Temeku- The ancient Indian word, meaning
"The
place where the sun breaks through 
and shines on the white mist"
You can see below the "white mists" that still hang over the east slope of the mountains west of Temecula in the morning. When the early sunlight strikes the fog, it can be so bright and glaring that it hurts your eyes to look upon it. It can make the mountains look as if they were made of Gold....and all the buildings in the valley as well...
STORIES:
The Nahachish Stone - known today as
"Monster Rock"
Macedonia L.M. Machado - And his old
Spanish California family
From:
THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA RANCHER:
HISTORIC
TEMECULA
by Philip S. Rush
September 1952, page Twenty-seven
[some editing & additional info provided by Teddie Anne
"Annie" Driggs, 1998]
Centuries before the first white men ever saw this country, there
were numerous tribes of natives living here. they were chiefly a
nomadic people, who moved from place to place with the seasons
which produced their food --- living in the high mountains when
herbs and nuts and berries were plentiful, sometimes following
wild game from point to point, and frequently visiting the sea
shore for fish and shell foods. Few had even the semblance of
permanent homes.
See the Legend of Nahachish Stone...known in my Swedish Hindorff family
as Wheaner-Whiner Rock...more recently called the Monster Rock by Newcomers & 'Turistas'.
In their migrations from the mountains to the
sea, they had fairly well-developed routes used year after year
-- trails which followed the natural contours of the land where
traveling was easiest and water and food were to be had. One such
route used for many centuries was from the mountains back of
Warner's Hot Springs (El Vale de San Jose), down the Temecula and
Santa Margarita Valleys to the sea, near Oceanside. Some
investigators have estimated that nomadic humans traversed before
the birth of Christianity.
Throughout all this region numerous native artifacts have been
discovered - meteros, metates, manos, ollas (some of which were
used as burial urns after cremation of the dead), stone
implements such as arrows and axes. Many of these have been
gathered in public museums, but valuable private collections have
been made by Harry Bergman, of Aguanga, Carl Bemis of Temecula,
the Temecula Lumber Co., Mrs. Alice Machado of Temecula, judge
Marco Foster of San Juan Capistrano, (Eric Charles Hindorff of
Fallbrook- see story of The
Adobe ), and others. All speak of peoples long gone,
of whom we know little.
In 1947 and 1948 the Archaeological Survey Association of
Southern California, led by B. E. McCown of San Diego, unearthed
a village site on the north side of the Temecula River, a little
over two miles northeast of Fallbrook, and the same group is now
excavating another site just west of the new (1952) Highway 395
bridge across the Temecula River. Both expeditions have brought
to light many native artifacts, and the present investigations
have unearthed evidences of an extensive village which possibly
dates back 6500 years and was known as Temecu. Their work is
highly interesting and valuable, and may develop much hitherto
unknown information about these natives.
The first white men known to have visited this country were
soldiers and padres seeking new locations for mission
settlements. From San Diego in 1795 Capt. Juan Pablo Grijalva led
a party through the Ramona country to El Vale de San Jose (now
known as Warner's Hot Springs), and back along the San Luis Rey
River, a few miles south of the Temecula Valley. Two years later
Capt. Lisalde led another party from San Juan Capistrano,
possibly directly through the Temecula country.
San Luis Rey (the mission) was founded in 1798 and within a few
years the mission herds and flocks were grazed in far flung
areas, leading to the establishment of a granary (a storehouse
for grains) at Pala in 1810, and a chapel there in 1816 and at
Santa tsabel in 1818. A granary and chapel also were established
at Temecula, but mission records thus far found fail to indicate
either the year or the exact location. Grass covered adobe mounds
and fragments of roof tile near the Vail Ranch headquarters
indicate the definite location of a Spanish building, which may
have been this outpost, especially since a large native village
was nearby. The excavations of B. E. McCown and associates some
two or three miles down the river valley indicate that there was
also a Spanish building there.
The Indian word, Temecula, is supposed to mean
(loosely translated), "Heat of the Rising Sun" or
"Glare of the Rising Sun,"
As near as the Indian
Language can be translated into modern English, Temeku means, "the place where the
sun breaks through and shines on the white mist."-edited by T. Driggs ~See
the Legend of the Nahachish Stone~
In the closing days of the Mexican reigne in
California, there were many Indians living in this neighborhood,
but this did not deter the Mexican governors from granting all
the lands for miles around to private individuals. Felix Valdor
was granted over 26,000 acres as Temecula Ranch, while adjoining,
just to the east, Vincente Moraga and Luis Arenas were granted
Pauba Rancho of over 25,000 acres. North and west of the Temecula
grant was Santa Rosa, 47,000 acres granted to Juan Moreno and
others.
Juan Luis Vignes, owner of the Aliso vineyards and winery "de
la Cuidad de Los Angeles", obtained possession of both Pauba
and Temecula ranchos, which according to an old deed in the
Spanish language, on file at the San Diego civic center, he sold
to a group "de la Cuidad de San Francisco." in 1853 for
$25,000.
The Temecula Valley was the route of the famous Mormon Battalion
(who participated in the Mexican War), on their long
transcontinental (march from Council Bluffs, Iowa) to the Pacific
Coast (through the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona and into
California at San Diego). There is a tradition that just before
they arrived here, there had been a furious battle between native
tribes, and that dozens of Indians had been killed, between
Temecula and Pechanga.
In 1846, eleven white men were captured at the old Pauma ranch
house, a few miles south, on the San Luis Rey River, and
massacred near Warner's, where they were taken as prisoners. A
thousand Luieno Indians gathered near Aguanga, east of Temecula,
determined to exterminate all the white settlers, but Ramon
Carrilo, Jose del Carmen Lugo and other Spaniards, aided by a
band of Cahuilla Indians routed the troublemakers, killing 100 of
them. The old Pauma ranch house still stands (in 1952), on the property now
owned by Guilbert & Stroscheim.
Some years later, Jose M. Gonzales, Juan Murietta, Señor Zanjuro
and Señor Pujoe, all pure Castilian Spanish, came to California
and bought certain lands of Temecula rancho for the purpose of
subdividing them. Louis Wolfe, a German, and his wife Ramona,
were conducting a store and saloon at the "native"
village of Temecula. Nearby were the huts of the natives, and a
cemetery. The Indians were dispossessed of their lands and
resettled in Pechanga, a few miles southeast, and this episode
became the basis for Helen Hunt Jackson's famous book
"Ramona", in which she depicted the brutality of the
new settlers to the natives. Wolfe's name was changed to
Hartsell, in the book, and was portrayed as the hero, Allesandro (remembered locally as a worthless Indian sheep sheerer) is
supposed to have pawned his dead father's violin with Wolfe
before he and Ramona journeyed to San Diego to be wed by Father Gspara (who in real life was Father Ubach, a San Diego priest) in
the old adobe still known as Ramona's Marriage Place. The old
Wolfe store building still stands, being used as a warehouse at
the Vail Ranch headquarters. Part of the book "Ramona"
was written by Mrs. Jackson at the Bergman ranch, near Aguanga.
[The violin may actually have been the one
taken in on trade for goods by my Great Grandfather, Per Gustav
Hindorff, at his Harness shop & Leather Goods store, and is
still in family possession.]
On the east wall of the old adobe in 1951, was dedicated a bronze
plaque by the Daughters of the Golden West,
commemorating the 100th anniversary of the signing of a treaty of
peace between the whites and Indians, within this building. The
dedicatory ceremonies were a gala event in the little village of
Temecula., and "Queen for A Day" was 85 year old Mrs. Alice (Aunt Allie Vaughn) Machado,
dressed in ancient costume. Mrs. Machado came to Temecula many
years ago as a young school teacher from Iowa, and married
Macedonia (Mac) Machado, one of the heirs of the Machado family,
which once had owned all of Laguna Rancho and Santa Rosa Rancho -
a princely domain of thousands of acres north and west of
Temecula including all the Elsinore country. (SEE "story" below for Macedonia
Machado) Their herds of cattle numbered the thousands
throughout all California. Another special guest of the day was
Ysabel Gonzales Barnett, wife of Judge A. B. Barnett. She is the
daughter of Don Jose Gonzales, one of the founders of Murietta,
and was the first white girl child born in the Temecula Valley.
Incidentally, the little city of Murietta was named for Don Juan
Murietta, a partner of Gonzales, and not for the bandit, Joaquin
Murrietta, whose depredations alarmed all Californians in bygone
days.
When the Butterfield stage line was opened, its route was through
Warner's Hot Springs, Temecula and Temescal Canyon. The old
adobes still stand at Warners, Oak Grove and Temecula were stage
stations, as well as the ruins in Temescal Canyon between
Elsinore and Corona.
An impetus to the growth of the Temecual Valley was the building
of the roadway from the Mormon settlement of San Bernardino to
San Diego, followed in 1882 by the California Southern Railway,
from Colton and San Bernardino through Elsinore, Murietta,
Temecula, the Temecual Canyon, Santa Margarita Rancho, and
Oceanside to San Diego. In 1884, heavy
floods washed out the lines in the Canyon , but the Land
Boom was on, so the tracks were rebuilt the
following year. Murietta and Temescal boomed with the land boom
and slumped with the "bust". In 1891 another flood
again closed the railway through the Canyon, and with the boom
over, it was never rebuilt. Even the section between Elsinore and
Temecula was eventually abandoned, adding gloom to the already
depressed settlements. Eventually the San Francisco Savings Union
foreclosed on thousands of acres of the old ranchos, and they
were sold to W. L. Vail in 1906. The present holdings of the Vail
Ranch Co., of which Mahlon Vail is head (1952), include over
90,000 acres of lands once part of the Temecula, Pauba and Santa
Rosa land grants.
Once there was a small country school
house in the canyon between Fallbrook and Temecula, near where
B.E. McCown and friends are now delving into the past. Some 20 or
25 years ago, a French-Indian girl from a small Temecula farm
disappeared one evening while looking for the family milk cows in
the canyon. Later her bruised body was found along the river, but
it was never known whether she had accidentally fell over the
canyon walls or was murdered and thrown over.
Temecula Valley is one of those interesting places which lives
largely in the past - a long distant past that is still not too
well known - but combines the mystery of ancient prehistoric
peoples and their habitations, the romance and tragedy of the
more recent natives, and the adventures of those who came in the
great Land Boom. It is the country home of Erle Stanley Gardner,
the world's greatest modern-day mystery story writer, maybe some
day he will tell its saga as only an author of his ability can
do.
Story From: A History of California
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
Historic Record Company of Los Angeles (est.1907); from Volume 1,
page 1027:
Macedonia Llora Merrion Machado "Mac"
<-CLICK
on image to
go to this 
page
and read about the
old Spanish California Machado
family
& Macedonia Llora
Merrion Machado
& his wife, the former
Dora Alice VAUGHN "Allie"
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