Then Martin sought and found gold on the Mokelumne and Stanislaus Rivers in partnership with Daniel Murphy, his transcontinental companion, and Charles Maria Weber, the founder of Stockton. Quickly making his fortune in gold, Martin bought 1,500 acres of land north of San Francisquito Creek from his friend John Coppinger, the grantee of Rancho Cañada de Raymundo, for $1,500. This property is now marked by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Then he purchased the wooded slopes of the creek he named for himself from the Rancho Corte de Madera including much of the modern day Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, the Ladera subdivision and the Webb Ranch. Martin established an upper and lower sawmill on Dennis Martin Creek, the lower mill about a half-mile downstream from Schilling Lake. Martin encouraged his relatives and friends in Canada and Missouri to join him, and many of these made up the early population of the historic mill town of Searsville, inundated by Searsville Dam in 1892. After financial misfortune and land disputes typical of the era, his lands were bought by Leland Stanford in November, 1882. Dennis Martin died in June 1890 and was buried at the St. Dennis Cemetery (Martin had built his own church) on his former property (by then Stanford's). The creek's watershed includes the historic Thornewood House, a 1920s estate built by Julian Thorne and surrounded by 3.5 acres of landscaping and gorgeous valley views. This 87-acre estate was willed to the Sierra Club Foundation and later given to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. Currently, the house and 10-acre private leasehold are closed and under restoration. Schilling Lake is named for August Schilling, the “King of Spice”, who founded A. Schilling & Company in San Francisco in 1881. Schilling purchased the land from Julian Thorne, who purchased it from Edward Preston (attorney), who purchased it from the pioneer and lumberman, Dennis Martin. Dennis Martin Creek and the other Corte Madera Creek tributaries and mainstem were historically Steelhead trout ("Oncorhynchus mykiss") streams; however, access to the creek has been blocked since 1890 by Searsville Dam. In the spring of 1991, an adult steelhead (0.74m) was observed jumping at the base of Searsville Dam. According to local historian Dorothy Regnery's notes from her 1966 interview with Edgar H. Batchelder, who was 2 years old when his father became caretaker of Searsville dam in 1897, his "favorite place to fish for trout was in Dennis Martin Creek."