GLOBALISM=AGENDA 21=SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT=WORLD GOVERNMENT=LOSS OF SOVEREIGNTY=NO CONSTITUTION=LOSS OF
FREEDOM=NO AMERICA |
MOUNTAIN
MILL HOUSE By: James Haggart - March 1972 |
enjoy
an over-night camp. This
fine old house, surrounded by friendly porches, has served as a stopping
place for many a weary traveler in former days, when the road was used for
wagon and stagecoach travel. It was a slower pace in those days Felix
and Delia McNulty had built the house in 1881, replacing a smaller white
house that Felix McNulty had built in 1873.
McNulty was a workman on the toll road that was built over the
mountain leading from Calistoga to Middle town and Lake County. He had bought 160 acres of land from Sam
Brannan, one of the earliest settlers, at the base of Mt St Helena; here he
made a home for his family. William
McNulty, their only son, was born in the Mill House in 1880, the year that
Robert Louis Stevenson spent his honeymoon in the abandoned Silverado mine on
the pass of the mountain. In 1883, Lillie McNulty, their only daughter, was
born to the pioneer couple. Lillie lived there all her life, the congenial
hostess of friendly Mountain Mill House. Felix
McNulty was the epitome of the pioneer American settler, moving west and
carving out a life in the wilderness of California. He earned his living by
hard work on the Toll Road and, finding his little Eden at the bottom of the
road on the north side of the mountain, bought a quarter section
and built a house. There
was plenty of water, there was land enough for a
garden, and for the quartering of horses. He envisioned his' homestead as a
stopping place for the passengers on the stagecoaches that started streaming
over the mountain pass. His was the last stop for the coaches as they rumbled
down the dusty road to Middletown and points north. The
little white picket fence by the side of the road, the sparkling cool water and
the delicious home-cooked food from the hands of his wife, Delia, made a
welcome sight to weary travelers. It became famed as a mountain oasis for
visitors, who came from all over the world. Felix
added to his income by delivering mail on horseback between Mountain Mill
House and the old Oat Hill Mine (over a trail no longer in use.) The McNultys were close friends of the Livermore family, who
owned Oat Hill Mine, a source of quicksilver, one of the most prosperous mines
of the many that thrived around Middletown. Horatio
Gates Livermore had come to California from his native Maine in the Gold Rush
in 1850, crossing the plains in a covered wagon in '49. Horatio Putnam
Livermore owned the huge Montesol spread, including
Oat Hill Mines; at the time that Felix McNulty bought his homestead at the
northern base of Mount St Helena. Montesol had
belonged to Thomas Van Ness previously, for whom Van Ness Avenue in San
Francisco is named. John Lawley, who started building the Toll Road in 1868, hired
Felix McNulty to help him finish the road and, no doubt, gave him a franchise
for taking care of the stage coaches and horses when they stopped at the
bottom of the road. The freight lines
also used the facilities there as they brought supplies from Calistoga to
Middletown and Alfred England and his father (residents of Lower Lake,) who
hauled to Lower Lake. Their wagons were drawn by six and eight-mule teams,
controlled by jerk lines operated by a rider astride one of the mules. After
the death of Felix in 1914, Delia, his widow, took in boarders at the Mill
House for $1 a day. Lillie McNulty, the only daughter, inherited the property
upon the death of her mother. It is
interesting to note that Lillie got her schooling on the opposite side of the
mountain, traveling by the stage coach to and from school. Mrs. Hunt was her teacher. Lillie's whole
life was spent on, or near, Mount St Helena. Part of her schooling was at
Mirabel Springs, to which she rode by pony.
Mrs. Sam Osgood was her teacher. Lillie
was named after the Lillie family, who in the early days had built a mill on
the stream near the present ranch house. It is from this mill that the
Mountain Mill House derives its name. The old Lillie mill has long since fallen
to decay, the land now being a part of the Montesol
property. The waters of the St Helena Creek presumably turned its wheel. Read
More Local History CALIFORNIA WHITE CAP MURDERS 1890 MIDDLETOWN,CA THE HISTORY
OF MIDDLETOWN’S CORNER STORE HISTORY
OF GUENOC RANCH 1845 - 1958 DID
LILLIE LANGTRY REALLY VISIT MIDDLETOWN? MIDDLETOWN – BEFORE
YOUR GRANDPARENT’S DAYS Compliments
of: Bill Wink |