In the Winter/Spring Edition of Yolo Magazine Emma Johnson explored the cultural history of Guinda in western Yolo County’s Capay Valley.
“Among the people drawn by the opportunity to homestead were African Americans seeking refuge from the racism they faced in other parts of the country,” Johnson wrote. “In the Capay Valley they could carve out their own piece of freedom in California.”
Revisiting Green Berry Logan
Green Berry Logan, born in Arkansas in 1847 to mixed-race parents, was the first of those who settled in Guinda in 1890. His parents, Nellie and Alfred Jefferson Logan, brought him and his five siblings to California, first locating in Tehama County in 1857.
With Logan and those who came with him to the valley in mind, Guinda transplant Clarence Van Hook became acquainted with resident Bill Petty. As this friendship coalesced, the pair founded the annual “Black History and Multicultural Celebration,” held at the historic Guinda Grange for nearly two decades.
Green Berry Logan’s great-granddaughter Jeannette L. Molson of Woodland was recently invited to present her extensive genealogical research to the gathering, much of which has been shared in writing of this story.
Alvin Aaron Coffey, California pioneer
Molson also has the distinction of being the great-great-granddaughter of Alvin Aaron Coffey, born in slavery in 1822 in Mason County, Kentucky. Coffey is the only African American member of the Society of California Pioneers, thanks to his mining efforts in Northern California during the Gold Rush of 1849.
Coffey’s arduous journey is detailed in Molson’s book, “The Torturous Road to Freedom: The Life of Alvin Aaron Coffey,” co-written with Eual D. Blansett, Jr.
It was owner Henry Duvall who brought Coffey from Kentucky to St. Louis in the early 1830s, then sold him to Dr. William Bassett in 1846 for $600.
After word got out that gold was discovered in California in 1848, Bassett decided to join a wagon train — taking Coffey away from his wife Mahala and family — to mine gold in the north state.
Leaving Missouri in May of 1849, Bassett and Coffey made the 3,000-mile-long winding sojourn to California Trail — grinding across Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada at a snail’s pace. Six months later they reached Reading Springs (Shasta today) and started digging for gold.
By day Coffey worked for Bassett. At night he worked odd jobs, most notably resoling miners’ shoes, and saved $600 of his own money.
In early 1851, the pair left San Francisco by steamer to the Panama Isthmus and traveled back to St. Louis, where Bassett not only took Coffey’s savings, but sold him for $1,000 to Mary Tindall — who also happens to own Coffey’s wife and family.
Coffey convinced his new owner in 1854 to allow him to travel back to California to earn enough to purchase freedom for himself ($1,000, and another $3,500 for his family). By July of 1856, Coffey had gained his emancipation and returned to Missouri for Mahala and their children.
Soon, they returned to settle in Tehama County where the rest of their children were born, this time in freedom.
Ora Fina, born in 1862 in Shasta, was the ninth and last child born to Alvin and Mahala.
Ora fina translates in English to “excellent gold,” Molson wrote in “The Road to Torturous Freedom.”
“It was a fitting name because the child was surely much appreciated,” according Molson. “His daughter’s name appears to (indicate) that the Gold Rush held a deeper meaning for the Coffey family than perhaps any other person who participated in that historical event.
“It was a fitting and an excellent end to slavery for Alvin Coffey, his wife, and his children,” Molson wrote. “Gold gave Alvin and his family a chance to determine their own fates and a chance to refrain from ‘saucy’ words for reasons of courtesy rather than from fear of unjustified retaliation.”
A merger of families
The Coffey and Logan families merged with the 1867 marriage of Alvin Aaron Coffey’s daughter Lavinia Bassett Coffey and Green Berry Logan in Shasta County. Their three children, Nellie, Alvin and Green Berry Jr., were all born in Red Bluff, south of present-day Redding.
Green Berry and Lavinia filed for divorce in 1873. A year later, he married Mary Ann Dix, a part-Wintun Native American. The couple and his children eventually moved to Yolo County — by way of Sacramento — where nine children were born to them (although two died in infancy).
In the winter of 1890, the family homesteaded more than 160 acres on the Guinda Summit in Capay Valley. By late 1898 the property was paid for and a house had been built in compliance with the Homestead Act. Three children followed his example — Alvin Alfred, Marie and Green Berry Jr., homesteading nearly 400 acres between them.
Land was important to the family as evidenced by son Alvin Alfred Logan’s ownership of 360 acres upon his death; land which is still owned by his descendants.
Driven by his entrepreneurial spirit, Alvin Alfred sailed to Western Africa in October 1903 where he set up shop in Monrovia, Liberia.
Liberia began as a settlement of the American Colonization Society who believed black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States. More than 15,000 freed and free-born black people were relocated to the settlement between 1822 and the American Civil War.
In Monrovia, Logan’s general store sold a variety of merchandise, stock that he had to watch closely since customers tried to steal items by hiding them in their mouths. Eventually, yellow fever forced him to return to California the following summer on the ship Teutonic.
Molson has another familial branch with connections to Liberia. Charles Deputie, his wife Mary Ann (Molson) Deputie and their children emigrated to Liberia in 1853. Jeannette met descendants from that family at the 70th birthday of her fourth-cousin in Minnesota. They had fled Liberia during civil unrest in 1990 — with the assistance of a task force of U.S. military ships (one of which this author was aboard at the time). Molson continues to remain in touch with her cousin’s family to this day.
After returning from Africa, Alvin Alfred Logan Sr. continued to raise and influence his descendants with a focus on music and education.
He could be found playing the guitar or mandolin, accompanied by Booker on banjo, Aaron on guitar and Addie on piano. He would often read to his young children as they gathered around the pot-bellied stove, passing on the importance of education. His example by serving as a trustee on the Guinda Summit District school board impressed upon his daughters to enter the teaching profession. Grace, Addie and Nellie would log almost 100 years of teaching experience between them. Grace Patterson Elementary School in Vallejo is named after Alvin Sr.’s eldest daughter.
Alvin raised his family in Guinda until their home burned in 1934. Then the Logans moved to Woodland, where the clan has remained.
Notes:This story was written with the extensive contribution of Jeannette Louise Molson. Before retiring, Molson enjoyed a career at the California Board of Equalization, and the University of California. … Molson served more than eight years with the Yolo County Historical Society as vice president and newsletter editor. Since retiring, genealogical research has been her main focus, managing more than 18,000 individuals on her Ancestry family tree. … “A sense of pride” is what Molson would like her descendants to take with them: “I am amazed at the research I’ve been fortunate to find and some of that through relatives near and far who have helped over the years,” Molson said. “In different ways, I feel a connection to relatives I’ve researched over the years.” … An online exhibit, “Alvin Coffey, African American Pioneer” can be found on the Society of California Pioneers website at www.californiapioneers.org/alvin-coffey-african-american-pioneer.
— Fred Gladdis can be reached at fgladdis@davisenterprise.net.
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