As luck would have it, the Chamber of Commerce has just published what we were looking for, and we secured our own walking tour brochure, complete with map of the downtown and little historic notes about the many buildings in town that were more than 125 years old.
Weaverville was settled around 1850 as the gold rush reached the Trinity area. The town supplied miners with their necessaries. Through the late 1800's, gold mining continued to be important, but after gold trailed out, the town made a slow transition to logging, no doubt with some ranching and farming as well. The town suffered repeated fires, to the point where, by the late 1800's, the vast majority of buildings downtown on Main Street were constructed of "fireproof" brick sourced in the clay of the surrounding area. Even despite building with brick, fire was a continuing problem, and the town's history is defined by the history of its fires. The historic buildings presently standing were constructed in the late 1800's. What makes Weaverville distinctive is the large number of historic buildings and how much of the downtown is comprised of them. All have been rehabilitated and all are occupied. It was remarkable to see a complete absence of empty storefronts. That, coupled with the obvious pride everyone in Weaverville seems to feel about the town, suggests that it is doing relatively well economically.
We decided first to visit The Temple of the Forest Beneath the Clouds, a Joss House, or Daoist temple, which was built in 1874 and replaced a temple that had originally been established around 1853. Chines immigrants had come to Weaverville in the early 1850's to search and mine for gold (the Weaverville area was advertised in China as 黄金山 (huang2 jin1 shan1), or "gold mountain," and, because there was a famine in China's Guangdong Province, many men there scraped together enough money to make the risky journey to California to seek their wealth in this area, leaving behind their families and hoping to make enough money to return wealthy.
It didn't work out that way for the vast majority. For most, life in this country was crushingly hard work. During the 1850's many of the Chinese formed families. Having few blood relatives, the Chinese affiliated among themselves in groups substituting for families. These are known as "tongs." In Weaverville, the tongs formed along lines of surnames, of which there were four main groups at the time. In June 1854, one group was accused of cheating the others in the local gambling hall, leading to a battle, or tong war, between groups.
After the 1850's, as the gold fever played out, the Chinese population of Weaverville declined. As the 1860's passed, a number of Chinese moved to San Francisco and other cities, and yet others left to work on the expanding railroads. The Chinese population of Weaverville declined, leaving only those who had found means to support themselves in other livelihoods.
There is still a very small Chinese population in the area, and some people still practice the ancient Chinese Daoist religion. This temple is still used actively by those practitioners. It is also a center for Chinese New Year and other cultural celebrations among the Chinese community. However, there are not enough Chinese in the area to support the maintenance of the Joss House. Luckily, in 1956, the State of California agreed to take over the temple and operate it as a state park, which is how it is operated today. The museum curator was kind enough to take us on a personal tour of the temple. He spent over a half hour explaining the history of the temple and the meaning of the Daoist decorations and objects inside.
Here is a photo of the entrance to the temple:
Within the front door is a second door, which is always closed. According to Daoist belief, this is to keep out evil. The reason this works, is that evil, by its central nature, will not adapt or change. It must always walk in a straight line. Thus, when evil meets the closed doors, it cannot penetrate. Humans, however, to are able to adapt or adjust, can turn to the side and walk around the door and into the temple. Likewise, the front door frame has a raised lintel to prevent the people of the temple from accidentally sweeping good fortune out of the temple when they sweep out the dust. Because of the raised lintel, they cannot simply sweep the dust out the front door, but must dispose of it in some other way.
The inside of the temple is ornately decorated. The only time we have seen such beautiful Daoist decorations was when we visited the Dong Yue Temple in Beijing.
Once done with the Daoist temple, we ventured over to the Trinity County Historical Museum, which featured extensive materials, not only on the Chinese population of Weaverville, but also on the Native American people who lived in the area before the 1850's, and the Caucasian pioneers who first settled the town. The museum has an extensive display of gold mining equipment.
On we continued on our self-guided walking tour of the town. We stopped to look at the three remaining spiral staircases, which were common in the buildings of the town because people bought and sold the second stories of buildings as freely as the ground floors, and the owners of the upper stories needed an independent means of accessing their properties:
Weaverville is the county seat of Trinity County. Here is David examining the old courthouse building:
Hiking through history is hard work, so, after completing the tour, we stopped in one of the local cafes for lunch and then headed back to the RV. By the time we arrived home, the day was nearly done and we barely had enough time to clean up all our camping and hiking gear (and complete these blog entries) before bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.