West Family Tree

Title:

The Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. family at the Witch Creek Hotel

Date:

[ca. 1915] 1910/1920
Contributing Institution:

San Diego Historical Society

A Place Called Witch Creek

By Darrell Beck
Thu, Nov 06, 2008

About 1870, Davis Green built a one-story adobe hotel along the trail going through a place called Witch Creek to accommodate the stage trade on the way to the mines at Julian. It later became known as Fred Fisher’s Hotel. Fisher added a second story.
In 1902, it was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Wood of Kentucky who operated it until 1913. The hotel was eventually sold to Jesse Woolliscroft ( Bill Woolliscroft's Father) who operated it for several more years before it was razed for lumber.
In 1881, Fredrick Richard Sawday, who had come to the Julian countryside in 1879, brought his family to the Witch Creek area where he built a general merchandise store along the old trail. Later, Frederick’s eldest son, George, and his new wife, Emily (Crouch), took up the old place at Witch Creek as their own, eventually turning the store into their home. This home, which has grown over the years and exists today, is where Sawday descendants still conduct cattle and ranching operations.
From the modest beginning at the Witch Creek ranch, George Sawday built and managed for nearly half a century one of the Southwest’s great cattle empires, purchasing or leasing large tracts of land stretching east from San Felipe on the desert’s edge, south to the Laguna Mountains, north to Warner and west to the Penasquitos and Rose Canyon.
In 1884, the Reverend Thomas J. Wood (not known to be related to Clarence Wood), a Baptist minister from Scotland, came to the little valley and built a church there in 1888. He wielded a lasting influence for doing much good throughout the mountain region and won the respect and confidence of both sinners and saints.
Rev. and Mrs. Wood had two children, Gersham and Lillian, and as the family grew, so did the small community. Rev. Wood later said: “We had a schoolhouse, a hotel, a blacksmith shop, a church and a butcher shop. We had the foundation of a small town.”
James Wood, brother of Thomas Wood, came to the area with his wife, Bessie, in 1893, where he engaged in farming, cultivating vineyards and orchards and selling merchandise by the wayside. James became postmaster in 1893, remaining in that position until his death. Their children were Douglas, Stanley and William.
For many years, Douglas Wood, who remained in the area, operated a roadside stand on the grade between Ballena and Witch Creek where he had gas pumps and sold grapes, honey, juice, beer and other goods. Only a few trees remain at the site after the place burned some twenty years past.
Witch Creek Named
Before Witch Creek was so named, the entire area around present Witch Creek and Ballena (Vi-yen-neh) was once referred to as “The Ballena” (Spanish for whale). It was named Ballena because travelers who were going westward while descending the grade from the higher valley noted that the prominent mountain appeared to resemble the hump of a whale rising above a sea of fog in the Ballena Valley, thus Whale Mountain or The Ballena.
There was some local contention when the post office was being established and it came time to give the place an official name. Some wanted to call it Sawday, while others preferred Wood, despite the fact that most people called it New London because so many residents were from England.
The reason they finally settled on Witch Creek seems lost in time.
Many stories abound suggesting hexes, bad luck and bewitched water. But perhaps Witch Creek was just a bad English translation of an Indian word. Rev. Wood said, “‘Hechicera,’ Indian for ‘witch water.’ We translated it that way.” Some old-timers say that the Indians were afraid to cross over the creek at night because the water was bewitched.
Over the years, the adobe hotel has melted back into the soil, the church was torn down and used to add rooms to nearby homes, the schoolhouse was moved to Julian where it was used as a library and is now the Julian Historical Society headquarters, and the orchards and vineyards are gone.
At one time, Witch Creek valley was subdivided into small lots, but those plans have been deposited into the dustbins of history.
Today, William Tulloch and his wife, Betty Anne (Cumming) continue operating a cattle and feed business on the old Sawday ranch with the help of other family members.
The old Starr ranch is run by Ken Childs, who manages the Star B Buffalo ranch. Jim Wood, son of Gersham, who operated heavy grading equipment for many years, runs a few cattle there.
The disastrous Witch Creek Fire of October, 2007 began on a hilltop between Witch Creek and Santa Ysabel, causing much damage including destroying several of the old homes at Witch Creek.