Carlisle S. Abbott
(1828- )
by Gary S. Breschini, Ph.D.
Carlisle S. Abbott was born in eastern Canada, just a few miles north of the Vermont state line, on February 26, 1828. His parents had moved there from Connecticut.
Abbott came to California by way of Wisconsin. It was the lure of gold that brought him. He left Wisconsin in March of 1850, taking the northern route through Salt Lake City, the Humboldt Sink, Mormon Station (Carson City), and from there to the gold mines in the Sierra foothills. After a couple of seasons he traveled to San Francisco and caught a steamer for New York via the Isthmus of Panama, arriving back in Wisconsin in January of 1852.
Having married, Abbott was on the road to California again by March, 1852, following the same route he had followed earlier. He leased a ranch near Sacramento and farmed for a couple of years, then went to Nevada City and started a dairy. Only a few months later a fire destroyed much of the town, so by 1858 he relocated his dairy to Point Reyes in Marin County.
In 1865 Abbott drove 500 dairy cattle to the Salinas Valley. He rented about 9,000 acres of land in the area of Rancho Llano de Buena Vista, southeast of Salinas, including the area which would become the town of Spreckels. He notes in his Recollections of a California Pioneer that:
That part of the Salinas Valley west of Salinas was then covered with great tall mustard, while in the easterly direction it was a good grazing country. There was then a small stage station consisting of a cabin and barn [the Half-Way House] at the present site of Salinas.By 1875 he was milking 1,500 cows and producing 200,000 pounds of butter annually, and he owned the land.In March of 1873, Carlisle Abbott purchased the American Hotel and began work on a three story brick hotel, 126 feet wide and 60 feet deep. The American Hotel was moved to the rear, and served as an annex to the new hotel, the Abbott House.
In an attempt to circumvent the Southern Pacific, a group led by Carlisle S. Abbott began work on a narrow gauge railroad, the Monterey & Salinas Valley Railroad, between Salinas and the deep water port at Monterey. David Jacks, who owned huge tracts of land between Monterey and Salinas was the principal financier for the effort, but Abbott made a major investment. Articles of incorporation were drawn up on February 26, 1874, with Abbott as president and Jacks as treasurer. Groundbreaking was held on April 20, 1874 and later that day construction began under engineer John F. Kidder using 140 workers, half Caucasian and half Chinese. The bridge over the Salinas River was a major problem, but it was completed by late August. By the end of September the line was nearly completed, with the Salinas terminal located at what is now the intersection of Pajaro and Willow streets. On October 23, 1874 the first train rolled, and the Monterey & Salinas Valley Railroad become the first narrow gauge to be operated in California. By the end of the year over 6,000 tons of grain had been transported to Monterey; the combined rail and steamship rates were averaging two dollars a ton less than those charged by the Southern Pacific. But in January of 1875 the Salinas River washed the bridge away, and it took two months to replace.
Business for the new railroad was so good that a second locomotive was added in 1875, but in January of 1876 the bridge washed out again, and this time it took six months to replace. Then came another misfortune: 1876-1877 was an extremely dry year, with less than five inches of rainfall, and the valley's crops failed. The following year was extremely wet and crops were abundant, but an unseasonably late June rain destroyed most of the grain. Carlisle Abbott, who had 6,000 acres planted in grain, could not ship a single sack. Seeing their opening, the Southern Pacific lowered their rates below those of the Monterey & Salinas Valley, and the line fell deeper into debt. In August of 1879 the Southern Pacific purchased the Monterey & Salinas Valley Railroad at a foreclosure sale and sold the narrow gauge track and rolling stock to the Nevada Central Railway--far enough away so it would not be a competitor.
In Salinas, Carlisle Abbott was unable to recover from the financial disaster of his narrow gauge line. He subsequently sold the Abbott House to David Jacks and moved to Arizona. This was a loss for the town, as Abbott had represented Salinas as a member of the California Assembly from 1876-1879.
Later in life, after a series of adventures in Arizona and the Southwest, Abbott "retired" to Salinas.
Sources:
- Abbott, Carlisle S., Recollections of a California Pioneer (The Neale Publishing Company, New York, 1917).
- Breschini, Gary S., Trudy Haversat, and Mona Gudgel, 10,000 Years on the Salinas Plain: An Illustrated History of Salinas City, California (Heritage Media, Carlsbad, 2000).
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