Griffith Mansion

He and his friend helped an old man by the name of Thomas Cochran build a hut for a country tavern and, soon after, proceeded on their way to the northern mines.

Griffith retired in 1880 and in September 1885, while in San Francisco with his wife and four youngest boys, his house burned down with no insurance.

[2] In 1886, Abram Griffith built a fine Victorian residence of Italianate architecture upon 20 acres (81,000 m2) of land in Cacheville, California (now Yolo).

This High Victorian Italianate residence exists as the grand dame of the homes in the town, sitting on the edge of the commercial district on a large spacious lot on the bank of the Cache Creek, just outside Woodland.

The property was then purchased by a Bay Area family who were searching for a historic estate after involvement in the restoration of the Snowball Mansion in nearby Knights Landing.

In May 1998, during the process of having an in-ground pool excavated, contractors uncovered a 400 to 500-year-old Native American village or burial ground, likely inhabited by the Patwin tribe.

[3] The coroner and Native American Heritage Commission were contacted, and the anthropology department of UC Davis was called in to recover the unearthed artifacts.

For six days, volunteers, UC Davis undergraduate students and professors, spent 240 hours on-site collecting materials and studying the dig.