Love Lessons from the Old West by Chris Enss

Author:Chris Enss
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493011490
Publisher: TwoDot
Published: 2015-02-13T16:00:00+00:00

Within six months of opening, Luzena had earned a substantial amount of money, and the Wilson’s Hotel had earned the reputation of being the best on the route from Sacramento to Benicia. Mason supplied the variety of meat Luzena served to her boarders. Elk, antelope, geese, pheasant, cattle, and bear were all on the menu at various times. On April 21, 1851, the Wilsons were able to purchase two hundred acres of land along Alamo Creek. Seven months later they bought three parcels in Vaca and another one hundred acres south of town.22

Mason’s hay business was as profitable as Luzena’s boardinghouse. For a time things were going very well for the pair and their sons, and then a heavy, substantial rain came and wiped out Mason’s crops. Not long after that, government surveyors came to officially lay out the town of Benicia in Vaca Valley. They divided the valley including all the land the Wilsons had purchased. Immigrants quickly moved in and squatted on Luzena and Mason’s property. “My husband was furious,” Luzena recalled in her memoirs. “He swore that he would either have the land or kill every man who disputed his ownership. He left the house on an errand of ejectment, taking with him a witness, in case he should be killed or be forced to kill the squatters, many of whom knew and feared his reckless and determined purpose, would not have hesitated to dispose of him with a bullet.”23

The courts were called upon to intercede and settle the matter; in the interim, the Wilsons moved from Benicia to Vaca Valley. Using the profits made from the Wilson’s Hotel, Luzena bought lumber and bricks to build the family’s home and a new boardinghouse business. The wooden structure was the first one of its kind built in Vaca Valley. Luzena’s new business was as successful as her previous one. Well-respected judges, such as Murray Morrison and Justice Serranus Clinton Hastings of the California Supreme Court, were frequent guests at the establishment.24

In January 1855, Luzena and Mason welcomed a third son to their family, Mason Jr. In May 1857, the couple welcomed a daughter, Correnah. The Wilsons continued to invest the money made from Luzena’s boardinghouse in real estate. By the end of 1859, Luzena and Mason owned a considerable portion of the Vaca Valley town site and more than five hundred acres of surrounding lands.25

By 1858, the Wilsons had outgrown the small, temporary hotel they initially built in the area and decided to have a new one constructed at a cost of fourteen thousand dollars. The new business had two stories, a billiard room, and a large parlor. Mason became an agent for the Wells Fargo Company and operated the Wells Fargo office out of the hotel.26

In December 1872, after twenty-eight years of marriage, Mason abandoned his wife and family to travel to Missouri and Texas. Luzena never saw Mason again. Rumors circulated during that time suggested that Mason might have been suffering from a mental illness. Other people insisted that he had simply become miserable living with Luzena.

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