Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 80

1 1 'v Yo 12-FL Oakhpbll Tribune- Sunday, Jan. 7 962 so well, declared all his earlier triumphs were won in California Among California writers I can think of none who did more to preserve for posterity the glamor and pic-: turesque flavor of its Argonaut days of: the West' tit It W. J3JC. i wr 1 W. 1 1' 4 J.

fiiitHHiHnMh'WiiiinntiHiil'iiiiiJifttiiihitMifiniiji Oakland its name stood in front of Mayor A. Williams home at 5th and Sts. NY DISCUION of the founding of Oakland in 1852 invariably centers on, Horace W. Carpen-tier and his eventual 'hold on the Oakland wa terfront. More than 100 years have since rolled by.

with scant light being shed on pioneer opposition to Carpen- tier and his land-grabs here; oppositu that must have turned the political spotlight on more than one man in the mid-1850s. It-4s-rnore4hantantalizin to find biographical material on Car-pentier's Especially those men who immediately succeeded him into the mayor's office here. Charles Campbell was the second mayor. S. H.

Robinson the third. What brings this to mind was a hurried effort to find and piece together information concerning the life and times of Col. Andrew Williams, Oakland's fourth mayor and the first man to be elected Oakland mayor for two consecutive terms, 1857 and 1858. Colonel Williams greatest fame seems to rest in the fact that he was Bret Harte's stepfather. Other events and details of his life are elusive.

It is interesting to know that A' ne naa duiii me ursi piaster ana lain house in Oakland at Fifth and f5SKefv Streets a home he occupied during his two years in the mayor's office here, and a home where succeeding mayors lived for enough years that it was called "The Mayors' House." The "Colonel" to the Williams name appears to have been but a courtesy title. He was an ostentatious individual and definitely a foe of Carpentier or any other who would handicap Oakland's strides toward expansion and prosperity. It was -George R. Stewart in his 1931 biography entitled "Bret Harte, Argonaut ana xile who pointed Colonel Williams pomposityr One com- nunication to the city regarding cer-ain tolls which restrained the trade )f the village is used by Stewart to rove his point. Colonel Williams' opening statement in the message, according to Stewart, read: "Another incubus on the prosperity of this city is the toll bridge to Brooklyn across the northern arm of the San Antonio Creek.

The importance to us of an untrammeled in- -tercommunication with the surrounding country in incalculable." Stewart then reports that the next statement of Colonel Williams' message totaled 154 words. Uncautious Bret Both Bret Harte and his sister, Margaret, were extremely fond of their stepfather. Nevertheless that didn't stop Bret from using Colonel Williams as a pattern for his Colonel Starbottle in his 1892 work published in England as "Colonel Starbottle's Clients and Some Other Pebple." Colonel Williams was an attorney. He had been a college friend of Henry Hart, father of Bret, Margaret and two other children, and husband of Elizabeth Rebecca Ostran-der Hart. Henry Hart died in 1845 and eight years later (1853) the widow Hart came to California to wed the wras engaged hen she sailed from New York and she and the colonel were married in a San Francisco hotel on the day of her arrival The next year (1854) Bret and Margaret arrived, stayed one night in San Francisco and next morning ferried across the Bay aboard the Clinton to make their home with their mother and new stepfather in the new Williams' home at Fifth and Grove Streets.

Bret was then but 17 years old. Neither biographer Stewart nor Henry Childs Merwin who wrote 'The Life of Bret Harte" in 1911 were able to determine how long Bret lived in Oakland. They tell of Mary Tingley, a little girl who visited the house next door to Mayor Williams home, and in later years recalled Bret Harte as a lad of no importance. They also say he worked for a time in the apothecary shop of a Mr. Sanford.

The day before Bret and Margaret arrived was an election day in Oakland and 368 votes were cast Later, when Bret went out to Sycamore Valley to tutor the children of a Contra Costa County rancher, he stayed, but a short time due to homesickness for his stepfather's house and Oakland surround- ins. This was hardly compatible to his UWttiSTii looo-woenne Was a nsiM journalist in San Francisco "and an earthquake damaged the community considerable while Oakland was left fhs celebrated German geologist, has A Iowa Hill The-KnaveIn my story of Gold" in the Knave of last Dec. 17, 1 mentioned the old mining town of Iowa Hill on the Forest Hill Ridge of Placer County. As a result, a resident of the Ridge writes to say he was taking this opportunity to "defend this mountain community" and asked that a correction be made. As fond as I am of Mother Lode towns I have never before in the 25 years of writing Knave stories been accused of saying an un- kind or offensive word about any "gold days" community, though many were rip-roaring camps.

Let me review briefly my, reference to Iowa Hill. It was mentioned four times; three times in a list of old towns, and once in the following statement: "But Iowa Hill, burned by fire, we did not find." As a matter of fact, we got lost on logging roads, and the first thing we knew we were back in Forest Hill. The. statement did not mean that there was no' Iowa HilL only that "we did not find" it. In one of my churches (I am a retired Methodist minister) there was a family from Iowa Hill.

They often remarked that most of Iowa Hill burned years ago, very little left, illy critic sent along a copy of the Colfax Record of Dec. 14 which carried a brief story about Iowa Hill. I quote: "Now that it does not pay to mine gold, the population of Iowa Hill has dwindled to a few permanent- resident's and a number of weekend and summer people who have cabins in the area," the Record read. In the same article this statement: 4 The town consists of a post office, store and bar we do not know for sure when the present post office and store were built it still remains in use with its iron doors." Honestly, I thought there was more to the old town than the Record reported. A picture in this same issue of the Record shows Iowa Hill with these old structures.

I am sure that no descendant of Iowa Hill's pioneers would feel that I intended any offense to the memory of the dear old town. If the letter writer took it that way, I am sorry. He speaks of himself as "one of the late comers to the pio-" neer town of Iowa Hill." Perhaps that-explains the matter. John W. Winkley.

Down Memory Lane Riding the Creek Route Ferry was: one of A. R. McPhails greatest ures in the years gone by. "Just walk-: ing aboard the ferry at the old Ferryt Building in San Francisco and climbing-to the upper deck where you could sit aft and watch the crowds come aboard was a lot of fun," he recalls. "I'm thinki ing chiefly about the days before the" automobile, when wagons and teams; were placed aboard by the the boat moved away from the slip you could watch the San Francisco shoreline recede in the distance and spot various landmarks of interest.

The first view would be all the way up -Mart ket, then the Shot Tower west of Third St, or Telegraph Hill and the old homes on Rincon Hill. By the time the ferry reached Goat Island you would have strolled foredeck and made ready for the voyage up the estuary. To your left was the lighthouse, that marked the estuary entrance, and that stretch of the Bay that has since been filled to become a part of the Naval Supply Depot I remember when these shores were a good place to take a dip on warm summer days. The ferry moved slowly up the estuary, just as though the skipper knew you wanted time to viewthe shipyards. Then there was more fun ahead when the ferry docked at the slip at the foot of Broadway.

You could watch the teams and wagons move in procession over the gangplank, pedestrians edging their way ashore between wagons and horses. Most interesting of all were the Chinese vegetable men disembarking with long poles carried basket on-either end. They would break into a dog trot and be on their way to Oakland's Chinatown. Every moment of the ferry ride-as a pleasure, all for the 5ig sum of cents." THE KNAVE One of the largest oak trees that gave endeavored to explain this singular fact by suggesting that there, are some things the earth cannot swallow a statement that should be received with some caution, as exceeding the latitude of ordinary geological speculation." Those Fleeting '50s What kind of a town was Oakland like in the 1850s when Colonel Williams ascended to the mayorship, and young Bret Harte and his sister, Margaret roamed the streets? We found the -weekly Alameda County Gazette published at San Leandro in 1857 in the -Bancroft Library and noted that the Eagle Hotel on Broadway between Second and Third Streets had just been taken over by Davis, proprietors who boasted of the inn's commodious facilities and pointed out that the hotel was "contiguous to the steamboat landing." The Accommodation Stage Line was being operated by James Linfoot and Patterson Conner. Stages would leave San Leandro (the county seat) daily to connect with the first boat for San Francisco leaving San Antonio, then return with pasengers from San Francisco.

The same stage also con nected with the last boat for San Fran clscoTUnorWas also Tproprietor of the San Leandro House. A social ball was advertised for Aug. 27, 1857, at the Estudillo House in San Leandro. Tickets sold, for $5 and music was to be furnished by the Chris Cotillion band. A.

D. McDevitt and John Ross were painters and glaziers on Third St. in Oakland, while S. D. Parker had his Union Exchange Saloon up for sale in San Leandro.

B. F. Rynders was mer-chandizer of dry goods, clothing, groceries, wines, liquors and segars at the Brooklyn Cheap Store. George Lee operated Lee's Gardens in Oakland, and A. H.

Myers had the Pioneer Nursery in Alameda. More About Bret It is the opinion of Dr. Rockwell D. Hunt that California rightly claims Bret Harte for her literary Hall of Fame. "He was one of the 'Incomparable Three" Mark Twain, Joaquin Miller, Bret Harte he avers.

"Evidence of his literary interest began to appear in his early childhood. He read extensively and at the age of 11 had a poem in a New York newspaper. His talent in writing was unmistakable His father nmfe "Vounir- (and) the straightened circumstances of the family explain the deprivations suffered bv Frank, as he was usually several different cities. He went to fnf I- 'i i 1 1 work at 13. At 16 he became self-supporting.

The widowed mother came to California in 1853 and married an Oakland man. The following year the son also came, while yet a mere youth. He worked at such odd jobs as he could find, but was close to the border line of poverty. Howrever, even under the most difficult conditions he felt the urge to write, for he had dedicated himself to a life of writing. If he did any mining at all it was quite negligible.

His firsthand acquaintance with gold diggers and lheir way of living didr however, find lodgment in his lively imagination and furnished the needed background for the stories that afterward made him famous. He was able to describe with accuracy the vividness because of his experience as a Wells-Fargo Express guard. It was in 'I860 that he went to San Francisco to become a typesetter for The Golden Era, in whose columns his writing soon began to appear. Other writers who were becoming famous included Charles Warren Stoddard, Sam Clemens (Mark Twain), Joaquin Miller, Ina Coolbrith and Frances Victor. In August of 1862 he married Anna Griswold of New York.

He had begun to be recognized as a literary leader. Fortunately, his student habits had not been forgotten. He was particularly diligent in studying Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne and Irving. And he gave special attention to his personal appearance; with his stylish clothes he no longer looked like the typical frontiersman but more like a literary gentleman. In the course of time a leading bookseller, A.

Roman, sought him out and invited him to be the editor of a proposed new magazine. At first he was skeptical, but after enlisting the interest of trusted friends, including W. Bartlett, Noah Benjamin Avery and W. V. Wells, he agreed to take the editorship.

The Overland Monthly Many titles were considered for the new magazine," Dr. Hunt adds. "Among these were the Pacijic Monthly West, Sunset, Occidental, and still others. The story is told in its first issue that appeared in July of J868. Bret Harte thought that nothing could more appropriate 'for the title of a lit erary magazine than to call it after this bfoad highway' through the- western country.

The grizzly bear crossing the' ailroad-track-( to-be-corapletedHhe fol- lowing year) was chosen as the fitting insignia for the cover of the new magazine. The huge grizzly 'is crossing the track of the Pacific Railroad, and has paused a moment to look at the coming engine of civilization and 'progress and apparently recognizes his The full title of the magazine is The Overland Monthly Devoted to the Development of the Country. When I think of Bret Harte, always the Orer-land Monthly comes to my mind. Immediately following comes trooping in 'The Luck of Roaring Volume I comprises the six numbers beginning July, 1868. To have that volume now in my hands is to hold a prized book.

Note a partial list of contributors: W. C. Bartlett, B. P. Avery, Charles W.

Stoddard, Sam L. Clemens (Mark Twain), Dr. J. D. Stillwell, Noah Brooks, John Hittell, Prof.

Martin Kellogg, J. Ross-Browne, Ina D. Coolbrith, Henry George, Horace Davis. That's the list for the first volume only. For later volumes add such names as Daniel C.

Gil-man, J. D. Whitney, Prentice Mulford, John Muir, Louis Agassiz, Edward Rowland Sill, Joseph LeConte, Ambrose Bierce, S. C. VerMehr, Frances F.

Victor, Sarah B. Cooper. WTiere else can one find such a galaxy of illustrious writers? And it must never be forgotten that Francis Bret Harte was its first editor and literary pilot Bret Later Career "Harte's career as editor of the Over-. land was short; only a very few years. But he had set the mark.

He had made the name a household word," continues Dr. Hunt. "He was succeeded by Benjamin P. Avery, who a few years later was succeeded by William Bartlett. Up to this point I have said nothing about Bret Harte as a poet.

I am happy to have a volume of his poems, and to give him full credit in that field without claiming that his major claim to distinction rests upon his brilliancy as a poet. At least one of his poems may be found in each number of Overland's first volume. His humor in verse was unusual, but he also could express pathos in his lines. The Heathen Chinee' brought instant success and won immense popularity. Being a great admirer of Charles Dickens he was inspired to write 'Dickens in which perhaps stands unexcelled as a tender and beautiful tribute to the great English novelist He was lured to New and continued write.

About a decade later he was, appointed Consul at Glasgow, having lost something of his finesse as a writer as well as his unbounded 'popularity. On May victim ta cancer. WiE" liam C. Bartlett, who had known him.