Sonoma being the only town in the district, was named county seat when the legislature established counties after statehood in 1850. (Sonoma also included present-day Mendocino County until 1859.) Rivalry between Sonoma and fledgling Santa Rosa was a hot issue in 1854, when State Assemblyman James Bennett of Santa Rosa introduced a bill to let Sonoma County voters choose their county seat. Santa Rosa boosters Barney Hoen and Julio Carrillo pledged to donate land for a new courthouse. Even the Sonoma Bulletin admitted the Sonoma courthouse had it's failings, noting that officials ran "the risk of being crushed beneath a mass of mud and shingles, for we really believe it will cave in the next heavy rain".

To impress voters with the splendor of Santa Rosa, town fathers held a Fourth of July barbeque and fed everyone within voting distance, about 500 citizens. The shindig had the desired effect. In September 1854, 716 voted for Santa Rosa versus 563 for Sonoma. Santa Rosans feared Sonomans would not lightly surrender their court records. Slow moving bureaucracy was not the Santa Rosa style in those days. Following the vote, Jim Williamson hitched two mules to a wagon and in the company of county clerk N. M. Menefee, road into Sonoma, loaded up the dusty documents and took off for Santa Rosa, 22 miles away. The one-legged Memefee sat beside Williamson, occasionally prodding one of the mules with the end of his peg leg. In this fashion, the county records entered the new county seat full tilt. Williamson's charge for the 100 minute freight was $15.

After the hijacking, A. J. Cox, the wry voice of the Sonoma Bulleton remarked, We are only sorry they did not take the adobe courthouse along. Not because it would be an ornament to Santa Rosa, but because its removal would have embellished our plaza. Alas old casa de adobe. No more do we see county lawyers and loafers in general, lazily engaged in the laudable effort of whittling asunder the veranda posts, which by the way, require but little more cutting to bring the whole dilapidated fabric to the ground.

The undertaker was usually the furniture dealer who provided the coffin in communities. In towns too small to support a furniture store, the general store performed the function. When transportation was required, the store's delivery wagon doubled as the hearst. Observers could tell by the horses which function was being served. If white horses pulled the wagon, the driver was delivering furniture. If the horses were black, people on the street were expected to remove their hats and pay proper respect to the dead person passing by. Healdsburg's first undertaker was John C. Downing, who came to Healdsburg with his wife Mary and their three children in 1857. He built a furniture and undertaking business. John Young and Peter Grist opened a cabinet shop in 1859, where they made and sold both furniture and coffins.

Invitations to attend hangings, such as the one described below, were sent out by the town's Sheriff.   Rancher, John Taylor was invited to the hanging, but outlaw Brown was not executed.   His sentence was commuted to life for good behavior in jail.

May 4, 1882
Mr. John Taylor
You are invited to be present at the execution of H. E. Brown, to take place at the Jail Yard, Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, Cal., at 1 o'clock pm, on Thursday, May 18, 1882.
J. L. Dinwiddie, Sheriff
W. H. Bond, Under Sheriff
Bring this card.

In the 1880's and 1890's there were as many as nine saloons and bars in Healdsburg. Good whiskey sold for ten cents a glass and beer sold for five cents a large schooner. Rodie Gilbride ran the Oaklawn House and Bar, down by the depot. On the north end of town, there was Ed Pruitt's Kentucky Saloon. Ike Gum and Al Zane had a bar downtown at the corner of Matheson and West Streets. King and O'leary had a bar and wholesale liquor store on West St. Pat Lannon had a bar at the corner of Center and Powell Streets. A man by the name of Barlow had a bar next door to the Farmers and Merchants Bank. J. Fried and his son Henry ran the Bank Exchange Bar, next door to the Healdsburg Bank. The Pinion Hotel was run by Johnnie Grater. The Sotoyme Hotel was then owned by John Young.

The Fountaingrove area was first settled by Thomas Lake Harris, the first of a wave of Utopians to come to Sonoma County. Harris established a commune on the site in 1875 called "New Eden of the West," part of his Brotherhood of New Life project. The colony included 1400 acres of land (purchased for a mere $21,000), upon which he constructed a number of buildings including a book press and a winery which produced some 70,000 gallons of wine in 1886. Built in 1899, the Round Barn is a landmark for the Fountaingrove Ranch. The Round Barn was built by John Clark Lindsay, a contractor who came here from Napa in 1898. His son Jack at the age of twelve, earned his first wages on the round barn job, driving the wagon that hauled the building materials. Lindsay was hired to build the barn by Kanaya Nagasawa who came to Sonoma County with Harris. Thomas left here in 1891 under a cloud of scandal leaving Kanaya to inherit the ranch and the winery. He lived there until his death in 1934.

Where stages run there will naturally be stage robbers or footpads, as unmounted robbers were called. Determined bandits strung a rope across the road near Green Valley and halted the Miller and Co., stage from Santa Rosa to Bodega, in December 1871, escaping with $286 from the Wells Fargo box. Wells Fargo's nemesis was Black Bart, a notoriously genteel bandit who plagued the company up and down the state between 1875 and 1883. The lone bandit pulled 28 robberies, several in Sonoma and Mendocino counties, always with the same modus operandi. A lone man on foot disguised by a flour sack mask appeared on the road, pointed his double-barrel shotgun at the driver, and demanded the Wells Fargo box and U.S. mail. After his fourth robbery, the first in Sonoma County, the previously named robber left behind an empty cash box, a poem and his nickname. Bart's luck ran out when he left behind a handkerchief during a holdup. Wells Fargo detective J. B. Hume traced the kerchief's laundry mark to a San Francisco laundry and arrested C. E. Boles, alias Charles Bolton.

Before the railroad came to Sonoma County in 1870, stages and ox-carts hauled passenders and freight. Stages pulled by teams of six horses made daily trips up the central highway that ran north from Petaluma through Santa Rosa, Windsor, Healdsburg, Geyserville and Cloverdale. Another major thoroughfare went from Petaluma through Bloomfield, Valley Ford, Bodega Corners, Bodega Bay and on up the coast through Fort Ross to Gualala. One of the county's oldest roads went from Petaluma to Sonoma and up the valley through Glen Ellen to Santa Rosa. Another began at Petaluma and went north through Sebastopol to Green Valley.

The early route to the Geysers, through Knight's Valley was from Calistoga by way of Foss Station. The line was owned by Clark Foss, who gave many a stagefull of passengers the thrill of their lives. The roads were narrow, steep and tortuous, hugged precipitous slopes and overhung deep gorges. Foss would send his six-horse team along this road at a breathtaking pace, urging the animals on with a pistol-like cracking of his long-handled whip. At every lurch of the coach, and especially when swinging around sharp curves, the passengers had an instinctive dread of being tossed into a deep ravine and impaled on the tops of one of the many pines lining the slope. Miraculously, no horse seems to have stumbled nor the harness to have snapped on a declivity nor on one of the thirty-five right-angle down-grade turns during the entire period, when Foss was Jehu on the route.

The road from the Geysers to Calistoga increases in interest with every turn of the stage-wheel, and becomes wilder and more romantic at each swing around the cliff's edge of Foss' six-mustang team. The driving of this celebrity of the ribbons is something of itself really worth the trip to see. It must be borne in mind that there are two Fosses, father and son, the latter being far and away the more expert and reliable. It is a sensation worth experiencing to sit beside this Jehu of the High Grades, as these upper mountain roads are called, and listen to him call and talk to each of his steeds in turn as they rush at a full canter around cliff-quarried bends so sharp that the swedge of the hind wheels throws a shower of pebbles over the brink of the sheer-down chasm below. Now, then, Brandy! Look out there, Soda! None of that, Jingle, he cries, each horse cocking back a responsive ear at his name, and instantly obeying his master; he causing them to walk, trot or gallop at the word and without using the reins or whip at all.

There is another branch of business to which I have barely made allusion. Let us now make a little excursion. We take the steamboat at the city, pass over the bay, enter the San Puebla Bay, take the cars, and go up the incomparably beautiful Napa Valley. You stop at Calistoga, where are hot springs, boiling hot if you want, and sulphur springs to your heart's content. An early ride the next morning, of about twenty miles, brings you to the foot of a great mountain, over which you are to ride. This is called Foss' Station, where you eat the best breakfast in California, because the morning ride has given you an appetite. Foss is an institution himself, a huge, well-proportioned, uneducated New Hampshire man, endowed with qualities which in any condition would make him a marked man; and you look at his brawny arms and powerful body almost with envy. But he has his six-horse team harnessed to an open wagon, and you are now off for the Geysers. You ascend a mountain five thousand feet high, up which you wind and creep, till you come to a ridge about two miles long, and so straight that you can see the road two miles ahead. It is just possibly wide enough to let the wagon run on its edge, though to look at it in front, it looks as if you were to ride on the edge of a rusty case-knife. Down upon this ridge the horses dash, and you see, if the wheels should vary a foot either side, you would roll down into a gulf that makes you quiver to look at. But over it you pass; and now you are to go down the mountain into the caņon below. You are to descend one thousand nine hundred feet in two miles. You tremble for the Pittsfield lady sitting calmly by the side of Foss, where she sees every danger, and shows no other effect of the strange situation than the brightening of the eye. Crack goes the whip, and the trained horses dash down upon the quickest gait horses ever did go, and after making thirty-five short turns, a failure at any one of which would break your limbs, if not your neck, you are at the bottom, just eleven minutes in coming down, holding your breath, throbbing with excitement, glad you have taken the awful leap once, and feeling very sure that whoever takes it hereafter must be a fool!

On July 25, 1881, Velma and I started from Napa at 10.30 this morning and went by train to Calistoga, where we arrived at half past twelve. There I made a bargain with Foss, the noted stage driver, about whom we have heard so much since we came to California, to drive us to the Geysers. He is about sixty-three years old, rather taller than the average, and weighs about two hundred and twenty-five pounds. He has short side whiskers, and a cud of tobacco extends his left cheek beyond its otherwise usual dimensions. He likes to talk and does a little boasting, is rather a rough character, especially in appearance, and goes about in his shirtsleeves with his vest unbuttoned. He is considered by everyone the most wonderful stage driver on this coast, the third best in the world. He is quite wealthy and owns much land near here at a place named for him, Fossville. Foss is celebrated as a dashing driver; he has great control over his fiery running horses, and is very skillful with green horses; he makes great speed on the road, rounding quick, sharp turns in dangerous places with his six horses in perfect control and on a gallop.

A trip to the Geysers without Foss, says a writer of many years ago, is like the play of 'Hamlet' with that melancholy gentleman left out. Not only is he an unequaled driver, but he is a man of genius. In person he is more than six feet two inches in height, and is as strong as a giant, has the voice of a tragedian, and is a fine specimen of muscular development and vigor. With a fresh team of six horses and a load of appreciative passengers, Foss is in his glory. Alternately coaxing and encouraging his horses up the steepest acclivities, his eye sparkles at the top as he gathers the reins, carefully places his foot on the brake and turns half around and looks over the coach to see that the passengers are all there, when 'crack' goes the whip, a shout to the horses, and away we go down the steep mountainside. Trees fly past like wind; bushes dash angrily against the wheels; the ladies shut their eyes and grasp the arms of the male passengers, and away we speed down the declivity with lightning rapidity, the horses on a live jump, and Foss, whip in hand, cracking it about their heads to urge them on. The effect is at first anything but pleasant. At every lurch of the coach one feels an instinctive dread of being tossed high in the air and landed far below in a gorge, or, perchance, spitted upon the top of a sharp pine. If a horse should stumble or misstep, or the tackle snap away, we should go over the precipice. The angle of declivity is exceedingly sharp, and down this descent the horses are run at breakneck speed for two miles and a half, making thirty-five turns -- some of them extra short ones.

Today our stage was a mountain wagon which we mounted with the other passengers, a Quaker family named Mendenhall, who had come all the way from Oscaloosa, Iowa, the mother aged sixty-three, the father seventy-three, a daughter of twenty-seven and a granddaughter of six, country folk. With a crack of the whip and a loud Go lang! the mustangs started off on a full gallop over the hot and dusty road. It was terribly rough, and the old lady was pretty well frightened. She said that she thought the round trip over that mountain road would be about as much as she ever should want. Our way for the first six miles led through farming country, and we finally were driven up to a large, hospitable looking house belonging to Clark Foss, where we dined and rested for an hour and a half. This place, with the house and a big and convenient stable, goes by the name of Fossville.

At two o'clock we again took our seats in a three-seated coach, canopy top, and with fresh horses we resumed our journey. Passing Kellogg and Holmes's we commenced our climb up the Mayacamus Branch of the Coast Range, through a country scarcely yet disturbed by man. The route is beautiful in the extreme; emerging from heavy growths of timber from time to time into open spaces we invariably had views of mountains with high peaks covered with primeval forest -- not a house in sight anywhere; and when we skirted the brink of a precipice, we looked down hundreds of feet into dense brush or the tops of beautiful green forest trees. At the very bottom we could see mountain streams, clear as crystal, and through our glasses trout could be seen breaking the water to catch unfortunate flies. Boulders were pointed out bearing the usual worn-out names of “ Lover's Leap and Devil's Pulpit, etc.

From Fossville we went up for four miles and then descended to the Little Pluton River which we forded, and again climbed through timber of several varieties, including oak, madrona and manzanita, until we got above the forest growth and reached the “upper Station,” twenty miles from Calistoga and six from the Geysers, a deserted mining town called Pine Flats, away up in this wilderness 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. One man and his wife were the only inhabitants left. We bought a few curiosities from them and changed conveyances, parting with Foss, who turned us over to another driver named Safely -- of course every one said they expected to be driven safely to the Geysers. Now began the most exciting portion of the journey.

After leaving Pine Flats our road lay up and down steep grades, over stones and around sharp corners bordering on precipices. When rounding one of these corners we saw, 500 feet below, a miners' camp, -- two or three log cabins, with here and there a place where they had thrown up the earth in their zeal for quicksilver. Looking down upon that little camp one could not help wondering about those few men -- whence did they come, where are their families, what is to be their future? Are they perhaps successful in their search? Such questions run through our minds often in this country as we pass strange men in the wilds. Down one grade, up another, down a third; then the driver presses hard on the brakes, and here we are at the Geysers Hotel, Bill Forsyth, proprietor. It is an inviting place after the long drive, situated on the side of a mountain called Hog's Back, and nearly hidden among the great trees with its yard and surroundings. Alighting, we were greeted by about fifteen guests and an affable clerk, who gave us two very good rooms where we were glad of an opportunity to wash after our drive of twenty-six miles over one of the dustiest roads in all Sonoma County, where dusty roads are the rule.