A jokester’s coach to Pescadero | Ross Eric Gibson, Local History (original) (raw)

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The Pescadero Stage was a four-in-hand mud wagon for difficult terrain. (Ross Eric Gibson collection)

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One morning in 1875, the Pescadero Stage Coach was waiting in front of Wm. Anthony’s Tinwares Shop at the foot of Mission Hill Grade. Billy Bias, the whip, was wiping the dust off the upholstered seats in the coach when a man with his young son emerged from the St. Charles Hotel, and asked, “Is this stage coach running on time?”

Bias said, “No, it’s running on horsepower!”

The kid chuckled, and the man asked “What is the scheduled departure time?”

“Sorry mister, no set schedule on this line.”

“Why not?”

“Can’t leave until we have the mail, the passengers and the weather in our favor. If we’re lucky, we’ll leave by 9 AM. You planning a trip with me?”

“Well, I was going to get some supplies first. If you’re not here, how long will the next coach be?”

“The same length as this one, because it’s the only Davenport stage coach we have.” His son giggled again.

“But it’s a mud wagon with a four horse team.”

“That’s because there’s no road.”

“What do you mean, there’s no road?”

“The coast is largely undeveloped and barely populated. I’m Billy Bias, the coachman.”

The stranger introduced himself as Thaddeus Richter, and his son Todd, headed to meet relatives 45 miles up the coast in Pescadero.

Bias said, “Tell me when you’re done shopping, and we’ll leave. But if you miss my departure, I won’t be back in Santa Cruz until about 4 p.m. tomorrow.”

A woman came out with a tin box and handed it up to Billy, who leaned down and gave her a kiss.

“My wife, Louise,” Billy explained.

“I should hope so,” said Mr. Richter. “Is that your cash box?”

“No, it’s my lunch. And God help any highwayman who tries to swipe it from me!”

William Anthony, a serious-looking man, came out with empty milk buckets which he told Bias to deliver to the Gianoni ranch.

“Yes, father,” Bias replied.

Anthony went back in the store, and Mr. Richter asked, “Anthony’s your father?”

“He’s my pa-in-law.”

“Of course. How does Mr. Anthony like having a jokester for a son-in-law?”

“He must like it fine, since he takes me so seriously.”

This fictional exchange is how Billy Bias was reputed to handled one of the most primitive stage coach lines in the county. He was blunt that the stage was usually late, conditions were rough, but he had jokes and stories aplenty to amuse passengers on their journey. His sense of humor was one of the assets of the stage line. Bias was called “The jolliest Jehu (stage driver) to crack a whip or crack a joke!”

Soon the Richters had embarked on a strange stagecoach journey. Mr. Richter said he was going to Pescadero to loan some money to his relatives.

“Good for you!”, said Bias. “Banks only make loans if you prove to them you don’t need the money!”

Richter chuckled, and Bias continued: “My philosophy is, only borrow money from a pessimist. They’re already resigned that you won’t pay them back!”

As the Richters laughed, Mr. Bias came to a full stop in front of a gate blocking the public right of way.

Todd asked, “Is this the end of the road?”

“Only if you’re a dairy cow,” said Bias. “Todd? Could you be my gate assistant? I need you to open the gate and let me through, then close it behind me.”

Todd asked, “Would you pause whatever story you’re telling, so I don’t miss any of it?”

Bias laughed. “Of course!”

So Todd let them through each gate as they came to it. Then at one gate, he noticed there was a blanket over it. Todd was told to put the blanket in the coach, so they could return it to the rancher.

“Why is it there?” asked Todd. And Bias replied, “To notify me they have something to mail, or a passenger to pick up.”

The creeks had their low-water fords, but sometimes the flow increased, and the driver had to figure if it was worth plunging through. Spanish ranchos had long ago put post-piles down the middle of each creek, so their cattle wouldn’t try to cross. These had either crumbled away or been removed at the fords. Then there were times when there was no place to drive but on the beach, hopefully on wet sand and not dry dunes. Sometimes the coach had to dodge the high tide.

WAR ACTIVITY

Richter proclaimed his father had served with Abraham Lincoln in the Blackhawk war of 1832.

“So did my father!,” Billy Bias replied. “He was James Bias, a Yorkshire lad, who came to the U.S. at age 16. When the Blackhawk war broke out, my father served under Capt. James Kincaid in the 3rd Regiment of Gen. Sam Whiteside’s Brigade. Lincoln was a 23-year-old captain under Gen. Whiteside, a competent leader, who nonetheless saw no battles. Lincoln joined Capt. Jacob Early’s spy company, which merely buried the scalped men from the battle of Kellogg’s Grove. When the war was over, my father was given a large stretch of waterfront land on Lake Michigan. But it was a malarial swamp of mosquitoes, giving him chills and fever, so he sold it, and let somebody else turn it into the place called Chicago.”

“Chicago!” Richter exclaimed.

“Yes. It’s now a booming muddy metropolis of 100,000 people.”

Richter said, “Better they should have given it to Chief Blackhawk, since he wanted it so much.”

But Bias said, “Don’t forget, we were allied with the Menominee, Dakota, Winnebago and Potawatomi. Chief Blackhawk had an alliance of the Sauk, Meskwaki and even the British! After the war, father said the foes became friends.”

“No kiddin’!,” said Todd.

Bias continued: “Father remembered Chief Blackhawk told a gathering in 1838: ‘It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today — I have eaten with my white friends. The earth is our mother…I thank the Great Spirit that I am now friends with my white brethren.’ Sometimes war creates a bond between former combatants. In the Civil War, I was 2nd Lieutenant of the California Butler Guards in Santa Cruz. The county was mostly Union sympathies, but there were at least two pockets of insurrectionists we had to defend against.”

Richter nodded. Then he said, “But back to your father after the Blackhawk War: where did he settle when he sold Chicago?”

Bias said, “Father went up to Waukesha, Wisconsin, and purchased a farm. He raised a crop of 13 kids, myself among them, born in 1841. But like my father, when I became 16, I set off on my own, finding work at a New York City grocery in 1857. New York’s the most densely populated city in the world with about 800,000 people. It was a sight to see, but like a giant grizzly bear, you’re impressed you saw it, but hope never to see it again. I took a steamer for California, crossing the Isthus of Panama by rail, then boarded a ship up to San Francisco. I found the office of Davis & Jordan’s limeworks in San Francisco, and Isaac Davis sent me to their Santa Cruz factory run by Albion P. Jordan. I started work in 1857 at one of the kilns, stacking and stoking.”

Bias continued, “Davis & Jordan was where I met Charlie Lincoln, a cousin of Abraham Lincoln. Charlie came to California as a 13-year-old gold miner in 1852. Then he opened his own Santa Cruz livery stables in 1859, while in 1862, I became one of the limeworks barrel-makers. In 1867, the 28-year-old Lincoln became the state’s youngest sheriff, called the ‘Boy Sheriff’ of Santa Cruz County. He had his hands full chasing outlaws like Tiburcio Vasquez, so Lincoln sold me his share in the livery stables in 1868, the year Pescadero was annexed into San Mateo County. I rented out horses and buggies, had a coach for group excursions, and kept a doctor’s carriage on the ready for house calls. I bought the Pescadero Stage Line in 1870.”

The stage paused at Davenport Landing, recently founded in 1869-70, with maybe 125 residents. Bias shared his sandwiches, apples, and chocolate cake with his passengers, as they admired the landing’s 450-foot wharf for loading timber onto sailing ships. Back on their way, the path veered inland to follow Scott Creek, then back to the coast, with a rustic inn beside one of the creeks.

Richter said, “That seems a bit remote for business.”

Bias said, “He gets plenty of men from Waddell Mill as patrons. But even if you can stand the company of such rough-necks, you’ll never make it through a night of loud chirping frogs! Locals call it ‘Frogtown!’”

Richter laughed, unaware it wasn’t a joke. After that came Ano Nuevo Point, then the new 1871 Pigeon Point Lighthouse, and finally into the tiny settlement of Pescadero around 4 p.m. to meet Richter’s relatives, then Bias dined on meat and potatoes at the inn before bedtime.

POST SCRIPT

In 1875, Billy Bias sold the Pescadero Stage Line, to become partners with J.B. Moulton in a dry goods store at Pacific and Locust. They sold clothing, shoes, textiles and household goods. When his son Harry was born in 1879, Billy sold his interest in the store to enter politics. This was the proof of his popularity, that Billy Bias was elected Santa Cruz County Clerk & Assessor in 1880, then reelected four more times. After that, he was elected County Treasurer in 1889, being reelected to that office several times as well. Billy Bias died in 1914, but not before seeing his 21-year-old son Harry became an attorney in 1900, then soon after Justice of the Peace, and judge. What a dignified lineage from a jokester like Billy!