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
Part two: Pacific Valley School — kept since 1880 on the east side of the highway at Plaskett Creek — and the teachers who came to the edge of the world.
Family spotlight
Whaling captain, never married. Master of the ship Daniel Webster which sailed from Nantucket Dec 16, 1838 and returned Oct 15, 1842 with 1832 barrels of sperm oil. Portrait hangs on the North Wall of the Nantucket Whaling Museum with a wall plaque. Died of fever at Cape de Verde.…
mabel article
Every October the gray whales stream south past the coast to calve in Baja — a migration the coast families set their calendars by.
mabel article
The strangest of all the Big Sur characters: Jaime de Angulo — Paris-born doctor, cowboy, linguist — riding the ridges as a symbol of man's right to be free.
mabel article
Portolá camped there in 1769; a century later Jolon was the thriving crossroads of the Camino Real — saloons, hotels, and fiestas three days long.
mabel article
Manuel Lopez came from Mexico about 1870 and built by the sea at the point that keeps his name — through fortune, rodeo trophies, and terrible loss.
mabel article
'Petrified dragon tears': the Chinese revered jade for centuries — and the Monterey coast serves it up to any rock hound patient enough. The article behind our Jade Cove story.
mabel article
Where the Nacimiento road tops the divide, Mill Creek springs to life — and once powered the sawmills of the Lucias, including her father's.
235 stories · 1762 family members & friends · 678 places — and the home page changes every few days. Come back soon.
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