Salvatore John Manna

Something From Nothing Salvatore John Manna

Discover the fascinating and colorful history of west Calaveras County in northern California, the pioneering people and events that shaped Gold Country towns such as Valley Springs, Burson, Wallace, Jenny Lind, Campo Seco, Camanche, Milton, Paloma and more. Bringing together the first 100 numbered "Something From Nothing" monthly columns plus two bonus features, each penned by author and historian Sal Manna and first published in The Valley Springs News from March 2006 to June 2014, this volume features dozens of never-before-revealed stories as well as hundreds of historical photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries, most published here for the first time. West Calaveras was home to the most powerful and controversial politician in California history (William Gwin), the first California-born admiral in the U. S. Navy (Ted Vogelgesang), the pioneer woman who inspired a TV series (Euphemia Hill), two men who helped create the olive industry in northern California (Henry Moore and Louis Sammis), the entrepreneur who revolutionized the circular saw and became mayor of Oakland (Nathan Spaulding), an acclaimed landscape painter (Arthur Earl Haddock), and the only African American Civil War soldier buried in the Mother Lode (John Dawson). West Calaveras has within its borders Wallace, the only town on the globe named after the family of renowned naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace; Milton, the only town in California named after Milton Latham, one of the state's first U. S. congressmen, our sixth governor, and one of our two U. S. senators at the start of the Civil War; and Burson, the only town in the county named after a Civil War veteran, Daniel Smith Burson. Within these pages are a famed bridge builder (Samuel Ryland), a dam named for a governor (George Pardee), a murderer whose case set a precedent that continues to be cited 100 years later (Joseph Hubert), and the man who shot infamous outlaw Black Bart (Reason McConnell) plus the story of Ah Lin, the last Chinese miner; silent film star Nance O'Neil, who lived with the notorious Lizzie Borden; Elijah Swinford, who served in both the Union and Confederate armies; and Thomas Van Buren, the man responsible for Double Springs becoming our first county seat. This collection also embraces a descendant of the model for a character in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and a builder of the U. S. S. Constitution, and descendants of several U. S. Presidents; as well as historic homes and historic railroads, doctors and teachers, shopkeepers and soldiers, hard-working farmers, miners and businessmen, and vicious criminals too; a boxer and baseball players; rock art and poetry; hotels and automobiles; politics and family life; disasters and triumphs. This is local history, state history and even American history as experienced within the borders of one of California's original counties.