948 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



rarely mentioned. From 1832 until the accession of California to the 

 United States was a time of local strife for rule among the leading 

 Mexican families, so that there is little reliable history of those sixteen 

 years. A few points, however, indicate that sheep which aggregated 

 at one time 150,000 head under mission rule, rapidly diminished in num- 

 bers. The records we have show the ownership of 4,000 head, outside 

 the missions in Los Angeles County, in 1842; and at this same date 

 Jacob P. Lease (an American who had married a sister of Gen. Yallejo), 

 was found by a party of Oregon settlers who went to California to pur- 

 chase cattle, to be owner of a flock of sheep which he was induced to 

 drive to Oregon for sale, as related hereafter. 



In 1848, Oapt. Sutter — the most prominent figure in Californian his- 

 tory of that date — had from 12,000 to 15,000 sheep, and was using them 

 as a source of meat supply for the working party engaged with his part- 

 ner (Jas. A. Marshall) when gold was discovered in the mill race they 

 were constructing; a discovery which unsettled for a time all kinds of 

 business. We can only surmise that as soon as the injurious effect of 

 a salt-meat diet began to manifest itself by scurvy amongst the miners, 

 fresh mutton would be eagerly bought in the mining camps as well as 

 in the incipient cities. Under this demand the remnants of the mission 

 flocks were soon consumed. Buyers were in Oregon collecting what 

 they could get in 1850, to drive to California for sale to the miners. 

 The writer made his first sale of mutton sheep that year, for that pur- 

 pose, at $5 per head. Two years later he sold lambs at $12, and mature 

 wethers sold at Portland for $15 per head. Such rates ruled at the 

 same dates in parts of California, and enterprising men began to drive 

 from New Mexico and from the Western States to meet the demand. 



So far as we can now learn most of the enterprises of driving sheep 

 from New Mexico, which began in 1852, were by Mexicans, though the 

 famous American mountaineer and guide, Kit Carson, who had settled 

 near Taos, was one of the first. The aggregate drives from 1852 to 

 1860 are represented to have numbered 551,000 head. But between 

 these dates, citizens of the United States were busy driving from the 

 Western States a much better class of sheep with the double purpose of 

 engaging in wool- growing and mutton production. The names of these 

 pioneers who thus drove flocks of sheep from 1,600 to 2,000 miles across 

 an unsettled country inhabited by wild beasts and savage men, deserve 

 record. Those of Peters, McMahon, Patterson Brothers, W. W. Hol- 

 lister, H. H. Holhster, T. and B. Flint, J. Bixby, W. W. Cole, and James 

 Moore appear amongst the very first. The Hollister brothers were 

 from Ohio, and probably knew the importance of blood in sheep. Their 

 first driving seems to have been the best stock they could collect in 

 Missouri and Illinois. It is to T. M. and T. C. McConnell, however, 

 that the glory belongs of introducing the golden fleece from Vermont to 

 Cahfornia. Previous to 1856 Thomas M. McConnell had mined and 

 traded to mmers some years with fair success. In agreement with his 

 brother, T. C. McConnell, as to the subsequent care of the sheep, he 



