More than a century on the Big Sur coast
mabel article
Her earliest known piece, under the pen name Belinda Brown - eighteen years before Coast Trails. How Cox's Hole became Pacific Valley, who named it, and the July the family left Fresno because San Joaquin was getting “too thickly settled”.
From Mabel’s pen
Every October the gray whales stream south past the coast to calve in Baja — a migration the coast families set their calendars by.
Family spotlight
Early Plaskett patriarch in Whitehaven, Cumberland County, England. Father of William Plaskett (b. 1698) who emigrated to America. Church records from St. Bees and St. Nicholas in Whitehaven list the Plaskett family alongside the Lucas, Biles, and Kirkbride families — all of whom would intermarry.…
mabel article
In an old adobe near Lockwood lives Joe Moro, one of the last of the Jolon Indians — his mother born of the mission people under the great oaks.
mabel article
On the old Esselen encampment above the sea, Hot Springs Lodge draws bathers from around the world — the place we now call Esalen.
mabel article
Byron's 'deep and dark blue ocean' — the fishermen, abalone hunters, and vacationers drawn to the coast's edge, in Mabel's salute to the sea itself.
mabel article
A dozen mining claims on Plaskett Ridge — including the arrastra her husband's grandfather built — and the gold still waiting in the family's hills.
mabel article
In 1884 three Plaskett brothers rode horseback from Pacific Valley to Jolon to raise a church — St. Luke's, built by its parishioners, standing yet.
mabel article
Gorda: a handful of buildings against the pines, and a cast of characters from every walk of life — including an instant-portrait artist in the hills.
235 stories · 1762 family members & friends · 678 places — and the home page changes every few days. Come back soon.
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