18 CALIFORNIA JUST PRIOR TO THE GOLD DISCOVERY.
Creek, extends the grant of Vaca and Pefla, and at its mouth are Feltis Miller J D. Hoppe, and Daniel K. Berry.
Hence, down the Sacramento for four leagues stretches the Ulpinos grant of John Bidwell, which he sought to improve by sending, in 1846, a party of immigrants to transform the lonely house then standing there into a town. After a few months' suffering from hunger and hardships, the party aban- doned a site for which the Indian name of Halo Che- muck, 'nothing to eat,' was for a time appropriately retained. Charles D. Hoppe bought a fourth of the tract in 1847.*^ Equally unsuccessful was the con- temporaneous effort of L. W. Hastings, a Mormon agent, to found the town of Montezuma, fifteen miles below, at the junction of the Sacramento and San Joaquin in Suisun Bay. His co-religionists objected to the site as devoid of timber; yet he remained hope- ful, and ordered a windmill and ferry-boat to increase the attraction^ of his solitary house. *^
These efforts at city building indicate how widely appreciated was the importance of a town which should tap, not merely each section of the great val- ley, as at Sutter's Fort and Stockton, but the joint outlet of the Sacramento and San Joaquin. It was foreseen that hence would flow the main wealth of the country, although the metallic nature of the first current was little anticipated. The idea seems to have struck simultaneously Bidwell, Hastings, and Semple. The last named, with a judgment worthy of the towering editor of the Californiany selected the bil- lowy slopes of the headland guarding the opening of this western Bosphorus, the strait of Carquines, the inner golden gate of San Francisco Bay. Indeed, the
" The preaent town of Rio Vista lies just below the site. Another version has it that the three families settled there were carried away by the gold- fever, and that ^halachummuck' was called ont by Indians when they here killed a party of starving hunters.
«(7a/. Star, Oct. 23, 1847; BvffunCa Four Montht,, 9^ Here roae, later, e h&nolet of Collinsville.
