Raboul Court

The First Garrote settlement had its beginnings in 1849. The earliest permanent building was an adobe trading post established by a Frenchman known as Raboul.

When Raboul built his adobe trading post as a nucleus around which the settlement of First Garrote was destined to grow, he started a long term business; for the building, known for many years as Cassaretto's store.

Reid Circle
Mrs. Thomas Reid, lately deceased, was an accepted source of accurate information on the county's early history. She was born in Groveland and, with the exception of one short visits out of state, lived continuously in this, her chosen town, for over ninety years. She was an exceptionally tall, slender woman, sweet-faced and gracious; had seen the better part of a century of excitement in the Mother Lode and remembered a surprising amount.

Questioned about her family she said, 'my father, Martin Jones, came here in '52. Four years later when, at twenty-seven, he got married he built a frame house about a mile northeast of town and lived and died in it. Mother was Margaret McCarty and was heir to a large estate in Ireland but it made no difference in her life as a pioneer. She was married at sixteen and had eleven children without being attended by a doctor. Father was a farmer, freighter and cattleman. There was always plenty to do around the place.

"My husband's father was Thomas C. Reid and he came around the Horn in '49. My husband was Thomas R. Reid. He was born in Garrote in '56 and' when he was thirteen, worked as a guide with the mule train that took tourists into Yosemite.

The Groveland Hotel was the second built in town about '53 or '54. The builders name was George Reid but he was no relative of ours. He sold it to Matthew Foote who ran it for a while in the '70s. My son's name is Thomas also. For over one hundred years now," Mrs. Reid finished with some pride, "there has been a Thomas Reid in Groveland."

The original Thomas C. Reid adobe house still stands just out of town and the orchard trees bear fruit.
 
Mt. Jefferson Street
After the era of the placer mines much of the town's ready cash came from the payroll of the Mount Jefferson Mine on a hill just north of Mrs. Reid's house.