1. January, February, March, April, 1868

The place called "Davisville" was invented as part of a scheme more rapidly and cheaply to ship grain out of Solano and Yolo Counties. Therefore, the town's story properly begins with that scheme's story. And that story is importantly about the California Pacific Railroad laying railroad tracks from Vallejo to West Sacramento starting at Vallejo in March, 1868. This first part of the exhibit is in four parts: l. The title pages; 2. A chronology of 14 stories from local newspapers telling what is happening; 3. 1865 and 1866 maps of the area; and, 4. a large and detailed drawing of the Davis farmstead, where Davisville seems to have gestated in the early months of 1868. Two overview photographs of the exhibit qua exhibit preface presentation of the individual parts.

00. Overview Photos of Davisville 1868 Part One

One photograph each of the two four by six feet panels comprising the exhibit as presented at the Hattie Weber Museum of Davis February through April, 2008.

01. Title Pages

Four pages of introductory material explaining the exhibit.

02. Fourteen news reports January-April, 1868

The exhibit author, John Lofland, provides contextual commentary on each report.

03. 1865 & 1866 Solano Maps

The 1865 map is amazingly inaccurate but the best map at the time, suggesting just how "on the fly" a lot of things were in early California. The 1866 map is a copy of the one the California Pacific Railroad submitted to the State of California to show what it planned to do. Reproduced at a small scale here, the accompanying photo [to come} shows their much larger scale in the Hattie Weber exhibit.

04. The Jerome Davis Farmstead

The new town called Davisville was laid out on ground next to the farm house and buildings of the Jermore Davis farm. Properous in the good weather of the later 1850s, Davis had gone broke in later bad seasons. The farm was vacant when the Cal P bought the forfeited mortagage on the property in 1867. The drawing here shows the farm in its prosperious period, drawing attention to the rather large number of buildings.