From John Vonderlin
Email John ([email protected])
La Purissima
I found this article in the San Francisco “Morning Call,” April 8th, 1891 edition. It fills in very well what was going on in Purissima in its heydays. The OCR version of this had hundreds of errors, but I think I got most of them. To think the stream had already been fished out and polluted by oil wells in 1891 is amazing. It seems like the falls were higher then or he was using fishermen’s measurements. I’ll research some of the folks mentioned in the article and send it along soon. I never knew why they called them anglers, but now I know thanks to this article. Enjoy. John
THE MORNING CALL, SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, APRIL 8, 1891.
LA PURISIMA.
A Favorite Resort of Old-
Time Anglers.
WHERE BIG TROUT FLOURISH
The Beautiful Brook in the Daytime.
The Comfortable Inn at
Night.
This is the season for the angler. Every
nook and stream within mi!es of San Fran –
cisco where by any chance a trout has
been permited to lurk till the Ist of April
is now eagerly sought and industriously
fished by old as well as young Waltonians.
“We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler
said of strawberries,” writes old lsaak in
“The Complete Angler.” “Doubtless God
could have made a better berry, but
doubtless God never did. and so, if I
might be judge, God never did make a
more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than
angling.”
Alexander Pope comes very near de –
scribing the situation in California at this
season of the year, when he sings in his
poem of “Windsor Forest”:
ln genial spring, beneath the quivering shade
When cooling vapors breathe along the mead,
The patient fisher takes his silent stand.
Intent, his angle trembling in his hand,
With looks unmoved, he hopes the scaly breed
And eyes the dangling ash and bending reed.
Pope could not have better pictured one
particular place in San Mateo County if
he had had it in his mind when he wrote
those lines, and to which the thoughts of
many an old angler in .San Francisco re –
vert when the open season arrives. It is
a bright, sparkling little stream, between
Spanishtown (Jim Denison’s theater of action
LA PURISIMA.
A Favorite Resort of Old-
Time Anglers.
WHERE BIG TROUT FLOURISH
The Beautiful Brook in the Daytime.
The Comfortable Inn at
Night.
This is the season for the angler. Every
nook and stream within mi!es of San Fran –
cisco where by any chance a trout has
been permited to lurk till the Ist of April
is now eagerly sought and industriously
fished by old as well as young Waltonians.
“We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler
said of strawberries,” writes old lsaak in
“The Complete Angler.” “Doubtless God
could have made a better berry, but
doubtless God never did. and so, if I
might be judge, God never did make a
more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than
angling.”
Alexander Pope comes very near de –
scribing the situation in California at this
season of the year, when he sings in his
poem of “Windsor Forest”:
ln genial spring, beneath the quivering shade
When cooling vapors breathe along the mead,
The patient fisher takes his silent stand.
Intent, his angle trembling in his hand,
With looks unmoved, he hopes the scaly breed
And eyes the dangling ash and bending reed.
Pope could not have better pictured one
particular place in San Mateo County if
he had had it in his mind when he wrote
those lines, and to which the thoughts of
many an old angler in .San Francisco re –
vert when the open season arrives. It is
a bright, sparkling little stream, between
Spanishtown (Jim Denison’s theater of action
in his lifetime) and Pescadero,
about thirty-eight miles from the city,
called by the Spanish name, La Puri –
sima, which as everybody knows means
“the purest.” The name was well applied
to its limpid water’s thirty years or more
ago. but can hardly be so now on account
of several abandoned oilwells that con –
taminate the stream and impart; a dis –
agreeable flavor to fish caught near and
below them.
La Purisima was a famous trout stream
in its early days. Fish were found there
in great numbers and of a kind not known
elsewhere in California; they were pecu –
liar to the brook itself. This creek was
the favorite resort of anglers from San
Francisco, and when the April winds grew
soft you might find parties of them at Buz –
zell’s—as it was known then—now Dough –
. erty’s comfortable little inn, past which
the waters of La Purisima coursed. Good
fellows always, and jolly enough to in –
spire an American Shenstone to write in
about thirty-eight miles from the city,
called by the Spanish name, La Puri –
sima, which as everybody knows means
“the purest.” The name was well applied
to its limpid water’s thirty years or more
ago. but can hardly be so now on account
of several abandoned oilwells that con –
taminate the stream and impart; a dis –
agreeable flavor to fish caught near and
below them.
La Purisima was a famous trout stream
in its early days. Fish were found there
in great numbers and of a kind not known
elsewhere in California; they were pecu –
liar to the brook itself. This creek was
the favorite resort of anglers from San
Francisco, and when the April winds grew
soft you might find parties of them at Buz –
zell’s—as it was known then—now Dough –
. erty’s comfortable little inn, past which
the waters of La Purisima coursed. Good
fellows always, and jolly enough to in –
spire an American Shenstone to write in
praise of the inn and its tenants. Rising
in the Gabilan Sierra Moreno, now known
as the Santa Cruz range, this creek has but
a short distance to run oceanward. Within
a few hundred yards of the inn the waters
fall into ttie vast Pacific’s arms over a ledge
about eighty feet high. In the rainy sea –
son this fall is a cascade, in the dry sum –
mer months the stream, shrunken in
volume, spreads over the rocks like a veil
hiding their ruggedness, and with a musi –
cal tinkling that is pleasant to the ear.
The usual plan adopted by the stalwart
fisherman who had made up his mind for a
day’s sport in the creek was to leave tbe
Dougherty inn—the name “inn,” or, as
the country pnople had it, “tavern,” is to
be preferred because thirty years ago the
place had not attained the dignity of a
modern hotel—in the cool gray of the
early morning and walk up the valley,
“brushing with hasty steps the dews
away,” like the young man in Gray’s
Elegy, a distance of about four miles to
where ex-Supervisor Lane, one of the City
Fathers who in the sixties looked after
the municipal interests of San Francisco,
had erected a sawmill. Some who loved
their ease made the distance by a vehicle,
but your true-spirited angler always footed
it. The walk was just far enough
to warm a vigorous man up for
the creek work to follow. Lane’s mill
was at the base of the Santa Cruz range,
among the redwood, from which the
creek emerges and goes on its way down
through the meadows to tbe sea. Here’s
where a fisherman out for a day’s work
always began it, facing toward his point
of departure In the morning. If you went
up beyond the sawmill into the redwoods,
you had hard climhing, besides a compara –
tively slender thread of water and only
fingerlings to reward the toil. One of the
desirable features as a fishing-place of the
Purislnia is, by the way, the location of
Dougherty’s inn, in relation to the route
the angler has to traverse. Starting in at
the old sawmill, and fishing down stream,
he has tbe satisfaction of knowing that
every step takes him nearer his hostelry,
and by the time be has made his last cast,
when the sun is westering behind the
Gabilan mountain, and his creol has be –
come heavy—wlich was more often the
case in the days of which I write, when
the fish were plenty and tbe fishers few,
than at present—it does not need a walk of
more than 100 yards to make the Inn, to
disembarrass himself of the pleasing load,
which the angler of average industry
nearly always bears in the shape of a well –
filled basket, and rest from their whole-
some tire his strong and sinewy limbs.
One of the most skillful and at the same
time most ardent anglers of tlie period and
the place was Harlow S. Love, father of
John Lord Love, ex-Attoruey-General of
this State. Mr. Love often made Dough –
erty’s cozy little inn on the banks of the
Purisima his home for a month or two in
the open season. He was a lawyer of
much reputation in that day, as his son is
at present, and conducted The Call as
the earliest legal adviser of its then pro-
prietors through many perplexing and
tortuous lawsuits. Mr. Love in his Wal –
tonlan pursuit treated the elusive trout
pretty much as in court he did the
wary witnesses he examined—he had them
in the creel, as the Scotchman calls our
trout-basket, almost before they felt they
were hooked. It was a sight to see this
lover of rod and reel, in his fishing equip –
ment, pushing on through clumps of
shrubbery, regardless of poison oak or any
other baneful plant, to reach a quiet pool
under a gnarled root that jutted out over
tne stream from an ancient redwood, and
where he generally basketed a couple of
pounders. He was a model American dis –
ciple of old lzaak, fully able to cope with
the rougher conditions under which the
“gentle art” has to be plied in California.
Gideon J. Denny, the painter, was
another of those sport-loving cits who was
often beside this stream; but much as he
loved trout-fishing he loved his pictorial
art more. Like Alfred Jingle, the poet,
who, when hunting, varied his banging of
the fieldpiece by twanging the lyre, “Gid,”
as his familiars used to call him, dropped
his rod for a sketch when a good bit of land –
scape caught his eye, a pretty swirl in the
water of the creek, or a knot of cattle ofl
in the meadow that reminded him of a
Cuyp he had seen somewhere. He was a
marine painter, as a general proposition,
and many of his sea pictures are yet on
the walls of private dwellings and public
places in this city, but he had a painter’s
eye for the beautiful in nature on land as
well as on sea. He never made a good
showing as an angler; he was not indus –
trious enough. Where he shone brightest
was in the great room of the Dougherty
inn when the “ev’en had brought it’ hame,”
and the anglers, the flagellants of the
brook, narrated their adventures of a day.
Gid never boasted of his basket, nor
mentioned any striking work by the
brookside; but he had experiences in other
directions that were equally interesting,
and he told them racily, like the man of
the world he was.
On one occasion a member of the fishing
party caught a three-pound trout—said to
be the largest fish taken out of the Puri –
sima’s waters since the American occupa –
tion, or in the memory of the oldest in –
habitant. There was a howl of disgust
wheu the fortunate angler exhibited his
prize to the assembled fishermen in the
evening, and decided doubts were ex –
pressed that it was ever caught by a. hook
and line.
“Some chap has a trout preserve on the
creek, and that fish was caught with a
silver hook. How much did you pay for
it?” Such was the kind of chaffing that
parsed round the circle.
Gid saw a chance for his pencil. The
big trout was laid out to the best advan –
tage, and measured 18 inches from tip to
tip; then be made a handsome drawing of
it, which was hung up in the barroom of
the inn. with all the data connected with
its capture. Everybody living in the coun –
tryside round about came to see the pic –
ture of the great trout, to talk about
it in a way more or less nonsensical. The
main point was that there was a good deal
of whisky drunk by the visitors during
the debate, and it is said the landlord de –
rived enough money from this source to
pay his taxes for that year. It is needless
to say Gid was made free of the bar while
his picture was on exhibition. The fish it –
self was speedily transferred to the hand
of the best cook in San Francisco, who
served it up au gratin, the mushrooms and
truffles plentiful, and it was discussed in a
more material way by two or three epi –
cures of the fishing party, who bathed its
firm, pinky flakes in choice sauterne.
Many other names occur to the writer,
and he turns with a sigh from the recollec –
tion, for they are all dead, while La Pu –
risima is still singing Tennyson’s song of
the brook, “Men may come and men may
go, but I go on forever.”
There are several mesa-like islets lying
a short distance off shore in the vicinity
of Dougherty’s inn that were objects of
great interest to visitors thirty years ago,
and are so yet, probably. When evening
drew on all the space on their surface,
many acres in area, was covered by enor –
mous sea-lions, packed as closely together
as sardines are in a box, and they fought
for their respective places all the live –
long night and roared so loudly that the
combined noise reached the inmates of the
inn like the “sound of many waters” or of
a Niagara in the distance. At one time
these animals were killed for their oil, and
the beach would be lined with monstrous
specimens of dead phocae, some weighing
upward of a thousand pounds. The slaugh –
ter, however, proved unprofitable and
was finally discontinued.
The pursuit of the California black fish
was also made a business by Buzzell, the
predecessor of Dougherty. It was hazard –
ous and he lost his life by it. He didn’t
happen to have a good boat-steerer with
him at the time he was fastened to a
fish, and when it fluked and stove the boat
in the old man, even while his people were
looking on from the shore, sank out of
sight into the ocean witn a bubbling groan.
B.
in the Gabilan Sierra Moreno, now known
as the Santa Cruz range, this creek has but
a short distance to run oceanward. Within
a few hundred yards of the inn the waters
fall into ttie vast Pacific’s arms over a ledge
about eighty feet high. In the rainy sea –
son this fall is a cascade, in the dry sum –
mer months the stream, shrunken in
volume, spreads over the rocks like a veil
hiding their ruggedness, and with a musi –
cal tinkling that is pleasant to the ear.
The usual plan adopted by the stalwart
fisherman who had made up his mind for a
day’s sport in the creek was to leave tbe
Dougherty inn—the name “inn,” or, as
the country pnople had it, “tavern,” is to
be preferred because thirty years ago the
place had not attained the dignity of a
modern hotel—in the cool gray of the
early morning and walk up the valley,
“brushing with hasty steps the dews
away,” like the young man in Gray’s
Elegy, a distance of about four miles to
where ex-Supervisor Lane, one of the City
Fathers who in the sixties looked after
the municipal interests of San Francisco,
had erected a sawmill. Some who loved
their ease made the distance by a vehicle,
but your true-spirited angler always footed
it. The walk was just far enough
to warm a vigorous man up for
the creek work to follow. Lane’s mill
was at the base of the Santa Cruz range,
among the redwood, from which the
creek emerges and goes on its way down
through the meadows to tbe sea. Here’s
where a fisherman out for a day’s work
always began it, facing toward his point
of departure In the morning. If you went
up beyond the sawmill into the redwoods,
you had hard climhing, besides a compara –
tively slender thread of water and only
fingerlings to reward the toil. One of the
desirable features as a fishing-place of the
Purislnia is, by the way, the location of
Dougherty’s inn, in relation to the route
the angler has to traverse. Starting in at
the old sawmill, and fishing down stream,
he has tbe satisfaction of knowing that
every step takes him nearer his hostelry,
and by the time be has made his last cast,
when the sun is westering behind the
Gabilan mountain, and his creol has be –
come heavy—wlich was more often the
case in the days of which I write, when
the fish were plenty and tbe fishers few,
than at present—it does not need a walk of
more than 100 yards to make the Inn, to
disembarrass himself of the pleasing load,
which the angler of average industry
nearly always bears in the shape of a well –
filled basket, and rest from their whole-
some tire his strong and sinewy limbs.
One of the most skillful and at the same
time most ardent anglers of tlie period and
the place was Harlow S. Love, father of
John Lord Love, ex-Attoruey-General of
this State. Mr. Love often made Dough –
erty’s cozy little inn on the banks of the
Purisima his home for a month or two in
the open season. He was a lawyer of
much reputation in that day, as his son is
at present, and conducted The Call as
the earliest legal adviser of its then pro-
prietors through many perplexing and
tortuous lawsuits. Mr. Love in his Wal –
tonlan pursuit treated the elusive trout
pretty much as in court he did the
wary witnesses he examined—he had them
in the creel, as the Scotchman calls our
trout-basket, almost before they felt they
were hooked. It was a sight to see this
lover of rod and reel, in his fishing equip –
ment, pushing on through clumps of
shrubbery, regardless of poison oak or any
other baneful plant, to reach a quiet pool
under a gnarled root that jutted out over
tne stream from an ancient redwood, and
where he generally basketed a couple of
pounders. He was a model American dis –
ciple of old lzaak, fully able to cope with
the rougher conditions under which the
“gentle art” has to be plied in California.
Gideon J. Denny, the painter, was
another of those sport-loving cits who was
often beside this stream; but much as he
loved trout-fishing he loved his pictorial
art more. Like Alfred Jingle, the poet,
who, when hunting, varied his banging of
the fieldpiece by twanging the lyre, “Gid,”
as his familiars used to call him, dropped
his rod for a sketch when a good bit of land –
scape caught his eye, a pretty swirl in the
water of the creek, or a knot of cattle ofl
in the meadow that reminded him of a
Cuyp he had seen somewhere. He was a
marine painter, as a general proposition,
and many of his sea pictures are yet on
the walls of private dwellings and public
places in this city, but he had a painter’s
eye for the beautiful in nature on land as
well as on sea. He never made a good
showing as an angler; he was not indus –
trious enough. Where he shone brightest
was in the great room of the Dougherty
inn when the “ev’en had brought it’ hame,”
and the anglers, the flagellants of the
brook, narrated their adventures of a day.
Gid never boasted of his basket, nor
mentioned any striking work by the
brookside; but he had experiences in other
directions that were equally interesting,
and he told them racily, like the man of
the world he was.
On one occasion a member of the fishing
party caught a three-pound trout—said to
be the largest fish taken out of the Puri –
sima’s waters since the American occupa –
tion, or in the memory of the oldest in –
habitant. There was a howl of disgust
wheu the fortunate angler exhibited his
prize to the assembled fishermen in the
evening, and decided doubts were ex –
pressed that it was ever caught by a. hook
and line.
“Some chap has a trout preserve on the
creek, and that fish was caught with a
silver hook. How much did you pay for
it?” Such was the kind of chaffing that
parsed round the circle.
Gid saw a chance for his pencil. The
big trout was laid out to the best advan –
tage, and measured 18 inches from tip to
tip; then be made a handsome drawing of
it, which was hung up in the barroom of
the inn. with all the data connected with
its capture. Everybody living in the coun –
tryside round about came to see the pic –
ture of the great trout, to talk about
it in a way more or less nonsensical. The
main point was that there was a good deal
of whisky drunk by the visitors during
the debate, and it is said the landlord de –
rived enough money from this source to
pay his taxes for that year. It is needless
to say Gid was made free of the bar while
his picture was on exhibition. The fish it –
self was speedily transferred to the hand
of the best cook in San Francisco, who
served it up au gratin, the mushrooms and
truffles plentiful, and it was discussed in a
more material way by two or three epi –
cures of the fishing party, who bathed its
firm, pinky flakes in choice sauterne.
Many other names occur to the writer,
and he turns with a sigh from the recollec –
tion, for they are all dead, while La Pu –
risima is still singing Tennyson’s song of
the brook, “Men may come and men may
go, but I go on forever.”
There are several mesa-like islets lying
a short distance off shore in the vicinity
of Dougherty’s inn that were objects of
great interest to visitors thirty years ago,
and are so yet, probably. When evening
drew on all the space on their surface,
many acres in area, was covered by enor –
mous sea-lions, packed as closely together
as sardines are in a box, and they fought
for their respective places all the live –
long night and roared so loudly that the
combined noise reached the inmates of the
inn like the “sound of many waters” or of
a Niagara in the distance. At one time
these animals were killed for their oil, and
the beach would be lined with monstrous
specimens of dead phocae, some weighing
upward of a thousand pounds. The slaugh –
ter, however, proved unprofitable and
was finally discontinued.
The pursuit of the California black fish
was also made a business by Buzzell, the
predecessor of Dougherty. It was hazard –
ous and he lost his life by it. He didn’t
happen to have a good boat-steerer with
him at the time he was fastened to a
fish, and when it fluked and stove the boat
in the old man, even while his people were
looking on from the shore, sank out of
sight into the ocean witn a bubbling groan.
B.