Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • Page 118

10-W Oakland Tribune, Thursday, May 1, 1952 -SUS EHSE CHARLIE' WAS A LADY! Of all the colorful stagecoach "FREES GOBU OEQE out. her masquerade to the end. born New Hampshire." When she One other "honor was to be voted as Charlie Parkhurst she hers. The voting register of Santa had gained the distinction of be-Cruz County for 1867 lists her as ing the first woman to exercist "Parkhurst, Charles Durkee, 55, equal suffrage in California. drivers who passed across the pages of Oakland's early-day history, the one who left the most vivid mark was "Six -Horse" Charlie ParkhursL Sometimes called "Cock-Eyed Charlie" because one eye had long since gone out of commission, Charlie made a name in pioneer times as a daring and resourceful stage driver.

But the name is remembered today for another reason: Charlie Redwood Forest Ileactsd lor Oakland Sky CUT TO i REBUILD S.F. fariuiursi was a woman. That her wasn't known then is easy to understand. A black patch over the missing eye gave 8) sinister appearance to a face reported far from handsome. A liberal sprinkling of profanity in conversation, a chew of tobacco in one cheek and an enviable ability to toss down any rr y.yi.

-y ii ii y- fX iJb 'VT nm 4f; variety of hard liquor the route 1 afforded made Charlie the epi VaklM4 tUHabMHSII It's hard to imagine the smoke of lumber mills shrouding the Oakland skyline and sweating oxen hauling gigantic redwood logs down Broadway but that's just What was happening-in the 1849," when most Califox-nians were off to make a fortune in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Lumber, not gold, lured the first settlers; to Oakland. Three of, gigantic trees led the hardy pioneers of early Califor-; nia to the east shore of San i Francisco Bay as early as 1840. That towering timber, forgoi-' ten now but for a few scattered stands of second growth and the rotting remains of an old mil, tome of the type of rough hom-bre of the pioneer days. There was only o'ne touch of vanity in this raw, rough picture FROM THE PERSONNEL OF TEE virile manhood: Buckskin dark blue, embroidered and i costing $20 a pair, covered Uwjt l.Ul..

11 v. i nanuj i cmai nauijr small iui uic heavy reins of the horses. w.V..J' a Mi After manv vears in the Sierra vKsi I sjOc on the Mariposa route to Stock- i ton --harne was employed to if X.t drive the from Oakland to i formed the basis for more than i one fortune and the Ll'J 'rZli ment of the city of Oakland. THEY BUILT CITY Antonio Redwoods, the big Sequoia Sempervirens gre.w in the only groves outside the Coast Range proper. There were three IS Stores IN THE EAST BAY The big tedwoods were dif rectly responsible for Oakland's first streets.

They furnished the wood for its first house and atj tracted the who were later to become tlie leaders of thf It was this sawmill, supposedly the first in what is now that helped reduce the stands oi redwood trees here. The mill was built on Palo Seep Creek, near Dimond, by an unidentified Frenchman in 1849 and was the first steam mill here. It was operated by Volney D. Moody, one of Oakland's early officials. Mrs.

Chelton Hill oi Piedmont, a granddaughter of Moody, says that timbers from this mill constructed the first frame house in Oakland, that oi Moses Chase. Moody also sold great quantities oi lumber to residents of San Francisco to rebuild homes and stores after fire destroyed portions of that city several times. Volney Moody, according to; Mrs. Hilt delivered his lumber to Larue's landing at the foot of 14th Avenue. One day.

she says, when her grandfather was taking a load to the waterfront he met a Spaniard who offered to trade a piece of land for the lumber. Moody accepted. This land was in a densely wooded oak forest located at what became part of Lafayette Square. Once when Moody was asked where his newly acquired land was, according to his grand-daughter, he replied, "My land is at Oakland" and it may have been this remark that gave the city its name. Below is pictured Moses Chase, first white settler in what is now Oakland, and his house built from lumber sawed in the mill of Volney Moody.

distinct stands within an area of about five miles square. One grove was on the western slope of the hills above Oakland and inherited the nomenclature of "San Antonio redwoods." The "middle redwoods" were in Redwood Canyon of Redwood Regional 1 Park and a third stand was in the vicinity of 'Lake Chabot in the upper San Leandro Canyon and came to be known as the "Moraga redwoods." VALUE RECOGNIZED The forests were recognized for thei value by1 the padres of the California missions who maintained that "the cutting of state ana tne community, nut jjy 1860 the towering groves were only a sea of stumps. The last remains of Oakland's redwood groves still can be seen from Mountain Boulevard! where second growth has sprung up around the site of the East-bay's- first steam mill on Palo; Eeco Creek, and in Redwood Re-j gional Park, where there are the rotting remains of another sawmill that supplied lumber for buildings "from Martinez to Alvarado." 1 San Jose. It was on the Sierra run that Charlie had first won fame by slaying a notorious bandit. "Sugarfoot" a road agent nicknamed from his whimsical custom of clumping about with feet wrapped in burlap sacking, was victorious in their first encounter and Charlie forced to throw down the express box.

Charlie, schooled in the tradition of the road, vowed to even the score. A few months later, on the same route, "Sugarfoot" held up the stage a second time. But this time, Charlie adroitly maneuvered the coach and six, drew a pistol, wounded the bandit and drove off at a full gallop. "Sugarfoot" crawled away to die at a miner's cabin. When Charlie died many years later and physicians signed a statement certifying that Charlie Parkhurst was a woman, the old-timers were justified in their astonishment.

The Watsonville Pajaroian told this story of her life: Born in Sandusky, Ohio, she an garly and unfortunate love affair which decided her to come West and play the part of a man. Alter the railroads started, the demise of stage coaches, she retired to a farm she had bought near Watsonville and lived there until her death at 67 carrying X- -t i 4 In the past 100 years Oakland has seen many vast improvements, outstanding among which is the modern retail food store a far cry from the general store of the past to today's modern supermarket. Louis Stores constantly works to bring to its customers the latest conveniences for easy, pleasurable shopping, along with the highest quality merchandise at the fowest possible prices. Our canned and packaged merchandise offers you a wide selection of brands and types; oir produce departments display fruits and vegetables with an incomparable "Just-Picked" flavor and crispness; and our personnel strive to maintain the old-time friendliness of the general store along with the modern efficiency of today's super-market. Jose de Canizarez, Spanish ex plorer and cartographer recog I wood comprehended in the place nized the groves in 1776 and! clearly, indicated their position! asked for must remain in common" when they granted permission for the formation of the Peralta grant.

Although; not; uSod in connection with the es on maps he made at that time asi "bosques de buenas maderas," or forest of good wood. LUMBERMAN'S HAVOC tablishment of the Presidio of San Francisco or its mission, Dr. William P. Gibbons, Sanr timbers for Mission San Josei Francisco physician and student! of natural sciences, explored the, redwoods in 1855 and wrote: "But for the sad havoc wrought there 40 years ago by lumber-! men and wood choppers thesef Oakland hills! might still have 1 4UT1 If til I ft $. I In 1853 Alvarado was the county seat here.

An 1854 elec- probably constituted the first logging operation in (he Oakland hills. The first record that foreigners were active in the groves occurred in 1840, according to Captain Burgess, when an Irishman by the name' of George Patterson deserted the English barque Columbia in. San Francisco harbor and worked with LOUIS STOKES FOR THRIFTY FOOD VALUES! presented one of the noblest natural narks roneeivahle." I i tion showed, however, dents preferred San Leandro, 782 to 614. Alameda was third, 232; I San Lorenzo fourth, 220; Oak land a sad fifth, 18. Dr.

Gibbons, who apparently! visited the cut-over forests inj the vicinity of Mountain Boule-j vard, describes stumps of from 12 to 20 feet in diameter. The most, remarkable specimen in John Parker, another deserter, bucking planks which they sola to John Sutter. Two years later mainine cash on a cliDDer shiDloDerated in the San Leandro Patterson was joined by Harry LH cailj hff fnr cnilfv, near Pinehurst Station by J. Bee, another sailor whoL William Tavlor and in 1852 jumped ship in 1830 and had lca- creors "one me wiser. an(, WiHiam Prince es-experience in the Santa Cruz) During 1849 logs were being tablisned a mili in the.

western forests a Those Bzys HALTED IN 1842 laKen irom ini? western siopes end of Kedwood canyon, the of the hills on roads winding remains of which are still to be down Dimond Canvon following i seeh- Three other mills oper- A sawmill onerated by Nathan ated in the general area until They said it was very exciting' Spear and Capt. William route along Park Boulevard Hinckley was turning out and Thirteenth Avenue. Timber shingles and planks in 1841 but was also beine cut in the pear and Capt. William about 1856, when the timber-land was exhausted. but they can have it combat in the early-day Oakland rat pits.

after Sutter established mills in-jMlraga woods and shipped OTHER MILLS BUILT the Sierra and the Santa Cruz across Suisun Bay to Benicia.l Soon after the Prince" mill; Today such! goings-on would lJj Teams which carried the red-1 was built Joseph Witherall and be the subject iof a congressional wood to Martinez traveled a Nathaniel Lampson erected an- investigation that might put the other just to the north of the chief prober in the White House, i ft nU iWH'iHi tiAii ll HfilL il. i hf--iPl JW! operations expanded, Oakland's lumbering stopped about 1842. Napoleon Bonapart Smith, Henry Clay! Smith, his brbther and a friend.x WiHiam Menden-hall, were among 1 the first route now traversea by the Jonah Hill road to Lafayette, I 1 I 1 TB I 1 1 I 1 ill 1 Prince property and it was (However, in early-day Oakland finally acquired by Henry rat pit combat was something of i which became a resting point for the teamsters, whose -rigs this group, the doctor said, was the united stumps of three trees which had grown together to give the appearance of one enormous tree whose trunk presented a body of solid wood 57 in diameter. The San Francisco physician also mentions another grove a half-mile to the southwest "on the brow of a hill which over- looks the Golden 3ate" and where, at the time of his visits there were many living trees! "At this point," Dr. Gibbons re-j lates, "partly concealed by a dense growth of ambitious sap lings, are to be found therelicS of a redwood tree that once must have been among the most remarkable arid gigantic individuals of its species; now forgotten and despoiled of its glory, show 1ng nothing but a shell of wood and bark as a memorial of its Entering the hollow of this forest monolith, "one finds himt self within an area circumscribed by a wall of solid wood, the, greatest diameter of which is 32 feet at a.

distance of four feet from the ground; this meast-urement not including the bark, which would raise the diameter Americans to cut the forests, qf lined its streets and who "spent San Antonio. They arrived in thl their hard-earned money with Spicer. Near the mouth of Red-! a sport. wood Canyon, Chester Tupper Possibly one reason there was and Richard Hamilton helped no legislation against this sport themselves to 350 acres of public; was due to the poor reputation timber in 1845 and a few months reckless profusion" in the local later were driven from the iuu ZZ pubs. (land and set up a steam oper rats had in those days.

Today's rats have improved that reputa- groves "byv a party of Spaniards After participating i in the Bear tion somewhat by going to coL- I Flag revolt, the two Smith Oakland's steam mill, ation, which burned in the sum-which grew into the present me? of 1854. Then Thomfts Eager day General Mills, pro- and Erasmus Brown erected a vided the boards for Oakland's! $10,000 mill between fthe Prince first house and helped establish arid; Tupper sites and by 1860 the lege and rolling over in the5 brothers joined with Elam laboratory when the professor i mi mi mt Brown of Santa Clara in a lum cries "Rover." bering operation, shipping their abank. Interest from that origi-jarea was reduced to stumps. But the early day rats were) fri, qpo naia a hand cut planks to San Fran nal investment is still being In L852 Hiram Thorn and Wil quite different. II II II ii lU'J I 'JIIM I cisco in 1847.

In the woods at Frpm story in The Tribune paid Mrs. Chelton of Piedmont, granddaughter of Volney liam Hamilton constructed aj $20,000 mill near Taylor's oper-i on April 9, 1922, William E. Blote, a pioneer, writing under the by-line of "Billie'! described these rats and the low and Moody, who operated the mill ation in the Moraga redwoods. I for about a year. There were from 300 400 men! Forerunner of others to be! in the forests at that time and! to 33 and4 a half feet," wrote Dri built in Redwbod Canyon, the! the mills were the economic? citing life in the rat pits at ai5 Moody lumber operation was in I center of the Eastbay.

Nearly all much earlier date: the San Antonio redwoods along i the east to west roads were" "How those dogs, would kill Gibbons. -BRITON'S DESCRIPTION those rats on a Sunday after planned in relation fo 4hem noon in the pit at the foot of BECAME BOULEVARD What the! pioneer naturalist undoubtedly saw the res-mains of one of the "two trees south of Palos Colorados, a wood A road down the western slopes became Park nght Auiwaterfront! Owners would match two dogs to see which one would route climbed the ridge between t. Palo Seco Creek a short distance above Dimond Canyon. The mill was built by a Frenchman in 1849, sold to Meiggs and later acquired by Moody. With four oxen Which helped bring Moody and his brother Charles across the plains to California, Jumber -was hauled down what is now Fourteenth Avenue to the San Antonio embarcadero.

Moody was 17 years old at the time. Lumber from that mill built Moraga and the middle rZTKl The original Board of Trustees of the Mountain View Cemetery Association included many of Oakland's most illustrious pioneers these men met together on the night of December 26, 1863, to form the Association as a non-profit community organization. Community service has remained the guide for Mountain View's development through the years, until today services offered and the beauty of the estate are undoubtedly beyond the broadest dreamjs of the founders of this lovely Memorial Park. Crematorium Columbarium Mausoleum Urn Garden Cemetery -v. vi the same time were Jacob Harlan and Richard Swift, who cut 15,000 shingles from a single tree and sold them in San Francisco at $5 a 100.

1 MEIGGS CLEANUP How. much lumber the San Antonio groves produced for San Francisco during this period is not known, but it was sold at about $30 per 1000 board feet, along with that coming from the Santa Cruz and Bodega mills. Operations fell off during 1848 but in 1849 Harry Meiggs, "a man 'of tremendous energ physically a perfect athlete, good-natured and gentlemanly, cleaned up $500,000 in the East-bay groves. According to Samuel G. Up-ham's "Notes of a Voyage to California," Meiggs arrived in San Francisco in July 1849 and sold a shipload of lumber for a $50,000 profit.

After working in a San Francisco lumber yard "studying the local situation," Meiggs sent an army of 500 men into "the forests of Contra Costa WUIAU HIIU WUUIIU UUWII UUU MF of pines situated on top of the hill' over San Antonio, too conspicuous to be Overlooked," as described by Capt. F. W. Beechey of the Royal Navy in 1826. The British sea captain, and test they would let out 75 rats' into the put all the dogs I middle of the redwoods at ex-actljf the site of Prince's mill.

present in and then the It then followed the canyon to; wouM have the time trio clrvlmo ninmno a chnrt the skyline, running a short dis ii iiri iijm i a lui a u. uait mir lives. tance south near the present Cisco Bay, used those huge trees as landmarks upon entering the A lot of money would gen-i the first house in Oakland on Chelton Road to the head of Di- mond Canyon, where Park anderally chanSe hands on harbor in order to miss treacher- East Tenth Street for Moses Chase. WENT EAST, TO WED Mountain Boulevards meet. ineyf a i I would bet oh how long it would Another led fronv a certain tQ bag the Thorn's mill to Castro Valley and(iirnit therft nt With $500 earned in the bper ation or the mill hwith -hisjstUl.

another followed present- marsn rgts but th did i wuuict, muuujr. piu-uw-y, uwa, fight and were not game like the mkmm Wow turned to the west coast and prmce road. Tupper and brought with them a small County, felled the choicest trees" grist mill, which he set up in It must have been a great way to pass a Sunday afternoon. The first electric railroad in San Jose and later sold to the Hamilton, seeking a shorter route to the embarcadero, built a road across the ridge which today is Redwood Road and 35th Avenue. Thofn constructed a toll Central; Milling Company.

The; Oakland, the East Oakland Com- 'I pany lines, began to run on ous Blossom Rock. An idea of their size is gained in the realization that these two trees were "conspicuous' from the Golden Gate, 16 miles away. Other than a casual mention in histories of I the Bay area, the Oakland redwoods have been ignored by- most writers. Most extensive stu'dy of- the groves was made by Sherwood D. Burgess, Alameda High School teacher and published by the California Historical Society Quarterly in March of last year.

LENGTHY RESEARCH Burgess, an Army captain Is now in charge of the ROTC unit at Alameda High School; spent more than a year preparing the article and did extensive research, delving into old real estate records, and early Calif orniaVJktory. Known originally fJT the San road from his mills to Oakland EtUhlhbed 1863 F. B. Cullom, Crr amager TERMINUS OF PIEDMONT AVE, OAKLAND business later became the perry Flour Company and finally General Mills, Inc. Moody became president of the First Na in the then densely-wooded region, hauled them in saw-logs to the shore of the 4ay of San Fran'ciscoj built them into huge rafts, floated them to a wharf which he had constructed, converted them into lumber by the agency of a steam saw which he had erected and made $500,000 in 1854, traces of which still.

ln November, 1892. j) can be seen at the eastern end OFFICERS AND TRUSTEES By August, 1901, the Oakland Transit Company owned 1 20 miles of track in Oakland, San Leandro and Hayward. of Sobrante Road above 1 The big redwoods fire forgotten and eone today. Only the tin gold by the operation." tional Bank of and lived in Piedmont for many years. He later established his home in Berkeley, at Le Roy and Le Oonte Avenues, where he died in 1901 at the age of 72.

Moody's mill continued to pro Iivivc Lewis F. Martcn Aithlr E. Coanci Johm M. Olncv Hubert E. Haul Stiklct Powcu.

Fiaks. J. Eaorr Fr J. Earlt Chas. P.

Howar TL A. Lett, President A. H. But; Vire-Prftident Ltos A. Claik, Secretary small jbut beautiful groves of smau dui Deauuiui groves oil seoonof growth jemains to re-1 The annual salt production mind of a few short years when along the Bay below ML" Eden FLED FROM CREDITORS Meiggs, a.

leader in California business, municipal politics and social life, went bankrupt in 1854 and in October of that year, loaded his family and re- i duce until about 1854, when the timVV in the area was depleted. the mighty Sequoia Gigantea land Alvarado in 1885 was 48,400 reigned over the life of Metro-Utons. The" Union Pacific Com- I.J 4 L. AAA any led with 20,000 At lt time another mill' wasipolitan Oakland. i.