Mountain Mama
Healthy Tidbits
SLV Crime Blotter
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Volume 10: Issue: 10
The History of Halloween
by Autumn Savoy This year, Halloween falls on Sunday, October 31. After a year off, we are thrilled to attend Trick or Treat Street in Boulder Creek, Ben lomond and Felton, with your little costumed goblins to gather treats. You know to attend the Witches Ball the night before at the Brookdale Lodge. But do you know the true meaning of Halloween? It’s my favorite holiday, and it is very interesting to learn about. Gather ‘round! All Saint’s Day started all the way back in 906 A.D. In fact, the festival was initially held in the Spring, then later moved to November 1st. In 1000 A.D. November 2nd became All Soul’s Day, to honor (you guessed it) the dead. All Soul’s Day was celebrated much like how we currently celebrate Halloween, with costumed attire, parades, and bonfires. This is where Trick or Treating came from, in the form of handing out soul *************ECRWSSEDDM**************** Postal Customer Boulder Creek CA 95006 Felton CA 95018, Ben Lomond CA 95005
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cakes in exchange for prayers for the dead. The difference between All Hallow’s Eve (or Halloween) and Samhain, is Halloween is always held on October 31, Samhain is held in the middle between the fall and winter equinox, it’s a seasonal Wiccan celebration. Samhain is historic in itself, beginning as a Celtic holiday, peppered with bewitching pagan rituals, fire festivals, and sacrificing farm animals for the harvest meals. In the UK, their New Year began on November 1st. It was believed that the living and the dead coexisted on this First Night. Creepy! It wasn’t until the 1800’s that Halloween became more of the fun holiday that we know and love today. It was no longer solely about tricks and witchcraft. Halloween today means haunted houses, spooky parties, carving Jack o’ Lanterns, and perhaps a pagan ritual or two, just for old time’s sake. Speaking of Jack o’ Lanterns, as the story goes “Jack” was a generic name for a man when you didn’t know his name. Therefore, a man you didn’t know carrying a lantern became Jack o’ Lantern. Silly! Carving a pumpkin, potato, Continued page 3
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Halloween in Boulder Creek 2019. Photos by SLV Steve
Explore Mid-County History in New Book on the Lumber Industry in the Late 1800s
They came with axes. They came with oxen. They came with greed. Nearly 150 years ago, a group of venture capitalists began the clear-cutting of what became The Forest of Nisene Marks. By 1902, the decimation along Aptos Creek was complete, leaving behind nothing but broken trees and barren hills as far as the eye could see. In his new book, The Reign of the
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Lumber Barons, local researcher Ronald G. Powell chronicles the golden age of the lumber industry in the hills above Aptos and Corralitos at the end of the nineteenth century. Through first-hand accounts, newspaper clippings, and personal explorations, he examines how Santa Cruz County’s entrepreneurs systematically harvested tens of thousands of old-growth trees to produce lumber used in Continued page 8
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