-----Original Message-----
From: Arlie and Coral Bergman
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2007 7:23 AM
To: bonnie@bonniephelps.com
Subject: Colfax

You wanted something about the Colfax Founder's Day -- but I have not written anything special - (too busy traveling) - but I am sending an excerpt from my journal:

"Several of us camped with our RV's at Dutch Flats then drove about 10 miles downhill to the town of Colfax, where they were to set a bronze plaque to the common ancestor, Enos T. Mendenhall - who had settled  there in 1849 with his young bride, age 17, and a new baby and another on the way - and opened a miner's hotel and boarding house in Alder Grove - and then, in the 1860s opened a hotel in the railroad town of Colfax -

(Sorry, but I can't help but think of that young woman - Rachel Emily Mills Mendenhall - who had crossed to Oregon at age 7, married at age 16, had one baby, traveled by ship to San Francisco, then with another baby on the way, gone by ship to Sacramento.  The Colfax Museum had a newspaper article telling of the sailing ship that took the young family to their new home: "...the little sailing ship was flooded by the heavy seas that dashed over the deck in a terrific spring rain.  Mother and baby were lashed to a mast to keep them from being washed overboard.  Enos Mendenhall, helped the battered ships crew to keep the small craft from floundering completely and being blown on the rocky shoreline. . ."  Then, they traveled by wagon to the gold fields - and built a two room, dog-trot cabin and she cooked for miners - and had the first white child born in Placer County in the terrible winter of 1849--------- no wonder, when Enos T. wanted to go south to pioneer on Palomar Mountain, she said "I'm tired of pioneering…. I'm staying here!")

Anyway, sometime in the 1860s ET and Rachel opened a hotel in Colfax - the Pioneer Hotel - which received several notables of people passing through the gold country and the railroad towns - Hotel burned down in 1874 and Rachel Emily stayed on with her daughters while sons went south to Palomar with Dad.  Son, Sylvester stayed to form the Sylvester Mendenhall branch of the family on Palomar Mountain - a branch with numerous descendants.

Representatives from each of Enos and Rachel's childbearing children were there - and we all checked in at the Railroad station and museum - lots of meeting and greeting and name tags - and then, the museum curator took us on a walking tour of downtown Colfax - small town, but very interesting - back to museum until 1 o'clock when we all went down to the house where the plaque had been set - quite a dedication ceremony - invocation, presenting of the colors by the local (very cute) boy scout group, words of welcome and introductions, and dedication of the plaque and a presentation of flowers to the people who live in the house where the hotel was located --  all this followed by a reception at the railroad station/museum and a local band of a family playing fiddles and doing bluegrass music - (I love it when we see young children being brought up in the "tradition" ) - then at 4 o'clock a caravan tour to the original site of ET's place and the later sawmill (about 20 carloads of people)  -- and in the evening a -- family dinner at Tofanelli's in Grass Valley with over 50 family members there - a great get-together and special thanks should be given to Janet Landauer who organized it all -"

Coral