Liberty High School - Lion Yearbook (Brentwood, CA)

Page 3 text:

i. l THE Liberty Union High School Annual Vol. 3. BRENTWOOD, CAL., MAY, 1907 No. 1. SOCIAL HISTORY. It seems appropriate in compiling a High School Annual, there should appear in its columns some historical 'reference to the section in which the school is located. ln taking up the Marsh or Los Megan-os Rancho as a proper subject. we tind it impossible to disassociate its history from a biographical sketch of Dr. John Marsh. His name is indelibly written in the history of the state and country, His name is on our waters And ye may not wash it out. ls the language that Mrs. Sigourney 'uses in pleading for the restitution of 'the Indian names, and it seems proper 'that the Skiano which drains the Black Hills and the eastern slope of Mt. 'Diablo should bear his name as it courses through the Rancho. Briefly, Dr. Marsh was one of Cali- fornia's most comspieuous pioneers- a man of more than ordinary intelli- 'gence and education, a graduate of Harvard. He had served as a school teacher, a physician and an Indian Iagent in NVisconsin as early as 1826, He held a judicial office in the Terri- 'tory of Michigan in TSZS. and was 'once a merchant in St. Joseph, Mis- souri: a Santa Fe trader, and as a 'wandering explorer he traversed the 'wilds of Sonora a-nd Northern Mex- - . . ico and came thence to California. stopping at Los Angeles and practic- ing medicine. From there he trav- eled all over Northern California and seemed to be devoting his life to the gratitication of his noinadic instinct- a purposeless, unstable. Hoating piece of hunianity who found a lodgnient under the shadows of Mt. Diablo, as owner of a land grant, made to one Noricaga by the Mexican govern- ment in 1835. and for which the Doc- tor paid the muniticent sum of S400 00 in 1837, and on taking possession. he built a hut and lived with his Mexi- can associates and began raising cat- tle. He took very little part in pub- lic affairs. or in the political troubles from 1840 to 1847. though for some cause he was arrested in 1841. but not exiledf He lived the lite of a hermit and bore the reputation of being a pecul- iarly disagreeable man, whose notor- ious parsimony kept him constantly in trouble with those he came in con- tact with. ln 1851 he was married to Miss Alice Tuck of Chilmsford. Mas- sachusetts. She was a school teacher and came to California in 1850, set- tling in Santa Clara: meeting the Doctor while on a visit to Contra Costa county, they decided to marry after an acquaintance of two weeks. Mrs. Marshidied in 1855. leaving a daughter, Alice. The Stone House