SOCIETY. 405 
mense 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 wagon 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 11th 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- 
