THE ANCIENT KINGDOM OF QUIVERA By Dick Hancock
Down
Flores Creek way, a storm in 1881 uprooted a large spruce
tree growing on one of the many mounds thereabout. The big tree's
root spread, several feet thick and many feet across, opened up the
ground like the lid being lifted off a box.
To
the astonishment of those who passed by, the rock exposed was
unmistakably cut stone "bearing quite plainly the marks of the stone
cutters chisel". Moreover, the stones seemed to lie "as if the
wall had
tumbled down". Others of the mounds were prospected by the people
of the region and similar finds were found in many of them. In addition,
they came upon "what to all appearances had been a mining ditch coursing
along the hill slope, walled up on it's lower side".
The
editor of the Port Orford Post duly wrote up the discovery and promised
to personally inspect the find at no distant day. Whether he did or not
is
not known, the files of the Post having perished. The single report survived
by
having been reprinted in a Portland magazine but no follow up was ever
found.
Could
this have been one of the towns of the Kingdom of Quivera, for many
years in the 16th and 17th centuries shown on maps and charts as laying
along
the coast of what is now Northern California and Southern Oregon. It appeared
as a very real place on Mercators map in 1569 and continued to be shown
on
maps even as late as 1750.
The
king was a long-bearded, hoary-headed fellow by the name of Tatarrax.
One imaginative report had Chinese ships located in the harbor of the
City of
Quivera. This was located on a bay at the mouth of a big river. Far up
the
river was another city by the name of Tuchano.
Phillip
III of Spain discovered among his fathers papers "a sworn declaration
that some foreigners had given him" relating how "they came
in sight of a
populous and rich city named Quivera"......all this moved his Majesty
to make every effort to find out about such a famous city and discover
it's location".
The
river that Martin d'Aguilar was reported to have found and that could
never be located by later navigators, was supposed by some to be "the
one leading to a great city...and that city called Quivera is in these
parts".
How
about it folks, anyone for getting out the shovels and prospecting around
Flores Creek?
And
that's the way it was......
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