Tom Vaquero

by Jocelyn Moss


October 24th, 1846 was a clear warm sunny day.  The local residents of San Rafael gathered to celebrate San Rafael Day, a special day to honor the patron saint of the Mission.  Timothy Murphy, the local alcalde was the host for the occasion.  The ranchers from all over the county rode the dusty trails to join the festivities with feasting, trick riding and dancing.  The smell of deer roasting on the spit filled the air.
A California vaquero at work. This illustration is from a book by Jo Moro, Californios: The Saga of the Hard Riding Vaqueros.
The vaqueros (cowboys) had driven a herd of wild horses to a nearby corral.  The contest to see who could stay on these broncos began.  One after the other, the riders bit the dust. But here came “Tom Vaquero,” a local legend.  He mounted and stayed in the saddle until the horse tired out and walked meekly back to the corral.  Known throughout the county for his riding and roping skills, Tom could also rope wild cattle with his riata or lasso in record time.  These long horn cattle were used to grazing freely on the unfenced former Mission lands and could put up a fight as well.

Tom’s real name was George Thomas Wood but his friends and admirers called him Tom Vaquero.  He came to Marin County after deserting from a whaling vessel in 1844.  Tom was the first non-native settler on Tomales Bay.  There he acted a business manager to the local tribe of Coast Miwok.  The native people had dispersed after the Mission was desecularized, but many had skills from their days of working for the Mission fathers.  Some of the native people were carpenters or farmers but most were employed as vaqueros.  The vaquero of Mission days was what we would call a cowboy today. They were responsible for the roundup, the branding and the slaughter of the many Mission cattle.

Tom must have learned his roping and riding skills from the natives after he arrived because he had started life as a sailor. There were long days waiting on the hide and tallow ships to arrive.  The vaquero had plenty of time to train the horses and chase the long horned cattle with his riata.

While living on Tomales Bay, Tom alerted the local natives when a ship would be arriving to collect the hides and tallow that were the products of the cattle industry at the time.  Then everyone got to work rounding up the cattle for slaughter.  The carcasses were skinned and the fat rendered into tallow by native workers.  These products were sold to the ships in exchange for manufactured goods that were not readily available anywhere else in California.  The ships actually had stores on board with such necessities as needles and shawls for the women and rosewood furniture for those who could afford it.  Tom Wood would negotiate the transactions for the local natives. Later, archeologists found some of the glass trade beads in the native burial sites at Wood’s Point.

Tom Wood was quite comfortable in his isolated surroundings.  He had married a local Indian woman and learned to speak the native language. Tom lived in a cottage which he had built from the cabin of the ship “Cambridge.”  One day in 1849 he saw a ship sailing into Tomales Bay and soon it was wrecked on a sand bar.  The captain explained he had thought he was in San Francisco Bay.  Most of the cargo was removed from the ship and barged to San Francisco but Tom made use of the wrecked ship to build his house.

Soon after this event, the Gold Rush took hold of California and brought an end to the hide and tallow trade.  Now the ships carried gold back to the east coast.  Tom left the shores of Tomales Bay and went around to various ranches to work as a vaquero.  He kept his reputation as a champion rider, appearing at festivals and rodeos to show off his riding and roping skills.He boasted he would forfeit his horse, saddle, bridle and spurs if he could not ride the wildest mustang and tame it without loosing the silver dollars he placed under his feet in the stirrups.  He never lost his bet.
George T. Wood, also known as "Tom Vaquero." (Photo courtesy of Mrs. Josephine Paulson.)

Living as he did out in the wilderness, Tom ran into the biggest threat to human life: the grizzly bear.  Part of the Point Reyes National Seashore today is known as Bear Valley and this is for good reason.  Back in the 1840s the valley was thick with bears.  Although the bears were such dangerous animals, they were hunted for their tasty meat and their skins which the vaqueros used as chaps.  Usually the bears were hunted by teams of men who would rope them around the neck and paws and bring them to the ground for the kill.

One day while out on his horse, Tom saw a grizzly and decided to capture it.  He used his trusty riata to rope the bear around the neck.  Then the fight began to try to drag the bear back home to get some help.  Tom’s horse had to be well trained not to panic when it was so near its mortal enemy.  But the bear did not cooperate and fought with all its strength.  The horse was about worn out when the riata got hooked around the saddle horn. Things were turning ugly; the bear sat down on its haunches and with its paws began to reel in the riata.  The bear thought horsemeat was on the menu for dinner.  The situation was desperate and Tom pulled his trusty knife from his boot and cut his riata.  The bear won that encounter and Tom Vaquero had only a tale to tell and the need for a new riata.

George T. Wood's second wife Maria Augustina Sotelo Wood. (Photo courtesy of Mrs. Josephine Paulson.)
Tom Wood married again in 1861 to Augustina Sotello, the god-daughter of James Black.  They were married at Black’s home by Father Lootens.  The couple moved to Nicasio and later moved to San Rafael.  Tom Wood died in 1879.  His widow died in San Rafael Cottage Hospital in 1927.

Tom lived through a time of transition.  He saw the opportunities presented in California and used his natural skills to win the acclaim of the small population of ranchers, natives and settlers in early Marin County.

Cattle raised in these early days were not milked; they were not raised to produce dairy products.  Their hide was the valuable part of these animals.  They roamed freely on the Marin hills in the days before barbed wire fences.  Later Yankee settlers imported dairy cattle from the East and these are the animals that populate our pastureland today.