Bear Flag Rebels

[Subdeacon Joe]

A bit of early California history.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/3112639-181/lebaron-the-168-year-hunt-for-slain?page=1

 

It’s a puzzling local history question that crops up every 40 or 50 years: Where, exactly, in Santa Rosa are the graves of those two Bear Flag rebels killed 168 years ago?

This complicated tale without a proper ending is something of a horror story. It becomes news every generation or two as new clues — and, more important, new methodology — become available.

Currently, a pair of Rural Cemetery volunteers with plenty of experience at researching old graves and their occupants, have taken up the quest for the final resting place of Thomas Cowie and George Fowler, who were killed in a most grisly manner in the Santa Rosa Valley in June of 1846, three days after taking part in the Bear Flag Revolt at the Mexican pueblo of Sonoma.