The 1870 census 

 showed the Olds Ranch supporting three laborers, who milked 70 cows and 

 produced 9,000 pounds of butter in 1869. The ranch also produced wheat, oats, 

 hay and barley, and supported a herd of 25 pigs. Woodside was valued at 

 $19,000, producing almost $5,000 worth of products the previous year. Living a 

 short distance to the north was an Englishman, Edward Pittam, and his wife. 



years until it "fell down" (Stewart). 



'""Deeds Book E, pp. 238, 354, 439, 532, MCRO; Munro-Fraser, Marin County, p. 465, 

 Rothwell, Pioneering, pp. 231-232. Rothwell, who was a young woman in the 1870s, referred to the 

 Olds home ranch as the ridge top home, later Longley's residence, that is detailed in the Lupton 

 Ranch chapter. 



' 09 Nelson Olds, Jr. to Boyd Stewart, December 18, 1935 and January 28, 1936; lithograph in 

 Boyd Stewart Collection. 



214 



