:. j f fofgill
'Somersville, Nortonville'W*)?'.*
The Knave: Lately I was on the locations
of these old towns in the coal region of Mt.
Diablo—Nortonville and Somersville. At the
coal mine some company is taking out a fine
grade of quartz sand, and I asked the donkey
driver of the dump carts about the old town
of Nortonville which once stood there. "Town?"
he asked. "Was there a town here?" Nothing
is left of the once flourishing town of a thousand people but one ruined brick building.
Where the mine dump spreads today, Noah
Norton built the first house in 1861,.and soon
the miners' cabins covered the hillsides round
about. The coal was hauled out to "New York
Landing" on the bay. An old newspaper item,
which I saw recently, describing the Congregational Church here, as perhaps the most beautiful church in California. A dirt road climbs
over the ridge to the east, a mile and a half to
Somersville, a companion coal town in another
mountain canyon. Near the top of the grade
on the Somersville side lies the old cemetery,
with one lone cypress standing like a sentinel
over the dead. The"ancient"tombstones, marking the graves of the Welsh miners, for the
most part, lie prone, upon, the ground.:.Some
of the inscriptions are in Welsh, ■ and I well
remember one strange birthplace of a miner—
"Troedyrhiw, Merthyr." And at the lower end
of the cemetery was a small grave enclosed
by an old iron fence, 3x6 feet; at one- end a
young cypress tree, while at the other end was
an old 10-foot stump. Between them a little,
white marble cross with the names "Millie"
and "Dora" engraved on the faces. In the canyon below lay the great dumps of the mines,
and on the gentle slopes round the'm were the
scattered remains of the old town; a few cabins,
leaning crazily, and piles of rotting lumber. Here
in the late '60's were two flourishing churches—
a Congregational under Rev. J. J. Powell, and
a Methodist Church under: Rev. Valentine
Rightmeyer. Here in the Summer of 1869 came
the famous Dr. M. C. Briggs to dedicate the
■ building. For some twenty years or more the
mines were in production, then were closed
down, and the towns "melted into, the earth."
From my vantage point on the hilltop I beheld
the green mantle of Springtime thrown as a
merciful covering about the scarred remains
of the dead village. To the east a few miles
were other old towns—"Stuartsville," "Judson-
ville" and "Empire," all coal towns and all disappearing with the end of coal mining in this-
region.—John W. Winkley.
