STANISLAUS
Stanislaus is the name of the county just south of San Joaquín, and of one of the tributaries of the San Joaquín River.
The word Stanislaus is said to be derived from an Indian chief of that region, who became Christianized and was baptized under the Spanish name of Estanislao. He was educated at Mission San José, but became a renegade, and incited his tribe against the Spaniards. In 1826 he was defeated in a fierce battle on the banks of the river now bearing his name.
Fremont thus describes the scenery along the Stanislaus: “Issuing from the woods, we rode about sixteen miles over open prairie partly covered with bunch grass, the timber re-appearing on the rolling hills of the River Stanislaus, in the usual belt of evergreen oaks. The level valley was about forty feet below the upland, and the stream seventy yards broad, with the usual fertile bottom land which was covered with green grass among large oaks. We encamped in one of these bottoms, in a grove of the large white oaks previously mentioned.”