San
Joaquin County
Biographies
EDWARD B. CARROLL
A pioneer of more than ordinary
interest and distinction was Edward B. Carroll, in whose memory Carroll Hollow
was named. A native of New York City,
New York, he was born in 1820 and had the privilege of a fine education in that
state before enlisting in the United States Army in 1835, and serving as first
sergeant in a company sent to Florida to quell an uprising. After this task was completed he settled in
Charleston, South Carolina, and was for three years occupied as a steel
engraver. He was a member of the
National Guard of that state, but saw no service. Early in 1846 he enlisted for service under
General Scott, and owing to his activities he was advanced to the position of
first lieutenant under Capt. L. S. Gallagher and Col. W. B. Burnett, and was
with the troops when they entered Mexico City.
Three years later, in 1849, Mr. Carroll came to California in advance of
Stephenson’s regiment. During the
journey he endured severe hardships in crossing the desert and mountains, but
finally reached southern California, where he found employment in the
mines. A few months sufficed to show him
that he was not going to make his fortune there; so he gave up mining in those
parts, and we next find him in Sacramento, California, whence he went to the
mines in Tuolumne County. Among his
party were two men, Brighton and Wright, who afterwards came into notice in
1850, when they erected a rude-looking building with sides and roof of zinc,
located at what was then known as Rio Buenos Ayres, but which later became
known as Carroll Hollow. During the
early fifties, there came to California two men named Green Patterson and
Grizzly Adams in quest of bear, and he became a lifelong friend of these men. Mr. Carroll was a noted rifleman, known in
every part of the state as a crack shot.
Through his strategy, daring and thorough knowledge of the habits and
haunts of the bear, he captured and caged the largest bear ever in captivity;
later this bear was taken east by Grizzly Adams, and
while on an exhibition tour in Massachusetts became so troublesome that Mr.
Adams was compelled to shoot him.
During the year of 1850 Mr. Carroll
located in the natural pass in the mountains between Livermore and San Joaquin
Valley, and built his cabin by the side of a beautiful stream of water. Here, three years later, he erected a fine
tavern, a portion of which is standing today in what is known as Carroll
Hollow. Those were the days of marauding
bands of outlaws who traversed the country murdering and pillaging; history
records fourteen murders which occurred in this natural pass during those
troublesome times, and how many more there were will ever remain unknown. Green Patterson, the well-known pioneer, was
murdered in this canyon early in 1866; also six members of the Golden family
were killed by ruffians, who were never brought to justice. Green Patterson became intimately associated
with Edward B. Carroll in the early days of Carroll Hollow. He was a half-breed Cherokee Indian who had
served in the Mexican War. He became
wealthy, owing some sixty thousand acres in San Luis Obispo County. It is believed that his brother-in-law,
“Sandy Simpson,” was murdered for his money at Carroll Hollow. Among the other very early associates of
Edward B. Carroll, were William Bright and Horatio Wright, who were among the
very earliest settlers at Rio Buenos Ayres, now Carroll Hollow. They were there before Edward B. Carroll. Horatio Wright became a partner with Mr.
Carroll in running the store and roadhouse.
They were among the first to become interested in the Tesla coal mine
and brick and tile factory about seven miles up the gulch from Carroll
Hollow. Coal and clay were found in
close proximity at this place. Horatio
Wright had a brother, George Wright, who was a banker in New York City. Desiring to obtain more money with which to
develop this project properly, Horatio Wright went back to New York City to see
his brother, the banker; but he never returned and was
never heard from again. In all
likelihood he was murdered. Designing
capitalists soon precipitated the project into litigation, and the original
owners, of whom Mr. Carroll was one, were defrauded of their holdings. Mr. Carroll, in company with John O’Brien,
Joseph Conn, and William T. Coleman, was among the first to reach the Tesla
coal mines; but through this fraudulent litigation they were never able to take
out enough to make it pay, and whereas each one should have been wealthy, they
all died poor.
Mr. Carroll’s marriage occurred in
1875, and united him with Mrs. Thomas Clarig, whose
maiden name was Anna Morley. She had
three children by a former marriage who was adopted by Mr. Carroll; and the
family made their home in Tesla, a few miles from the place where Mr. Carroll
first built his rude cabin. He passed
away in 1881, survived by his widow and three adopted daughters. Mrs. Carroll then removed to Oakland,
California, where she passed away on September 14, 1918, a highly honored
pioneer woman. She was one of the
survivors of the ill-fated steamship “Central America,” which went down off
Cape Hatteras, September 12, 1857, with $4,000,000 in gold and several hundred
passengers in a very severe storm on her trip from Havana to New York City. Mrs. Carroll, who was then Mrs. James
Reading, was one of the few passengers rescued.
The “Central America” was originally the “George Law,” which had been
refitted and rechristened “Central America,” and was being used as a Pacific mail
steamer. She was an old hulk, in reality
unseaworthy.
The eldest daughter, Mrs. Mamie
(Carroll) Burns, owns and resides upon eighty acres where the original
buildings, erected by Mr. Carroll in 1850 stand. It is one of the most interesting places,
historically, in the San Joaquin
Valley. She was born at San Francisco,
was orphaned by the death of her father when she was a little girl, the mother
being left a widow with three children:
Mamie, Elizabeth, and Maggie.
Upon the mother’s marriage, in 1875, to Edward Baldwin Carroll, all the three
little girls were adopted by him, and all of them grew up in Carroll
Hollow. Mamie was married in the month
of April, 1902, to Mr. James Burns, who was born at San Francisco. He is and for the past fourteen years has
been a state fire warden, working out from their historic old home at Carroll
Hollow. Elizabeth is the wife of Jack Elmhorn, chief engineer on an ocean liner plying in the
Pacific to the Hawaiian Islands, and resides in San Pedro. Maggie became the wife of Harry W. Teeple, who was a well-known Southern Pacific
conductor. She makes her home for the
present at Los Angeles, California, with her only son, Harry C. Teeple, who is in the employ of the Shell Company at the
corner of Lincoln and Mission roads in the southern metropolis. At the breaking out of the late World War,
Harry C. Teeple was the youngest man on the San
Francisco Chronicle office force to enlist.
He has an honorable record, having served for a period of the war in the
United States Navy on the steamship “Pueblo.”
The history of Carroll Hollow constitutes an interesting chapter in the
annals of San Joaquin County, and no one knows more of it than its oldest
living inhabitant, Mrs. Mamie Carroll Burns.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
911-912. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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