In collaboration with Mendocino’s Kelley House Museum, MendoFever will be publishing their “This Day in Mendocino History” Facebook posts. The Kelley House Museum works hard to document and curate Mendocino County’s rich history and can be visited in the seaside town of Mendocino.
On this day in Mendocino history…
June 2, 1855 – William Kasten, the first known white settler of Mendocino, filed claim to the north bank of Mendocino Bay. Kasten filed a preemption to the land naming it, “Port of Good Hope.” His claim began at the Point, went east one-half mile, one-half mile north, west to the ocean, and south along the shoreline back to the Point.
Reportedly, Kasten was the lone survivor of a ship wrecked off the Mendocino coast in 1850. When Jerome Ford came up the coast looking for salvage from the shipwrecked “Frolic,” Kasten was already living in a cabin on a bluff overlooking Mendocino Bay. Ford bought this cabin from Kasten in exchange for lumber to build another house on a site near the present-day intersection of Kasten and Albion Streets, a house later known as the Heeser House.
According to a memoir by J. B. Ford’s daughter, Catherine Ford Rea, “Beyond this place [Ford’s House] toward the mill was a large field for pasture for our animals. We had several cows there and in that enclosure behind the barn was an old log cabin where my father and Capt. Lansing lived when they first went up there. I suppose it may have been the cabin Mr. Kasten put up. We youngsters used to go there to play before it began to fall down.”
𝘝𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘦𝘹𝘩𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘵 “𝘔𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘰 𝘙𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘴” 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘶 𝘑𝘶𝘯𝘦 27. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘎𝘦𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘴, 𝘳𝘢𝘸 𝘛𝘶𝘳𝘲𝘶𝘰𝘪𝘴𝘦, 𝘗𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘞𝘰𝘰𝘥, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘊𝘰𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦 (𝘧𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘱). https://www.kelleyhousemuseum.org/mendocino-rockhounds/
