William Lucas Plaskett was born February 1, 1818, in Indiana, grandson of a Revolutionary soldier, and educated at William & Mary College in Virginia — learning he would spend a lifetime lending to places that had none. In 1845 he married Sarah Barnes in Van Buren County, Iowa.
In 1848 he went west with the gold seekers, falling in with Frémont’s party at Carson Sink. At the Sutter mine he took out $2,000 in gold — enough to clear the Iowa mortgage and bring his family west. He returned home in 1851 to find that his son Theodore, born in his absence, had died before his return. In 1852 he brought the whole family out by the Panama route, and their California life began at the Cherokee mining camp, where Sarah banked the miners’ gold and their son Reason was the camp’s first native child.
The family kept moving toward elbow room: to Anderson Valley in 1856, where daughter Mendocina became the first white child born in Mendocino County and Plaskett Meadows still keeps the name; then to Fresno County, until the San Joaquin grew ‘too thickly settled’ for him. In September 1869 he drove ox teams over the coast range on Indian trails and claimed 2,000 acres of the narrow valley between the Pacific and the Santa Lucias — Pacific Valley, a name he chose himself.
There he was everything the frontier required: carpenter and wheelwright, bone-setter and doctor, builder of the water-powered arrastra on Plaskett Creek that ground his sons’ gold ore. Fifty children grew up in his valley. He retired to Salinas in the 1890s and died there April 26, 1909, at ninety-one — ‘A Venerable Patriarch of 112 Living Descendants,’ said the paper. The valley, the creek, the ridge, and the rock still say the rest.
Parents: Samuel Plaskett (1784-1858) · Maria Rush Plaskett
Married: Sarah May Barnes Plaskett
Children: Byron Gianavil Plaskett · Leonidas Hamlin Plaskett · Persey Plaskett · Reason Alpha Plaskett · Francis Marion Plaskett · Mendocina May Plaskett Mansfield · Laura F. Plaskett · Olive Flavilla Plaskett McLean · Mary Josephine Plaskett Patterson · Robert Lucas Cleveland Plaskett · William E. Plaskett · James Samuel Plaskett
Brothers & sisters: William P. Plaskett
Parents: Samuel Plaskett (1784-1858) · Maria Rush Plaskett
Grandparents: Elizabeth [--] Plaskett · William Plaskett Jr.
Great-grandparents: William Plaskett (d. 1748) · Margaret Lucas Plaskett
2× great-grandparents: Bridget Stott Lucas · Edward Lucas · John Plascatt of Whitehaven
3× great-grandparents: Samuel Lucas · Mary · Robert Lucas · Elizabeth Cowgill · Bridget Scott
4× great-grandparents: Sir John Fermor · Rebecca Thornton · James DeLucas · James De Lucas · David Lucas · Amanda Mehan · Margrett Scott
story
The Baronettes: An Acadian Origin, and a Signer Who Was Not Ours
The family says Sarah Barnes came of French Acadians expelled in 1755, and that her mother was first cousin to a signer of the Declaration. One of those is likely; the other does not survive checking.
place history
Before Big Sur: The Mendocino Years
Fifteen years before Pacific Valley, William Lucas Plaskett rehearsed his dream in Anderson Valley — where the family named a daughter Mendocina, left their name on a mountain meadow that still carries it, and stopped twelve feet short of a different life.
gold mines
Twelve Feet from Fortune
The most told Plaskett story of all: the Nevada silver tunnel sold twelve feet short of the Comstock Lode.
gold mines
The Profitable Mine That Led to Loss
The Kings River mine paid handsomely — and financed the venture that lost it all.
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William Lucas Plaskett with Fremonts Party at Carson Sink
At Carson Sink in 1848, the Plaskett wagon company fell in with John C. Frémont's party.
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William Lucas, Doctor of the Cholera Camps
No physician within a hundred miles — so the William & Mary man nursed the cholera camps of Sacramento, and set the coast's bones ever after.
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Albert Barnes Orchard on Pepperwood Ridge
Sarah's brother Albert Barnes proved up a quarter-section on Pepperwood Ridge and set it to fruit trees.
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Too Thickly Settled
When neighbors appeared on the San Joaquin horizon, William Lucas decided it was time to find emptier country.
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The Great Journey to Pacific Valley
July 1869: ox teams over Pacheco Pass, Indian trails over the coast range, and a valley at the end of it.
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Crossing the Delaware with Washington - Christmas 1776
Ice on the Delaware, the Revolution on the line — and a Plaskett in Washington's boats, two generations before the family reached the Pacific.
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Sale to Hearst — The End of an Era
Ten dollars on paper for 1,523 acres: the 1922 deed to Hearst's agent that scattered the families and ended 53 Plaskett years in Pacific Valley.
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Two Branches, One Name - The Congresswoman and the Pioneer
Two centuries after a Plaskett ran a Caribbean plantation, a Plaskett represents those islands in Congress.
gold mines
The Los Burros Mining District and the Lost Town of Manchester
Organized 1876, transformed by Willey Cruikshank's Last Chance strike in 1887 — and gone by 1897, burned and grown over. The rise and fall of the coast's gold district, and the lost town of Manchester.
mabel article
History of Early Orchards Linked to Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank's cuttings came down the coast in 1898 with Linwood Mitchell — and the mountain orchards still bear the evidence.
mabel article
Plasketts Among Early Coast Settlers
How the valley was settled: William Lucas Plaskett's family clearing lilac 'grown to the dimension of small trees' — her classic account of the family's beginning.
story
The Wagon Train Indian Incident
A man on the wagon train shot an Indian woman. The Indians demanded a life for a life — and got one.
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Carl Sans Drowns in Well
Carl Sans was being hauled up from the bottom of a well when the rope failed him.
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Building St. Lukes Church
Three Plaskett brothers built St. Luke's at Jolon in 1884 — and it still stands.
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Alice Eastwood and Reezy Plaskett: The Plants of the Plaskett Coast
In five months of collecting, a self-taught Big Sur carpenter sent Alice Eastwood six plants new to science — and she named two of them for him.
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The Soapstone Fireplace Still Visible
Where William Lucas built his first cabin in 1869, campers now pitch tents — and his soapstone hearth is still there.
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William Lucas Plaskett - Educated at William & Mary
A William & Mary man on the frontier: William Lucas set bones and doctored neighbors a hundred miles from help.
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The Death of the Patriarch — 112 Living Descendants
'A Venerable Patriarch of 112 Living Descendants' — the Salinas paper's farewell to William Lucas Plaskett, 1818–1909.
story
Theodore Plaskett - The Son WLP Never Saw
His son Theodore was born while William Lucas dug for gold — and died before he could get home.
gold mines
The Arrastra on Plaskett Creek
Built by William Lucas Plaskett about 1885 and turned by a water wheel on the creek, the family arrastra ground the Western Star's gold ore — and its timbers, iron and basin are still there.
place history
The Marvelous Shut-In Valley (San Francisco Call, 1897)
The earliest published account of Pacific Valley — a full-page 1897 San Francisco Call feature on 'the Marvelous Shut-In Valley,' the unexplored pocket of the Coast Range that William Lucas Plaskett found, settled, and never left.
- birth 1818-02-01 — Born in Indiana to Samuel Plaskett and Marie Rush
- marriage 1845 — Married Sarah Barnes, Van Buren County, Iowa
- marriage 1845-10-16 · Birmingham, Van Buren County, Iowa — William Lucas Plaskett married Sarah Barnes, 16 October 1845
- marriage 1845-10-18 · Iowa — Married Sarah Barnes in Birmingham, Iowa
- immigration 1848 · Iowa Homestead — Left Iowa for California Gold Rush with company of gold-seekers
- occupation 1848 — West with the gold seekers; $2,000 from the Sutter mine
- residence 1849 · Sutter's Fort — William Lucas arrives at Sutter's Fort in California seeking gold
- occupation 1849 · Cherokee Hill — William Lucas did placer mining in Tuolumne County during Gold Rush - did quite well
- occupation 1849 · French Corral — Also mined at French Corral
- immigration 1849-02 · Sutter's Fort — Arrived at Sutter's Fort after 8-month journey via Carson Sink with Fremont party
- occupation 1849-1850 · Sutter Mine — Mined gold at Sutter Mine - earned $2000 which he sent to Sarah in Iowa (1850)
- occupation 1850 · Comstock Lode — Prospecting trip to Nevada - quit tunneling 12 feet from famous Comstock Lode silver strike
- immigration 1851 · Panama City — Returned to Iowa via Panama route
- occupation 1852 · Cherokee — Gold mining at Cherokee camp, Butte County while family lived there
- immigration 1852 · Aspinwall (Colon) — Brought wife Sarah and sons Byron & Leonidus to California; landed at Aspinwall
- immigration 1852 · Chagres River Crossing — Family carried across Isthmus on chairs; Sarah carried across Chagres River on back of porter
- residence 1852-12 — The family at Cherokee mining camp
- residence 1854 · Anderson Valley, Mendocino — Family moved from Cherokee to Mendocino County; settled at Plaskett Meadows
- occupation 1854 · Comstock Lode Area — Mined near Virginia City; quit 12 feet from the famous Comstock Lode
- residence 1855 · Mendocino County — Plaskett family settled in Mendocino County, established Plaskett Meadows
- residence 1856 — Anderson Valley, Mendocino County — Plaskett Meadows
- occupation 1859 · Comstock Lode, Nevada — Silver mining - quit 12 feet from the Comstock Lode strike
- census 1860 · Anderson Township — 1860 Federal Census - Mendocino County, Anderson Township, page 869
- residence 1860 · Fresno County Homestead — Homesteaded in Fresno County near Buchanan (now Chowchilla)
- residence 1865 · Fresno County — Plaskett family moved from Mendocino County to Fresno for farming
- occupation 1865 · Mariposa County — Built quartz mill in Mariposa County
- occupation 1865 · Kings River Sycamore Branch — Mined profitably in Sycamore branch of Kings River
- residence 1869 · Pacific Valley — Moved family to Big Sur coast
- immigration 1869-07 · Fresno County Homestead — Left Fresno County with family driving ox teams
- immigration 1869-08 · Pacheco Pass — Crossed Pacheco Pass with ox teams
- immigration 1869-08 · Salinas Valley Route — Traveled through Salinas Valley
- residence 1869-09 · Pacific Valley — July 1869 - family left Fresno with cattle/horses/wagons over Pacheco Pass to Salinas Valley, arrived Pacific Valley September 1869
- residence 1896 · King City — Retires to Maple Street, Salinas
- death 1909-04-26 · Salinas — Died at age 91; 112 living descendants
- burial 1909-04-28 · Salinas — Buried in Salinas
- — William Lucas Plaskett → Homestead Claim · 2000 acres · Homestead claim
born life events land died