Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • Page 35

1 Lb3 Li Li (iy LLU r. i 3 VOL. CXLVI! OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA; SUNDAY. AUGUST 1 0, 1 947 NO. 41 T.THnTTfJW Vi Tin-11 nr.f rui: about 200 feet from the mill rkslf and over the corner of the lake, on the side, is the Embarcadero, an artistic pergola with its vine nel, which I had set up in July 1916.

Merchants thought the First World War would never end- covered pillars. Standing in it, one has a charm ing view of the lake with a background of high downtown buildings. In the early days fireworks were set off from a barge on the.Twelfth Street side of the lake while Oakland sat on the was called the Central Kindergarten. I believe by this time the City or School Biartment had charge of it; Also there was Lorge's Bakery on Broadway between 1st and 2nd This business. was later purchased, or in time became Cassou's Bakery before they put up" their on Clay; Street There was Laf fsrtyV VButcher shop, Raffo Bros.

grocery store; on the corner of 3rd and -Broad way. This latter business was originally started by D. Ghiradelli (the choco- late, manufacturer) and was there for many years. There was V. Fortin's brick yard at the corner of 3rd and Washington Streets Pierotti's blacksmith shop on 3rd StreetGould's or rather Gould' and Williamson's flour and feed store on the corner of 4th and Washington just across from the Court House.

Perhaps someone can add other interesting, events and stories about lower Broadway way, way back, about Bodie and Weaverville. I spent six months in Bodie in 1904 with the Standard Mining Company as a watchman. Theodore Hoover, brother of Herbert, was our superin-food tendent It was gossiped by the old-timers that tnere lay in the cemetery 122 men who had died nvtheir boots. Mrs. Perry-Miller operated the United States Hotel, and was the mother of the perry boys who had originally created much of the Tonapah boom." R.

W. Keith published LoilCT: Trip After, Prisoner jf- it tx tin. at School Reunion So successful, last year, was a reunion of those who attended the "old wooden schoolhouse in St Helena, another affair of the kind will be held a week from today The school served the community in the late Sixties until it was re- placed by a stone building shortly after the turn of the century. This year's reunion, Leo K. Martin tells me, will be held at Lyman Park, sitepf old HalL St Helena was first settled in the early fifUes, and shortly there- after a small schoolhouse was erected on the bank of York Creek, on the present site of St Gothard Inn.

In the late sixties a single room school building was put up, in town; additions were made from" time to time, until in 1882 there was a sprawling six-room structure. Mt was this year that Samuel M. Shortridge be- came prindpaL (Upon his graduation from the State Normal School in San Jose, he was engaged to teach in the school at Rutherford, Napa County, where he taught for two years before coming to St Helena.) After one year's service' in the St Helena school, he resigned and went to San Francisco to take up the study of law. One of the pupils at that time was the late Judge Harry Melvin of Oakland. At this period, across the street from the public school, in the building now the Gray Gables Hotel, Rev.

L. L. Rogers conducted a private academy; Reverend Rogers son, Earl, later a noted criminal lawyer" of Los Angeles, was the first graduate. It was during Mr, Shortridge's principalship that the public school for the first time elected a native-born St Helena girl to the teaching staft 'This was Miss Anna Dixon, whose mother, by the way, was the first teacher in the town's pioneer school. Miss Anna Dixon was later elected the first woman superintendent of schools in Napa County, and one of the first in the state.

Miss Dixon, now Dr. Anna D. Peck, at present resides in Oakland. Half Century Ago sauus tu enjoy xpe signu vvxien ine Darge Durnea night that sport was ended ior years. In Oakland's very- earliest days, on the Twelfth Street Dam was Blaizes Eating House where was good.

Strangers in town, when inquir- ing where to go were a bit mystified when told to 'Go to Where? Oh, Dam-Twelfth Street- So I have often heard, but don't quote me. Lake Merritt, a mirror visible from all our surrounding hills-always so very interesting, fornia for a month, speculation is al- ready rife as to Sen. Robert Taft's projected swing through the Far West and how the lines will shape up 1 ithe event of a direct battle between Taf I and Gov. Thomas E. Dewey.

It is generally I admitted that at present neither holds "enough for the nomination and that as Senator becomes more active in his preliminary campaign he will tend to take convention votes from.Governor Dewey more than anyone else, and thus make it problematical whether the New York governor have enough pledges Tin hand next June at Philadelphia. An interest-- ing sidelight was a poll taken by a news service' this week in Washington which credited pTaft currently with 273 votes, Dewey with 262. and 485 delegates divided up among various "favorite sons." On the basis of 1093 convention -delegates, 547, are needed for the nomination. With Senator Taft destined to make inroads on the Dewey strength the possibility of a deadlock looms constantly larger and that pro-. jeets into jhe picture the in the 'ranks of the favorite sons.

Most commentators appear to be of the opinion that the strongest 7 'darkhorse" at the moment is Gov. Earl Warren, and, on thatbasis, many of his friends feel that his best move would be to start now to solidify i West Coast support in his behalf. One such pro-t -posal, for an H-state western bloc committed to Warren, has already been made by well in the North but has not been pushed. no one seriously contends that the governor would not have the California delega-tioh 1f he so desires. It is extremely doubtful that either Senator Taft or Governor Dewey would put up a delegation against him and Harold Stassen is understood to have declared definitely that he would not do so.

As in 1944, the governor is still. non-committal, but observers throughout the country have noted that since that time he has become much better, acquainted and hisjstature has increased in the public mind throughout the nation. They point to various events in which he has taken the limelight on East Coast and in the mid-. West and note that he has taken a leading part In all conferences of governors in recent years, and that he loomed prominently among the governors on: their recent trip to Hawaii With 'the growing importance of the West, the consensus is that this partjf the nation is going to come in for more consideration in the future in Eastern councils and that that consideration is bound center largely around California's governor. 'New' Discovery Relics In the not distant future, and probably dur-v Ing the centennial years," there will be estab-.

lished near te site of Jim Marshall's discovery of gold on January 24, 1848, a museum in which visitors may see a number of things which, while as old or older than the discovery, have been buried beneath the soil for close to a century. Some notable activities have been underway at the. site of Sutter's sawmill, activ-? ities of archeological, anthropological and his-: toric interest. The story of the discovery grows out of that of the constiuction of the mill in '1847 and 1848 and all that can be learned of the mill, the men who built it, its dimensions and -the incidents large and small which led to the -one that was destined to alter history- in the West, is most important There is much that is new and corroborative of the old, and much that will even surprise those who have thought they knew the whole story, in the revelations of re- cent days and a service has been performed by the California Historical Society in spreading the information in its latest The same scientists who not so long ago located the original site of the flag-staff at the Monterey, Custom Hjouse, have been excavating, at "the mill site. They are Dr.

R. FHeizer of the Defy partment Cf Anthropology zt the University of California Dr. Aubrey Neasham, regional his-torian of tne National Park Service and, in the latest wor Franklin Fenegan, assistant to Dr. I Heizer. Tl Quarterly contains the reports of each of th ise men on his work.

With this direc tion, and jvith a bulldozer to help, the ground 'was cleared down some 10 feet to the 1843 leveL Timbers corresponding in pattern and size to those found fn. 1924 by the California Society of Pioneers, Philip Baldwin Beckeart directing, by the(, park Commission two years ago were! uncovered as were many curious relics Adirectly associated with the milL Checked against ams Marshall's original drawings, those of Col. R. B. Mason who visited the site in July, 1848, ad descriptions left in diaries of some of those men who helped Marshall in the is now assembled data which settles all questions of dimensions and locatic as well as some artifacts which throw color on "th life in the camp up and through the days of the 'discovery.

Museum and Replica Marshall, the findings unquestionably picked up the particles cf gold in the tailrace. boundary line of the property now owned by the State which is now. preparing to acquire this additional property and some acreage across the main highway including two rare old stone Chinese store buildings of historical interest As the actual mill site, itself, is far below the present land level and is annually washed by the swollen stream, it would be impractical if not impossible to rebuild the mill on that site. The plan, then, is for a museum to house all the relics as well as a working model of the mill and this will be on the higher ground and easily accessible to visitors. In the story of the building of the mill, as chronicled in the Quar terly, are many Jittle paragraphs outside' of usual The rebellion of the camp cook, Mrs.

Wimmer because the "boys" would not come to breakfast at the first call, and the Christmas observances which consisted in rolling big boulders down" the. mountain sidey "to see them jump" areinstances. And not always is itold how the of the mill, with Marshall leading, "salted the tail race preparatory to a visit of inspection by Sutter. They put backv the particles of gold they had retrieved Arom the water by pinching the same between forefinger and the blade of pocketknife, and were ready to make Sutter think he had found them alL A small boy, LIrs. Wimmer's, however, was there before Sutter and arrived with them in his hand but it is recorded the founder of New Helvetia, nevertheless, was properly im- pressed.

In their, reports the "men of research tell of these things, linking them with what they have now found; give order to what had been confusing in data and, with charts and photographs record not only How and where the mill was erected but what it was like at the site one hundred years ago and what sort of life was led by the men who, unwittingly, were making history. At the. museum we shall see down to a piece of a man's suspenders and the lid of a century-old sardine can and up to timbers, to-; bacco pipes and bools-relits of the days when Marshall pounded yellow stuff on a rock to see if it were malleable and' znigKt.be gold. Lake Merritt of Ol Mrs. Laura M.

Ba'ssett tells me is experi encing real pleasure, in setting down her mem-ories of an older Oakland, for the' stories have put her in contact with others whose recollections cross and supplement her own. "I may be mistaken she tells me, "but I am sure father, who came here in the early 50Vsaid Lake Merritt was first Merritt, for whom it isj named (also Merritt Hospital) had his home and large grounds on the west side of Madison Street above Fifteenth. My earliest remembrance of the lake is when as, a very smalt girl (bornhere' 1866), with mother and father I walked down to 'the Willows', on the west side, about Twelfth Street, and extending along the beach. A grove of oaks and willows thickly planted formed an arbor overhead. A few long benches here and there make me wonder if that was the beginning of our fine park system.

Some willows still remain back of the Oakland Museum. That home (the museum) was built and occupied by W. W. Cameron and his wife who was the daughter of Dr. John Marsh of Marsh Creek' history.

Her brother, also John Marsh, were our neighbors for many, years at the southwest corner of Eighth and Castro Streets. Lakeside Park was first called 'Adams Point and Saturdays we children loved to rent a rowboat" (25 or 50 cents a day) from the boathouse on the Twelfth Street dam. We went ashore with lunch box or a little candy on a sandy beach just below the present bandstand, where there was a picnic table under the oaks and next to a hay field. The farmer, named Bruseau, would sell us milk, apples and pears. Later; this ecame a golf course.

The Webster Street Convent gardens, and those of its neighbors, extended to the lake's ede. Above the tall grasses were narrow plank walks to the boathouses and a familiar sight were the extra long boats filled with the convent's boarders, learning to row. With the widening of Harrisontreet, the boathouses van- ished and fences were erected. 'Go. to Blaizes' "Mr.

A. K. P. Harmon, whose home and large garden, with a fine conservatory, was next to the convent, graciously put a gate between them (where Hobart Street is' now) allowing the convent visitors and botany: classes access to the conservatory and its treasures. At his death the property was sold and the son moved to Fruit-vale to his wife's family home (the Derbys) where Montgomery Wards now stands.

The conservatory was given to Lakeside Park and moved to about the place where the, Veterans Building on Grand Avenue stands. But time loosened the large dome and its panes of glass and the conservatory was torn' down. I have always hoped to see a nice large one in the park. Now, instead of our early day rowboats we have canoes, sail boats and -after several years absence, the old 'excursion boat (or a new one) for tours around the lake. At the northeast no use to advertise.

Todiy I have a grandson on a Marysville paper and a son in paper production at Hayward. He sends me the part of-the Oakland Tribune carrying the page of The Knave. In this I find somethincr hirhlv inter- CT a a the Bodie Miner-Index1 I have two dandy cartoons of cops in two volumes of my rogues gallery (A and B) which Keith drew for me. With a man named Miller foxveditor, we; gbt out a copy 01 me xtuner-inaex wnust xveim was away on a vacation. (The late Keith, one should say, for he passed on years ago.) The Miller I mention was for some time an assemblyman I believe.

Another welf remembered gentleman was W. E. Reading, postmaster, and operator of a men's furnishings store. I left Bodie to goto the Southern Pacific at little dreaming of the political angle, that was to accrue Hoover's brother to become president of the United States. His (Theodore's) home was Palo Alto and he left this 'earthly sphere years ago.

"Pr JVlagenta Jt" lUme Partly because her. grandmother lived in a house huilt beneatK it Mrs. Anna C. Loomis of this city is interested in the old Magenta Flume in Nevada County and wishes more could be written concerning it She tells me: "It was about three miles from Graniteville on the old Hennes Pass Road. In the early days the house beneath it built in 1863 or about then, was my grandmother's home.

The flume was originally 165 feet high in front of the house and was built of hewn logs, put together with wooden pegs, -The only nails used were in the floor. I was told it was engineered by Dr. Lessaps who was the engineer who first planned the Panama Canal and failed. After the flume-was finished the Governor and the mayors of San Francisco and Sacramento and notables, with their wives, went up to celebrate the dedication. It was quite an affair.

The house in the shadow of the flume was noted for hospitality and as a stage and covered wagon hostelry. The teams were put up and -grandmother fed the hungry men. Often a runner was sent ahead of the teams to warn grandmother (Mrs. Shand) of the approaching caravan so she could prepare. Many a time she arose in the; middle -of the nieht to be ready.

She was an excellent cook Junuergax icii uiu wu suivcu uj uc Abbie, as she was always called, each week would take some child over to San Francisco to her home and keep the child until Monday mornint The children were, taught to sew fig-'. ures on cards with different colored worsteds, da weaving with paper, sing and during recess Miss Abbie would go out in the back of the store (which was the kindergarten) and play games with them. Some cf these children came from very fine and well-to-do familiesothers. were just picked up in the neighborhood. The kindergarten crew and other teachers were brought in.

There was Miss Carrie who not so many years ago was at the Oakland Library and Miss Fannie. After Miss Abbie married, the kindergarten, I believe, was moved to 3rd Street between Franklin and Broadway and The Knave: A few weeks ago there was men- -tion in your page of thelate Sheriff Mac Brown of Humboldt County; The artitke brought to memory an incident that had mtch-to do with focusing public opinion on the need for a "more adequate system of interounty roads in California, and caused people in the iiorthern counties to look with favor on what was known as the "Gillett Plan" a few years later tit was in the winter of A man was accused cf horse-stealing in Humboldt County1, but eluded the officers for a time. When located, he. was in Weaverville, Trinity County, aJotit 115 miles distant from Eureka. There was pp direct road between the two places then, and it'was winter, when snow and dim trails, made traveling diif i icult Sheriff Brown went by boat to San Francisco, then by train Redding, and by stage to Weaverville, returningj.by the same route with his prisoner.

The distance traveled, going and coming, would be 'approximately 1000 miles, and time consumed, 'about a week. Tne Legislature of that year appropriated $30,000 to construct a portion of ihe road from Humboldt County, toward-Red, Bluff, Tehama County and some 30 miles were built Governor James Gillett went mtooffice M1907 "and under njsdministra tion California took steps to provide a system of highways txunk lines up and down the State, and all county seats notfon the trunk lines to be seryed by laterals. extension of lateral connecting WeaverviUs with Eureka came several years later, when It was carried through in a highway bond issue, voted by the people of Calif ornia. The sherif of Humboldt County could today get his mart: from Trinity County's metropolis in one The first endorsement of the Gillett Plan cme from the Republicanvcounty convention hi iDel Norte. At I the request of Judge John pl Childs, on whose newspaper I was employei it the time, I wrote the platform that was presented to the convention, and which was adopted in its entirety after having received the affirmative vote of the proper committee.

Wilson, -Sonoma. First LA. Newspaper; The first English-language newspaper in Los Angeles, was the "Los Angeles Star started in 185L As Spanish, at that time, Was the principal language of California, the paper could not go all cut in its venture and hdpe. to succeed. -It was necessary to include some' few columns" in Spanish.

John. Walton Caughey has been studying that old paper, its times, its later competitors, and some of the people who moved in and out of its news columns "siid editorial He finds, among other? things, that at one time the Legislature awarded the "Star a contract to print the California laws in Spanish and considers the act was muck, needed in- asmuch as incoming Americans robbing the Spanish of possessions and blind this busi- ness much easier because their victims had no way of informing themselves as ftp the Caughey, then, was an admirable choice as the one to edit the story of the Los 'Angeles Star which the late William B. Race Jfcft in manu--script It is the story of a haphazardly started, after a few futlje attempts, some six years after the history if California-. journalism began with appearance of The Calif ornian and Monterey and four ears after Sam Brannan got out his California: Star in San Francisco. Lbs Angeles, in the days of the.

paper's birth was a small place with- mud buildings and largely Mexican populatioijL Those who -came to work for the paper were inosfiy from Northern California and it is said stayed but a hort time and moved on. flie book is one of the chronicles of the vicissitudes of an early day venture which finally gkvie up the ghost in 1SS4. The reader looks into tjieold pages for reflections of the politics, culture and frailties of the times and will even Ina Coolbrith's poems were published there. History from the slant of an oldljnewspaper can be both interesting and indivfduaL (The Los Angeles Star, by William B. University of California Press, Berkeley, $5l) I THE -KNAVE.

-r A pamphlet dug from a musty attic, which and always fed them assistant was tells of Contra Costa County as it was 53 years my mother who was then a little girl. The ago, has been presented to that county's libra- flume stood in its original form for five or six rian, Jessie Lea. copy of the pamphlet was years and was then remoVed, to be replaced by given to the by Fred Maeser, a painter one 65 feet high and thus it stood for many and paperhanger, who has resided at Martinez years: Magenta Flume was one of the regular many years. It was published about "1893 by stage stops. To one side of the house a large the Elliott Publishing Company, of San Fran- tank was always filled with water from a spring cisco.

Interesting to note is a detailed map of up the hilL The house still stands, though others the county, with the City of Martinez shown live there, and the flume has been replaced by as the largest in the county. Richmond was a pipe line to carry the water from the Bowman not yet in existence. Other communities shown Fisherti dams to the mines in North Bloom-include Port Costa, Crockett, Podeo, Pinole, field, Nevada City, Grass Valley, and mines Sobrante, San Pablo, Stege, Alamo, Danville, further along. Many persons enjoyed the hos- San Ramon, Concord and Pacheco. In compari- pitality of Mrs.

Shand in the sixties and seven-son to a population of over 300,000 at the present ties. Later she married Mickle Quinn and they time, only 13,503 resided here 53 years.ago. The operated the place until her death in 1899, after total assessed valuation was $15,686,303 and which he ran it with the help of a Chinese. The the county tax rate was $1.20. All county prop- latter years were not so busy as the railroad 'erty was valued at $46,000.

A prediction that had taken the traffic. In a few years Quinn Contra Costa County "is destined to become gaVe up the place, came to Decoto and died at known for the excellence and variety of her the Masonic Home at the age of 87. I learned fruit crops" was made by the writer. The the story from my mother and grandmoUier county, at the time, contained "the largest wno from England in 1850. But that.

I amount of taxable property per capita" of any thinl is another story." agricultural county in the state, average $100 for every person within its borders." Describ- Kindergarten PiOIie erS ing Martinez, the booklet says, in part: "A walk through its embowered streets in the constant TheKnave: Does anyone remember the kin-shadow of umbrageous trees and aniong banks dergarten down on Broadway between 2nd and of perennial blossoms, reveals its beauty and 3r streets? -Jt was conducted by Mjss Abbie extent" Homes and ranches and business of Housman of San icco who used to cross prominent residents are also pictured the on the old Geek Boat This was a free 11 booklet Hand Press Days In the 90's M. A. Carpenter of Yuba City worked on a hand press on.the Colusa Gazette for E. Fuller, who took fat hens from delinquent subscribers so that his wife might make them into tamales. Says Carpenter: "The paper was a morning daily and Fuller distributed the Gazette by horseback, at daybreak.

In 1901," to early 1903 1 turned out a weekly at Cottonwood. Yeggs blew the store safe of Cohn Munter adjoining, setting the postoffice on fire, and what was left of the Herald went into the pub- lication of a police monthly at Sacramento and later in Redding. For five years I published the Western Police Review at Sacramento, usin equipment from the suspended Portola Senti-.