Marsh Creek, named after Dr John Marsh, runs for maybe 15 miles up into the Morgan Territory area of Mount Diablo.
This was the ancestral home of the Volvon Tribe, 10,000 year inhabitants and arguably one of the most important indigenous groups in Central California, virtually unrecognized and unappreciated today.
The terrain remains almost the same as it was in Volvon times, and much of it is easily accessible to anyone who wants to come and feel what it was like to live there then.
We have recorded quite a few village and camp sites along the creek, described by an early western explorer as a “River of Villages” and many more scattered throughout the hills.
Try to understand that this was a thriving sophisticated society right up to rapid extirpation just over 200 short years ago.
Marsh bought the land in 1837 and built this mansion on top of a village site in 1856.
The current printed literature describes them:
“they lived in traveling bands as hunters, gatherers, and fisherfolk, and some of their camps survive today”.
This is hardly adequate. These people lived settled into their 10 mile by 10 mile tribal territory in permanent established villages, traveling outside it to trade and participate in ceremonial gatherings with their neighbors.
The only references to them in George Lyman’s extensive biography of John Marsh, Pioneer include:
“In 1837 Marsh found a tribe of Indians – the Bolognese – on the arroyo when he bought the rancho.
They had been there from time immemorial.
They were a degraded type of red man. They are wild and savage and bore an evil reputation.
They became his willing serfs and he enjoyed a life among them not unlike that of a Southern plantation owner.”
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Keep in mind that the last Volvon tribal chieftain, Kaaknu, was born around 1770 before the western intrusion, and by 1806 the entire tribe had been moved into the Missions. 30 years later, Dr. John Marsh arrived. 1770 Inhabited Volvon Territory |
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