Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/218

 180 THE TOURIST'S CALIFORNIA habitants, and a port with twenty-five vessels at anchor! The mingled noises of labour around . . . almost cheated me into the belief that it was some old commercial mart, familiar with such sounds for years past. Four months, only, had sufficed to make the place what it was ; and in that time a wholesale firm established there (one out of a dozen) had done business to the amount of $100,- 000." Within five miles, " elk might be seen in bands of forty or fifty, grazing on the edge of the marshes, where they were sometimes lassoed by the native vaqueros, and taken into Stockton." Occasionally coyotes were seen " prowling along the margin of the slough." The domain upon which Stockton has grown from " a canvas town " to a fine little city of parks, macadamised streets, pleasant homes and big en- terprises, was originally owned by Charles Weber, a German who had served under Napoleon I and who arrived in California in 1841 from New Or- leans. The town has its name from the bombastic commander who became first in authority under the United States military regime when, in July, 1846, Commodore Sloat was ordered back to Washington to report his seizure of Monterey. It was in Stockton that Thomas B. Reed held his first and last position as a teacher. Van Dorn Hall, now demolished, was the scene of his youth- ful labours.