1?-M jrr x. lifer A t.,.. - -sas- I- k . i msfe,:, fc r Pilgrims Leaas 10 t rs' AW-ifc w 7 ' I J k Itet3 ctr 2 n "tv . IPatli ol By Henry Meade Bland (Head of the Department of English Literature, the State Normal School, San Jose Cal. Author of A Song pf Autumn," "In losemite" and other poems) November 10, the. severity-sixth birthday of Joaquin Miller, saw the full acquirement by the city of Oakland of the poet's home as a park, as romantic and as esthetic as any in America and as full of immemorial associations. The paths in the ancient Athenian Academe had nothing in beauty over the poet's trails, even as they are today, leading deep into the clusters of friendly cypress and acacia, through which yellow noonday sunlight filter like a fra- erant aerial nectar. One can lose himself' a whole afternoon anions those towering eucalyptus groves exult in the aroma of the true ' 0? SStto' delectable mountains, and rest, and be as tranquil as a South Sea i dis-uM?J. Jefferson's piee was Island afternoon. Were the poet alive todav, he could not dream a found fnaily -o be impracticable, on r i . i j i .i i ' i .. .1 i ithe sea ana wa9 abandoned, fairer dream thaq is shaped by these heaven-kissqg tree branches joaquin hunted up the stone once started as.Hiere slips by his own hand. - , . monument which had been removed I vhen he 1'urcbased the hill, and Hights, Now Oakland Park ever, unioriunate. rne place was mrilarial. The partner-grew sick and died. Miller deserted this place, and the next location in his travels that allured him as an abode suited to Poesy, was Old Mexico, near the capitnl of that primitive land, at the foot of Mount Topocatepetel. HIS IITNT FOIi A HOME. - But- the home he yearned for did not yet materialize here and he was off again. - Washington, the capital of the United States, saw his next attempt at a home. He chose Meridian Hill a3 the site of sites, bought it. and built him a cabin. He wanted this place because he was in search of splendid associations, and " because here President Thomas Jeffersun had planted a stone monument from which he had decreed . that the American sailor should count his It was in 1857 that, the poet, a tali, slim boy of 1'4 'or 15,' first looked from the Hights on Oakland, and the bay. He was then a cowboy, and had come with Mountain Joe up he was to actually home on the Mights. In truth during those thir ty years he lived in mury parts of the world: and he doubtless is to asked the Washington board of aldermen' to replace it, for It had been utilized as a piece of curbing. The aldermen, could . not see their -way be counted among" the most famous ! clear to comply with the poet's wish and so, in a huff. Joaquin shook from his cowboy boots the Washington dust and came to sunny Califor- froni Arizona and Old Mexico with ; American travelers. a band of wild muls and horses to When, alter year ef wandering, be sold later In the mines. The trip I he tiekcrminpd to "-.ake a )offg and brought the two over the Fremont settle down, it was near .Naples, cia. " road, then only a trail, down into Italy, in stent of the renowned Na ' . -.THE' t.OAT lsLAXD .PROJECT.. Oakland. He paused .oh his way at J pies bay, that he those his acres,! Here he soon interested himself in and the bay. to Impress upon his mind a view he was never to forget. But It- was to be thirty years before iialy. as the land of wandering potts. 'an Arbor day movement, the aim of Jiad caught -his fancy. . -He had a which was to cover Yerba liuena partner in this home-building J (otherwise the t-uphonious Goat scheme. The enterprise was. how-1 Island), with forest trees. The United States war department, then under command of General O. O. llowaard, took up Joatjuin's plan. Adolph Sutro presented; yojng trees by the thousand, and United States soldiers did the. work.- The trees were planted November 2T, 1886, which was the first Arbor tlay celebration in, California. The work was futile, .however, for fire swept ihp island several times, leaving it bald and barren as ever. lr.cn Joatium bought the Hights in the hills' back of Fruitvale, Oakland, of which he still, from pioneer days, carried a vivid memory. In truth, he had already celebrated in song such iff! idenl rmme location as he now found the Hights to be. "I know a grassy slope above the sea, The utmost limit of the westmost land. In savage, gnarl'd. and antique, majesty The iireat ti-ee?i . hf!t nhn.it rh ' plate, and stand 1 That last vast day .that dawn shall Or ytiard. with mailed limb and reinspire. . iifu-d hand, j The sun tall down upon the farther Against .the cukk appr-aching civic I ' ' , uride. vl . i Fall wraried down t(f rest, aM so rtif. ...... - 1. The poet's daughter, Juanita, who will reserve a home in the new city park 2. Miller's monument to Fremont, marking the spot from which Fremont named the Golden Gate. 3. The poet harvesting; Herman Whitaker to the extreme right. ' 4. Gate to .loamim s rrppn acrpa - i r- ... 5. The abbey home of Miller as it appeared newly, built; theses bare lulls are now a forest. 6. The poet in a croup of friends 7. The poet and Juanita; one of the last photos of die poet.,,' ho lived his literary life. Here hefsmall, ho determined to relieve th8 , awoke at dawn and to the music of iuail-song and lark, still lying in bed, he was busy with his pen. The olives he planted, grew, and the visitor can still nnC some of these struggling with the acacias which have now neuriy crowded them out. And other trees grow, cypress and pine; and the great en ss outlined of evergreens on the face of his highest hill, looking to the. bay and Sin Francisi. mew: M'nd then the acres of eucai . a grew. distress in the homes about him by . employing all who wished to work. In one big attempt to clear his fields. .. Hocks were garnered by the ton and... put in .several huge piles at various:; places. Hut these rock piles wer not sightly and neighbors still need-ed work, while Joaquin had an at'-h tractive income from books and ; poems. Why not shape these useless piles of stone into monuments having real significance? And o - he undertook the building of th.- Jo:i juin used to say he had planted j well known monuments: the funeral Before a sun-'c!ad cabin-door, deem The harbinger of peace. Hope weaves her spell Again about the. wearied heart, and all is weiL "Here I shall sit in sunlit life's decline. Beneath my vine and somber verdant tree Some tawny maids in other. tongues than mine Shall minister. Some memories shall te Before nie. I shall sit and I shall SP. 4at evening, he worshiped the shin- : mi piiea.ufp .in ana'iH.i j. niosi ( wonderful western lmrbor; -where t the navies of the world were o! ready beginning to ride at wfe anchorage. But back of him the hills of his new rancho were hare, brown, treelesh. What could he make t-ruw on them? The memories- i f his recpnt journey to the Holy Land were frsh upon him. Those ancient olives that girt the hills round about Jerusa lem! could he make the olive grow The loamy brooklets feaward leap; the bland Still air is fresh wi;h touch of wood . and tine. ' ' And peace, ittrnal peace, possesses! wild and wide ret ire. A spleald sinking isle of far-off fading fire ar.d grown successfully one ureu inousana trees. illE POETS DREAM. Ills conception of what his home shnlfld stand for now began to J broaden. First he would be a farmer, he would Tjuild roads and truils and Improve his farm, m-.i make his htkls yield their abun- Kooa to tnose arouna m-i; (dance; tecoml he would found a : HONORS THE PATHFINDER. pyre, the pyramid to Moses, th Browning tower and the Fremonf-citadel. Gradually this work waa satisfactorily completed. It Is very satisfying to know that these simple memorial piles had their origin In the honest And succ essful attempt of the poet to do . school of i.retrv. at whifh h wnnM I become the inspiration; third, he would specialize as u tree planter. upon his own hills'.' He found his 1 niguis snou a become uresis gouges and smaller canyons wei e i USi ';u"ful as the cedars of Leba- ri-h in Stir Inire' it n A tha , ,t jllOri- i these he h,u9n t'n Pp.-rv a mi. - There was much, work to be done A min iature lake was built, and its clear and the problem of labor was d if - There are no legends on these monuments to tell what they mean: the poet Intended tradition to do the ' work of actual text In handing down" the story of their significance. Fremont he honored because from the point on which the monument stands' the industrious pathfinder took iiisi BUILDS ON THE HIGIJTS. Ileal home-builoing was begun. "Here 1 return, here I abide and rest; Sixty-nine acres were his. He saw isome. flocks and herd shall feed at once it. was suited as his home, th along the stream. - home of a poet He was enchanted Some corr. and t.imbl!.g vines shall with ths deep canyon -on the north ' i"".k "? , . ! of , his possession, lit. as It were. The'nv' dream10" ' ' f with eternal twilight; he was fascl-Of wampum men in moccasins that ! nated T'4th the tn5in little canyon seem ( strear-he .worshiped the golden To come and go la' ailence, girt in I prospect down over the live oak hills bell. - I to tranquil bay. At-aunrise, at noon. waters lined with goluiish and I'h.iit-! :icult' IJe lried biinKi'nic men on t tirst look tn San Francisco bay, and ut the plan did not work well; he i bav and ocean. Golden Gate. Then. opened up the place as a rentlezvous j too, it was the readiiyr Fremont's . for tramps, but many of the tramps ; Hook of Travels in 1852 which set tooJi .advantage of him, not under- ! the face of Hulings Miller, Joaquin's standing his aims or methods, and father, . toward the west, where his thus, satisfactory improvements j poet son hecame famous. For this were necessarily slow. i reason Fremont was hnnotvd. EMPLOYS 1IIS"N'EIGHI10RS. ' P. o be rt Browning he honored with Then there came a very dry year" a stone tower; because of the genu- ed with water lilies. Big 1-rer.ei'i ' ' miniature shore. WROTE IN THE AltP.EV. His house. In the meantime, he had built where it would command the bewitching view of the romantic-bay He had planned this house with a suggestion of XewMead Abbey where Byron livedo Byron who was his poetic JjerO; anfl W;itba religious spirit Se-?ar-Jsj(!?Study- the middle room or chape! of the Abbey, while on either side were the guest or living rooms; and in the Abbey and he noticed with regret that his neighbors their crops having failed, needed some means Of employment that they might' eat, he. warm and live. Now, as his hills were covered with a multitude of rocks, large and ine personal friendship of the two poets formed in England in the early seventies. . ; Moses he thought of as the su- (Continued on Next Page),
