Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • Page 19

HI EID)D(D)iRDAIL ji FEAT I) IK 5 -VOL-CXXXIX- OAKUNDrCAUFORNtA7-SUNDAY7-OCTr24rt943- 70. 116 Y-PRODUCTS of the Republican gath- -ragged for Downey and Olson. He had to go Thus for years was the first family of San Leandro provided with flour and meal. With the advent of the Americans during the gold-rush days came shiploads of flour from South America "and ingenious cast-iron Yankee grist eririg at Hoberg's last week wejre as out and collect his own money, and the most interesting to observers as the chief he was able to get out of the deal was a few purpose of the meeting, which was to bill boards. Patterson has not forgotten that consolidate county central committees incident, and it is quite likely that when he Sacramento to the northern mines, in the tribu- entertainer and orchestra leader were unaware taries and uper reachesof the river or "to go that Bernie had another large following in the to the southern mines by way of whale-boat days of the old big time.

He was an eccentric ferry across the bay to the embarcadera cf Sanfellow, even if he didn't use his trade-marked Antonio (now East Oakland), thence to San "Yowsah, yowsah!" in private life. He smoked Leandro, Hayward, Dublin, to Livermore, there an average of 30 cigars a day, he ate only when connecting with the old Spanish military road the spirit moved him, and in New York Lindy's that ran from Monterey. to Sacramento, or to restaurant was always ready to serve him a take the' long, hard road, walking or by stage- smoked salmon and sturgeon sandwich on a coach, from Mission San through Sunol seeded role, and he was constantly making bets makes up his mind whether or not to run for of the eleven counties comprising the first congressional district into a unified working organization. The program of consolidation was successfully launched, and Congressman Clarence Lea, Democrat, New Dealer, and long time representative of the district, will be given a hard contest when he comes up for re-election next year. But there were othee- political affairs discussed among the members on the side, such as the.

chances State Senator George Biggar might have in entering the United States Senate race next year against Senator Sheridan Downey. Downey, by the way, announced during the week that he will be a candidate for re-elec the Democratic nomination for United States Senator it will be on a basis which is far removed from a plea for united "support for Downey. A Lost Mill Stone Telling us of reminders of a story more than a century old, R. R. Stuart also asks us to be-' come sleuths and get on the trail of a stone that has been lost.

As ijt is more than three feet in diameter, and weighs over a quarter of a there is a chance some sharp eye will encounter Valley, past Robert Livermore's hospitable rancho; swaying through the pass, stopping at the Blue Tent, then on across the valley to Stockton, Sonora, Angels Camp and beyond? These were the choices. at strange odds, such as 6000 to 4 and 4000 to 2, bets which were, never taken up by his- cronies. Bernie's emergence as a band leader with a violin and a gift for glib pleasantries coincided wjth the rise of public dancing after World War and he managed to stay at the top despite a "drastic change in band styles. A native of Bayonne, N.J., a city which he always explained mills and power plants which superseded the slow, cumbersome mills or early "days. Eventually the old mill fell into disuse and was finally dismantled.

In the late '60's, Estudillo's heirs sold the tract where his first home and the ancient mill were located, and moved to the new town of San Leandro, which sons-in-law John Ward and William Heath Davis had recently laid out Lets Find It! "The years passed away and the new owners moved to the other end of the property near Davis Street, and to this new location the elder Donovan patiently rolled the huge stones. Here behind a hedge, and as stepping stones for barns they served their purpose for Short Mining Career Moses Chase, having some money still about was one that had no residential district, the son of a blacksmith, he. became a problem to his him, and perhaps because he was still the sea tion, and in typical New Deal fashion coupled it. Says Mr. Stuart: "A short time' ago, the his announcement with a statement: "With this ancient stones from the grist mill of Don Jose country, in the midst of a great world wide Joaquin Estudillo were brought to light by the man, decided on the northern mines at the headwaters of the Sacramento, the rivef of gold.

It is probable he took passage aboard onej of the motley craft pressed into river service, cap mushroom growth of a war-housing project. We it is no time to discuss politics. It parents almost at birth. His father was insistent that he follow in his footsteps; his rnother was equally insistent that he learn to play the violin. The anvil lost the argument, and at 14 he made his concert debut at Carnegie Hall.

Two years tained, in most cases, by an owner who- com- bined the best characteristics of a navigator and later he was professor of the violin at the Mozart School of Music in New York, and when the the worst traits of a profit-mad entrepreneur, each firmly fixed in the belief that the stream of raw pioneers pouring into San Francisco at the rate of about two shiploads a day, should pay, and pay well, for the privilege of reaching the mining country. Fabulous fares were more certain fortune for the ship owners than the hopes of prospecting in the back country. Here, in company of strange assemblage lawyers, school closed he enrolled at New York University. At the same time he got a department store job selling and demonstrating low-priced fiddles, employing a youthful line of chatter that proved useful. Bernie and Joe Schenck It was a nasserbv who took him from behind OD seems that every Democratic incumbent who wants to be re-elected would like to have politics "adjourned" regardless of his record of performance.

But to return to the subject of Senator Biggar and his potential candidacy. He was present at the gathering, and told some of his friends that he was seriously considering entering the race against Downey at the request of a number of people in both Northern and Southern California who had approached him. The matter of finances for the State-wide race and an organization to support him are his chief worries at the present time. He is also included in the list of potential candidates wh6 are being considered for grooming as the county central committee chairman's choice to oppose Lea for Congress. Senator Biggar is a holdover member of the present State Legislature, and could make any kind of a race next year without sacrificing his present office.

three-fourths, of a century until the great demand for new homes for shipyard workers forced the sale of the tract and the present construction activity. It is said that at one time Chumalia Estudillo, son of the pioneer, offered the Donovans $150 for the old mill stones. Fortunately, the commercial senior problems class of Castlemont senced the historic importance of antique, mill. The- class had little difficulty in interesting City Attorney David K. Gil-more, who, as president of the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce, agreed to sponsor the project.

Gilmore arranged with City Manager Billings for an appropriate- location, and the present owner magnanimously donated the mill stones to the city. Already one of the stones is under lock and key at the corporation yard, and everyone concerned hopes the other stone soon may be recovered. Information concerning the lost stone should be sent to Gilmore, to Fred Zaballos, representative of the senior class at Castlemont, or to the Knave." found them, sans sweep and hopper, moss-covered and mud-spattered, lying in a great welter of building material and rubbish in the "Victory Village west of San Leandro. Appreciative of their importance and historic value, the senior problems class of Castlemont High School, sponsored by the San Leandro Junior Chamber of Commerce, started the wheels rolling to preserve these priceless heir-loums of San Leandro's early days. At last, we have been guaranteed a proper location for them in, the San Leandro park system.

In the meantimehowever, one of these huge stones has disappeared. Perhaps it is lying in a back yard at the Victory Village, or covered over with a part of the fill from the adjacent street, or hidden under a near-by rubbish pile. The stone is more than three feet in diameter and weighs almost a quarter ton. It is easily distinguishable by a center cup-shaped hole in which the iron-peg axis of the. nether stone revolved and by the off-center hold through wRTcF gTafn there are two additional holes to which (originally) the sweep had been attached.

Someone merchants, grocers, carpenters, cartmen and cooks, all. united in the desire to quickly reachhe music counter, Joseph Schenck, who was their bonanza Moses must have let his dreamt interested in vaudeville at the time, and had Spangler Wisit Organization of the first congressional district urill crnnrl niw tn Harrison Knanffler. chair- man of the Republican National Committee, who must know( the presentlocation of this old mill stone, and will be doing a piece of valuable public service by notifying the proper visits the Bay area this week to check up on the California situation. The job that Spangler is most interested in as head of the party is to increase the Republican representation in both houses of the Congress at the 1944 elections. He Don Jose's Grist Mill will meet Governor Warren and other Republi- some influence with Loew's circuit.

Bernie went on the boards for a 20-week spin around the circuit at $35 a week. At this time he confined his efforts to straight and fancy fiddle playing, and it wasn't until he was heckled by an audience in a Virginia town that he started talking back to the customers. Subsequently, he found a partner who played the accordion. It wasn't a successful alliance, and Bernie went to Reisen-weber's restaurant, a famous spot until prohibition doomed it. There he was master of ceremonies until he was plagued into taking on another accordion-playing partner.

The new one was Phil Baker, and they remained as a team for many years. In fact, it wasn't until they decided they had reached the peak of their earning power $2700 a week in vaudeville that they decided to The day after the team broke up, Bernie went into the Palace Theater, at $2500 a week, and Baker went to the Capitol in New York at the same figure. Bernie was inspired by Paul Whiteman's style of syncopation, in 1920, to form his own band, and for six years he was a fixture at the Roosevelt Hotel. His programs were broadcast, but he could never find any one who listened to -them. In time the radio caught on, and so did the Bernie style of music.

A curious combination was Bernie rhe liked to read philosoph'y and biography, and rerd no novels save those by Kenneth RobertsHe considered himself, and with some right, one of the greatest bridge players in the land. Bernie's passing will be a source of regret to many who knew him only as a voice with a fiddle. run high as the vessel slowly worked her way up the broad Sacramento. Little is known of the time he spent in his brief search for gold. It is probable that his travels took him to Sacramento, to Marysville and on to the early diggings in Yuba County.

Like thousands of other honest men, workers driven by their needs, without fools or capital, hacking away at" the base of the immense Sierras, moving tons of earth and rock for little or no reward, exhausting themselves and moving on to another whispered camp, repeating the frenzy of labor, then on again, while their energies dwindled and their hopes were in a state of tantalizing flux. Over yonder, in the next range, the next ravine, one heard of a fabulous strike, but a greenhorn never held a bonanza; sharpers, lawyers, strong-arm men soon had title to the storied riches. Gold there was a-plenty, and some did trickle down to the weary hands of the thousands who poured out their strength and their lives, mucking the earth for treasure, but the nameless hundreds who slaved and spent their pitiful wealth for the exorbitantly priced necessities were unaware that they were the stuff of ro mance. It was the same hard round hope and death, and if they had extra drink at day's end in the tawdry palaces of boom camps, that, too. was food for the hunger of frustration.

In the Autumn of 1849, Moses Chase was 43 years of age, exhausted, ill and disillusioned with California, and ready to acknowledge that his long trek to fortune had been fruitless. Accustomed to the damp air of the Moses felt that the altitude and the dry. and dusty atmosphere of the diggings was the root of his illness. After Through. Golden Gate in '49 W.

W. Conde's story of Moses Chase this week brings the pioneer through the Golden Gate and to San Francisco. Says the narrative, a part of which the Knave has been given privilege of printing ahead of book publication: On July 19, 1849, the Capitol, 176 days out of Boston, pushed through the low-hanging fog bank and made her way carefully through the Golden Gate, her decks aswarm with shouting, gold-crazed men. Sails were hastily furled, the anchor dropped in midstream, and the small boats began their slow task of getting the impatient passengers and their possessions ashore. those who could not crowd into the first boats, lining the rail, eyes searching the shqje for the glint of gold, scanned the tree-covered Eastbay hills in vain for sign of habitation or indication of wealth.

With the passengers ashore, the crew, long indoctrinated with the fabulous tales of fortune, promptly deserted. Captain Proctor, driven insane by the thousands of miles of -bickering, and appalled at this culmination of his command, committed suicide while the Capitol rode at anchor in the bay. On this day in July when Moses Chase reached can party leaders in Sacramento tomprrow, and then will come to the Bay district in the company of William F. Reichel, acting Republican National Committeeman for California in the absence of William F. Knowland, who is in the armed service.

Spangler has displayed an interest in the activities of the County Central Committees; and he will be afforded the opportunity to meet with them and hear their problems first hand. But there is another angle the Spangler. visit which is of' interest to the party leaders in this State. The national, chairman is in close touch with the Republican members of Congress where the issues of the 1944 campaign are 5 being made, and he will bring "In 1842, over a century ago, Don Jose Joaquin received his grant of Rancho San Leandro. Earlier he had moved his large and interesting family from the quiet environs of the colonial capital at Monterey to the frontier settlement of Yerba Buena.

Later, he made his home on the "wild Indian-infested pasture lands of San Leandro. The. trip to Monterey was made by sailing vessel to the Presidio of San Francisco, where his father-in-law, patrician Don Ignacio Martinez presided as commandante. The trip ocross the bay and up the swollen San Leandro was made in big, flat-bottomed, tub-shaped boats manned by halfoiaked Indians. Don Jose Joaquin built his first house on the south shore of the high-banked San Leandro at the back of in outline of the problem which is to be fol- a 1 1 lowed.

Local issues sometimes have a way of vuiy vmage. cluttering up the general overall picture, and Pneer communities, food, clothing and shelter one of the purposes of Spangler's visit is to give wei VnmBvy importance. From the soil hm naftv lea1 Ar Stat- rW-im view ltself tne adobe hous constructed, to re- California, San Francisco was a ghost port, 200 'The Ghost Town Jinx' main until the earthquake of 1868 accomplished of the important things which will be kept in ships were spread over the surface of the bay, abandoned by their officers and crews' who had 7 ld Strilf ft hf his Petf out and he weanlv made his wav back to San mind at all times during the presidential and' isinr For clothes, the apparel of other days The Knave: In looking through the files of in Yerba Buena and Monterey still provided a nea to tne bierras in searcn oi iortune. uui. the old Pacific Weekly I came upon these the congressional elections.

rrancisco, to tne sea. une storv oi Moses Chase" sufficient quantity. In the matter of food only, the city; itself, was not deserted. This lusty ii- i news items in the issue of Aucust 25 1854- TTn wiih.ii wc nave uuunsueu is a pan ot a worK- I 0 was there an immediate urgency. In the begin- young metropolis was raucously virile, busy at "fires, it said: This past week the town tlsJBerplexed.

ning, the Indians showed the parly settlers the the profitable task nf purveying provisions and fa r. of St Louia in Sierra Countv was destroyed much v-unipicicu luc idifi wuiA win ut? a new uses of a flat Platter-shaDed dish called the history of Oakland and the Eastbay. Copyright of the Story of Moses Chase is reserved to the author.) 4 Senator Sheridan Downey's early announce- matate Here for hours at a time the patient ment that he will probably be a Candidate for natiVes crushed the grain and acorns. Even so, re-election next year has created something of the mixture was coarse and often unpalatable, a situation in the Democratic party, and will Don Jose Joaquin was progressive, and soon he put to a test the program which has been laid negotiated for a new and wonderful device supplies to the mines and pandering to the vices of the returning miners. Day and night the sandy streets were alive, and the industrious merchants and the parasitic, hangers-on made common cause on the arriving immigrant and returning Argonaut alike.

The long voyage was over. Moses was in the Golden State, but, like thousands of other fortuneseekers pouring into San Francisco, acdustomed to the sjhort distances of the eastern seaboard, he must have stood Hock Farm Reminder a grist mill. Igneous rock sufficiently firm for the purpose could not be obtained in the immediately vicinity of San Leandro, but had to be laboriously cut from the native beds in the wilder Napa country. by loss and Mokelumne Hill almost wiped out by fire, loss about likewise, Campo Seco was burned down, not a house left, loss $108,000. The files repeat this story over and over again.

Every old town burned, not once but several times, and at length, with the mines playing out, they were not rebuilt. The early towns were built of the most inflammable materials pine boards and canvas, until their losses and future prospects of permanence seemed to warrant more sub-stantiar structures. Then they built of stone and brick and adobe, with the characteristic great iron doors and iron window shutters. Fire so completely 'erased many of these old towns that not even a scratch is left on the ground to mark their, exact I have explored scores of sites of populous old towns where not a mark of a building or street line Gleanings from the files of the Placer Press of October 17, 1857, include items of Sutter, Brigham Young, and some of the earliest steamboats on the Sacramento. They follow: "The pioneer Sutter writes to the editor of the California Farmer that Hock firm has been redeemed, and that he now sits under his own vine and fig tree.

We are glad the old man has been enabled to save this much from the sharpers that have been hanging to him like bloodsuckers. Several families have left our neigh-' On Flat Boats amazed and dismayed at the many miles of wild country to be traversed before reaching the land of pay dirt and golden nuggets. Off to Gold Fields Confronted by, this final obstacle of distance and the necessity of making a choice of the par-' ticular El Dorado each sought, made all pause -briefly in the Queen City of the Far West until a decision was made. Tramping the streets, clustering at corners, crowding the bars, getting tVipir "land Ipos" and thpir hparinirs avnwin? down by State Chairman AJfred Robertson of Santa Barbara. Robertson has been going about the State inducing groups in the various districts to unite their efforts behind a single candidate for the legislative and the congressional 1 offices.

In the Second Congressional District, for instance, he is credited with obtaining the withdrawal of -two prominent Democrats who wanted to contest with State Senator Claire Engle. Ind the matter of candidates for the Assembly and State Senate seats, Robertson is also quite active, and is bent on giving the Re- publicans trouble in all the districts where they now have elected representatives, But the United States Senate seat is something bigger, and Robertson has a task on his hands to shoo away the Democratic candidates who want to oust Downey. From the South it is re'ported that Ellis E. Patterson, former lieutenant gov--ernor, is in no frame of mind to be diverted from making the former Gov, Culbert-L, Olson is alsoL declared to be interested. Olson, borhood lately for Salt Lake, to join their chief Gen.

Brigham Younp. The onlv serious nh lection-w hv be Prairie 'City, Rattlesnake, Butte "The great rocks, 500 pounds or more each, were then floated down on flatboats to San Pablo Bay, and eventually brought up the San Leandro to the Estudillo home. The crude artisans of the day inserted an iron peg in the nether stone and scored its surface for better grinding facilities. In the under surface of the upper stone they drilled a hole sufficiently deep sd that it might rotate upon the grinding surface. Next; they drilled another hole a few inches off center in which could be inserted the hopper, to hold the grain which was to be ground.

Finally, a sweep was attached to the daughters along. We say, give us a law that City' BiS Bar- eta- are examples: San Francisco -will prohibit this evil in the futureThe steam- was W1P ou by fire many times in its early. layior, iampus. street i t. boats Sea Bird and McKim are to form'an on- i years.

iev. v. imam Kinsmp wn leuow r-ve ers, DUl eacn noara- a-tn TVl preacher there, describes one of these disastrous fires in 1851, and remarked that the fire burned upper'lstone and the mill was complete. Some- mg tne mnts, tne tales oi those lirst splendid Argonauts who had returned to San Francisco are not uite as fine boats as the eat monopoly to squander triumphantly a fortune in gold dust but jf he PfP fsl them, Greenhorns seeking the soured of rumors of better can soon be bought. We go for the oppo- newer and richer-strikes, that raced through sitionJme, whether thdr old boat sink or the town, increased and embellished in each swlm- saloon Many tenuous whispers nfluenced the Farewell tO the OI' Maestro fortune seekers in their choice of a particular so furiously in'that board and canvas town that the populace were helpless to do anything btit stand aside and watch it.

Taylor seized the opportunity with his great voice to sing them together and preach to them about possessions that were indestructible. They listened atten Downey and Patterson campaigned 7 together times a mule was hitched to the sweep, and around and around he went, grinding the corn, wheat or barley of the pioneer. Often, however, according to the elder Donovans, Indians operated the primitive mill, in the gubernatorial year of 1938, and all were elected. But that association was not so close as it appeared on the surface. Patterson was considered an according to his report was refused access to the Hotel Biltmore tively, for Taylor, was a past master in the ait goal in the Sierra foothills but ia mosttheir In yars, BeiuBernie wasn't an old maivbuti-of -outdoor nrparhinu -jmH a-omino in.

ntini? while others gathered the freshly ground meal final destination was determined bv the amount in nnint of serviep trlth miMi ho lmnct a i tl tir Bartv.headauartPrs wW. finance r. 1 4 i v. u. 7 1 uvitu iium uctwceu uie iicavj iuvm.

oi muuejr tajn possessed. i sau up xne Droaa legend, ana many vino knew him only as a radio -THE INVE.