Lost Valley’s first homesteaders

While Jim Stone had been running cattle in Lost Valley since the 1870s, the first attempt to homestead the valley was in the spring of 1883, when Willis and William Newton, father and son, each filed 160-acre preemption claims that seem to have covered most of the meadow lands in the valley.

But their claims never got very far. In July, Mission Indian Agent S.S. Lawson wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs asking that their entries by cancelled. He was unsure just where the Newtons’ claims were located, but felt they clearly covered lands used by the Indians. He may have thought the area was part of what is now the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation.

“The land referred to in T[ownshi]p 9S R4E S.B. meridian, and filed on by the Newtons should be withdrawn as it has long been occupied by the Indians of that village,” he wrote. “Definite lines of subdivision can not be given without a survey of the land. It will be safe to hold this filing for cancellation as it will embrace all that the Indians have occupied. These people have lived there long and done well. They cultivate and pasture the land referred to and should not be molested.”

And that seems to have been the end of that.

The Newtons were Southern California pioneers. Willis Newton (1840-1924) came from Texas in 1865, and eventually settled in Downey. His oldest son, William (1858-1927), lived near by. Another son, Jesse, lived in San Diego County for many years – which may explain how the Newtons became aware of the Lost Valley area.

Helen Hunt Jackson

“These Indians have in use another valley called Lost Valley, some fifteen miles from their village high up in the mountains, and reached only by one very steep trail. Here they keep their stock, being no longer able to pasture it below.... There are probably from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty head of cattle owned in the village, about fifty horses, and one hundred sheep.” – Helen Hunt Jackson, Report on the Condition and Needs of the Mission Indians (1883)

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