 2nd U.K. edition 1886 | |
| Author | Robert Louis Stevenson |
|---|---|
| Country | Scotland |
| Language | English and Scots |
| Genre | Short stories |
| Publisher | Chatto and Windus |
Publication date | 1883 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
The Silverado Squatters (1883) is a travel memoir by Robert Louis Stevenson of his two-month honeymoon trip with Fanny Vandegrift (and her son Lloyd Osbourne) to Napa Valley, California, in 1880.
In July 1879, Stevenson received word that his future American wife's divorce was almost complete, but that she was seriously ill. He left Scotland right away and travelled to meet her in Monterey, California, (his trip detailed in The Amateur Emigrant (1894) and Across the Plains (1892)). Broken financially, suffering from a lifelong fibrinous bronchitis condition, and with his writing career at a dead end, he was nursed back to health by his doctor, his nurse, and his future wife, while living briefly in Monterey, San Francisco, and Oakland. His father having provided money to help, on May 19, 1880, he married the Indianapolis native, whom he had first met in France in 1875, soon after the events of An Inland Voyage . Still too weak to undertake the journey back to Scotland, friends suggested Calistoga, in the upper Napa Valley, with its healthy mountain air.
The couple first went to the Hot Springs Hotel in Calistoga, but unable to afford the 10 dollars a week fee, they spent an unconventional honeymoon in an abandoned three-story bunkhouse at a derelict mining camp called "Silverado" on the shoulder of Mount Saint Helena in the Mayacamas Mountains. There they squatted for two months during summer, putting up makeshift cloth windows and hauling water in by hand from a nearby stream while dodging rattlesnakes and the occasional fog banks so detrimental to Stevenson's health.
The Silverado Squatters provides some views of California during the late 19th century. Stevenson uses the first telephone of his life. He meets a number of wine growers in Napa Valley, an enterprise he deems "experimental", with growers sometimes even mislabeling the bottles as originating from Spain in order to sell their product to skeptical Americans. He visits the oldest wine grower in the valley, Jacob Schram, who had been experimenting for 18 years at his Schramsberg Winery, and had recently expanded the wine cellar in his backyard. Stevenson also visits a petrified forest owned by an old Swedish ex-sailor who had stumbled upon it while clearing farmland—the precise nature of the petrified forest remained for everyone a source of curiosity. Stevenson also details his encounters with a local Jewish merchant, whom he compares to a character in a Charles Dickens novel (probably Fagin from Oliver Twist ), and portrays as happy-go-lucky but always scheming to earn a dollar. Like Dickens in American Notes (1842), Stevenson found the American habit of spitting on the floor hard to get used to.
His experiences at Silverado were recorded in a journal he called "Silverado Sketches", parts of which he incorporated into Silverado Squatters in 1883 while living in Bournemouth, England, with other tales appearing in "Essays of Travel" and "Across the Plains". Many of his notes on the scenery around him later provided much of the descriptive detail for Treasure Island (1883).
The Robert Louis Stevenson State Park now encompasses the area where the Stevensons stayed. The entrance to the park is at the summit of State Route 29. A new trail has been constructed in recent years. The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in St. Helena, California, is dedicated to Stevenson.
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Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses.
Napa County is a county north of San Pablo Bay located in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 138,019. The county seat is the City of Napa. Napa County was one of the original counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. Parts of the county's territory were given to Lake County in 1861.
Calistoga is a city in Napa County, in the Wine Country of California. Located in the North Bay region of the Bay Area, the city had a population of 5,228 as of the 2020 census.
Wine Country is the region of California, in the northern San Francisco Bay Area, known worldwide as a premier wine-growing region. The region is famed for its wineries, its cuisine, Michelin star restaurants, boutique hotels, luxury resorts, historic architecture, and culture. Viticulture and wine-making have been practiced in the region since the Spanish missionaries from Mission San Francisco Solano established the first vineyards in 1812.
State Route 29 is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that travels from Interstate 80 in Vallejo north to State Route 20 in Upper Lake. It serves as the primary road through the Napa Valley, providing access to the Lake County region to the north and the rest of the San Francisco Bay Area to the south.
The Napa Valley Wine Train is a privately operated excursion train that runs between Napa and St. Helena, California. Much of the rail line parallels State Route 29 after leaving the City of Napa and passes the towns of Yountville, Rutherford and Oakville. The route passes by many of the region's vineyards and wineries located in Napa County.
Heitz Wine Cellars is a California wine producer located within Napa Valley east of the town of St. Helena. An early modern era Napa Valley presence and pioneering exponent of French oak, the estate enjoys a historical renown with the success of its Martha's Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, and has also been described as a "master of Grignolino".
Frances "Fanny" Matilda Van de Grift Osbourne Stevenson was an American magazine writer. She became a supporter and later the wife of Robert Louis Stevenson, and the mother of Isobel Osbourne, Samuel Lloyd Osbourne, and Hervey Stewart Osbourne.
The Amateur Emigrant is Robert Louis Stevenson's travel memoir of his journey from Scotland to California in 1879-1880. It is not a complete account, covering the first third, by ship from Europe to New York City. The middle leg of the trip is documented in Across the Plains (1892) with the final part covered in The Silverado Squatters (1883). The Amateur Emigrant was written in 1879-80 and was not published in full until 1895, one year after his death.
Napa Valley is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) located in Napa County in California's Wine Country. It was established by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) on January 27, 1981. Napa Valley is considered one of the premier wine regions in the world. Records of commercial wine production in the region date back to the nineteenth century, but premium wine production dates back only to the 1960s.
Mount Saint Helena is a peak in the Mayacamas Mountains with flanks in Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties of California. Composed of uplifted 2.4-million-year-old volcanic rocks from the Clear Lake Volcanic Field, it is one of the few mountains in the San Francisco Bay Area to receive any snowfall during the winter.
Robert Louis Stevenson State Park is a California state park, located in Sonoma, Lake and Napa counties. The park offers a 5-mile (8 km) hike to the summit of Mount Saint Helena from which much of the Bay Area can be seen. On clear days it is possible to see the peak of Mount Shasta, 192 miles (310 km) distant.
Joseph Dwight Strong, Jr. (1853–1899) was an American artist and illustrator, known for his paintings. He was active between 1870s until 1899, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Monterey, Kingdom of Hawaii, and Samoa.
The Silverado Trail is a scenic route that travels 29 miles along the Eastern edge of the Napa Valley, parallel to and several miles to the east of California State Route 29.
The Palisades are a mountain range in Napa County, California. The Palisades are located in Robert Louis Stevenson State Park on the other side of California State Route 29 as Mt. St. Helena. The Palisades trailhead is located on the valley floor of the Napa Valley near Calistoga and is a 6-mile one way hike.
Rancho Carne Humana was a 17,962-acre (72.69 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Napa County, California, given in 1841 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Edward Turner Bale. The name means "human flesh" in Spanish. There is speculation as to why the name was chosen. The grant was originally known to the native residents as "Huilic Noma" and also "Colijolmanoc". One naming theory speculates that Bale, in a bit of black humor, twisted "Colijolmanoc" into the similar-sounding Spanish "Carne Humana". Rancho Carne Humana was at the northern end of the Napa Valley, stretching from present-day Rutherford northward to Calistoga, ending at Tubbs Lane and including present-day St. Helena.
Schramsberg Vineyards is a winery located in Calistoga, California in the Napa Valley region. The vineyard, which was founded in 1862 by the German immigrant Jacob Schram, produces a series of sparkling wines using the same method as champagne. Schramsberg is considered one of the premium brands in the production of sparkling wine in California and the first U.S. wine to "match the style and quality of the best French Champagnes".
KVYN is a commercial FM radio station licensed to Saint Helena, California, and serving the Napa Valley and Wine Country of Northern California. The station broadcasts an adult album alternative (AAA) radio format and is owned by licensee Wine Down Media LLC. The radio studios and offices are located at 135 Gasser Drive, Suite D in Napa, California.
The Petrified Forest is a petrified forest located in Sonoma County, California, in the United States. It is the only petrified forest in California from the Pliocene. It also has the largest petrified trees in the world. The forest is now open to the public to visit after restoration from damage caused by the Napa and Sonoma fires of 2017.
The Sam Brannan Cottage, at 109 Wapoo Ave. in Calistoga, California, was built in 1862. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The listing included four contributing buildings.
