Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 84

y. 10-FL Oanl43Tributu Sunday, April 29,1962 r. 7 1 fit a HERE WAS a hint from the very start that the massive 15-room dwelling James H. La- JLL tham bought for his bride at hi 3 'f I gardener, an Irish maid a Chinese cook, and a Chinese second boy. There be some today who remem- Scott Seaton driving his ourrin- hand to an English cart.

Scott went to, the stage early. He made his theatrical debut with Frank Bacon in a play then, called "The Hills of California." Bacoff had the script rewritten and called it "Lightning." It made a fortune oit Broadway. After his contract with Ba- con he joined the L. R. Stockwell Company in San Francisco.

It was with this. company that Laura Hope- Crews be came famous with Harry Miller. Movie, director Lloyd Bacon was a boy in short pants and spoke his first lines on, stage, with the Stockwell troop. Scott waV with the famed Tames Neill Company that opened Ye Liberty Theater in Oakland. In 1905 he decided to have his own company and, according to i daughter, he recalls hiring the renowned D.

W. Griffith at $60 a weefc Scott left the stage for awhile and entered real estate in Oakland an Berkeley. He built the first home on College Avenue between Alcatraz and Woolsey. He still owns it, although the structure has been converted into apartment flats. He returns to Oakland at least once a year jusf to "check up." Scott Seaton, 92, the man who smashed 'a jinx.

1 Lake and Jackson Streets in-Oakland for back in 1873 might be a jinx home. The house was unfinished at the time, 1 but mounting costs had bankrupted the builder, forcing him to sell. Perhaps that should have been an omen to future dwellers there, but it wasn't. At least three families called the mansion home before misfortune and even urged them to give up their palace-like residence. The house no longer stands although 80 years intervened before wreckers tore down its walnut-paneled walls and carted away the costly imported chandeliers along with the hand-carved and inlaid mantels, mirrors and bookcases.

The name of the builder is momentarily lost for this accounting, but there is a letter in James H. Latham's handwriting that tells our story's beginning. Latham wrote to his bride to say that he had an opportunity to buy the unfinished home "in the wilds of Oakland" and, after describing its possibilities, he wondered if she would "care to live there." Her husband's words didn't frighten Henrietta Marshall Latham. After all she was the daughter of Charles Mar? shall, a California miner of gold rush days who eveg. then lived at Fifth and Clay Streets itf Oakland.

Later the Mar-snails moved to 17th and Webster Streets to a more impressive home and became neighbors to their daughter. Remember, the new Latham mansion was at Lake and Jackson Streets. Lake Street is now 17th Street. At any rate, the Lathams found life well worth living in their new home. Three children blessed this union, and James H.

Latham was finding domestic bliss with Henrietta and his children a success matched only by his business acumen. "f7 4. Friends of Bancroft Grief attached itself early to the James H. Latham mansion that stood at Lake and Jackson Streets from 1873 to 1953. Mrs.

Latham returned to Oakland six weeks later with her late husband's remains the little Episcopal Church of St. Paul's overflowed with San Francisco brokers and Oakland friends. Burial was at Mountain View. Mrs. Latham didn't tarry long.

She took off for Paris with Edith, who was but 10. Edith was schooled in France, while her widowed mother sought to erase the bitter memories of the death of her husband at such an early age by finding new romance. There was another marriage, but it didn't last After Mrs. Latham's death Edith and Milton founded the Latham Foundation as a memorial to their parents. None of the three children married.

Milton died in 1921. Edith passed away in 1951. Taking a quick glance back at this family we find they sold their big home with the mansard roof to Dr. Hugh J. Glenn, another veteran of the War with Mexico, and a man who would carve his name on California history as a wheat farmer unparalleled.

Little did Dr. Glenn suspect the misfortune that was to befall him when he moved his happy family into the Latham mansion at Lake and Jackson Streets. IT WAS in'1881 that Dr. Glenn and his family moved into the former Latham home 'at Lake and Jackson. 'Only 15 months went by when tragedy in a much more violent form struck.

Dr. Glenn was a reputed millionaire and had the greatest wheat acreage in California in addition to cattle lands in Oregon and Nevada. Mrs. Glenn and one of her three sons were at the Oakland mansion when a telegram arrived saying her husband had been murdered. It happened at Jacinto, the Glenn home in Colusa County" where the doctor had thousands of acres In wheal It that Dr.

Glenn was' shot, as he passed along the porch of the Jacinto Hotel by a man named Harum Miller. Dr. Glenn had been Miller's benefactor; had made a job for him at the ranch as a bookkeeper. But Miller was a drunkard and the doctor was forced to discharge him two days prior to the killing. Miller carried his shotgun about the village and hotel on the pretext of readying it for a raffle.

The two men passed on the hotel porch on this February day in 1883, and as Dr. Glenn walked 10 or 15 feet beyond, Miller raised the gun and fired. The discharge tore away a portion of the skull but he. lived until 9 o'clockthat night. Two of Dr.

Glenn's employes chased Miller as he fled and one was forced to shoot him in the leg before he surrendered. Sheriffs deputies hustled the prisoner off to Colusa to avoid a lynching. Miller and Dr. Glenn had been boys together. Mrs.

Glenn and Miller's wife were warm friends from girlhood. Because Miller was addicted to drink, the doctor and Mrs. Glenn saw to it that the Miller family wanted for nothing. Alfonso-and Charles Glenn, two eldest sons of the Glenns, were at the ranch when the shooting took place. A daughter, Mrs.

J. W. French, was on her honeymoon in Nevada. She and French were married at the Oakland home but three weeks prior to th6 murder. She had been Ella Glenn, a graduate of Mills Seminary inVQakland.

Alfonso and Charles Glenn had married sisters, Alice and Lucy Dexter. Glenn County is named after the slain Dr. Glenn, much of the land farmed by the doctor going to make up a great portion of modern Glenn County. Once again the Latham mansion was up for sale. This time at auction.

And the unlucky bidder was Horace H. Seaton whom newspapers identified as an Oakland capitalist. HORACE H. Seaton was a native of New Jersey and a nephew of Collis P. Huntington of Southern Pacific Railroad fame who left an estate of $60 million.

They came here before the railroad was built and Collis gave Horace a partnership in the Huntington, Hopkins Hardware Co. at Sacramento. They supplied the railroad with needed material and became millionaires. Horace sold out for $250,000. He bought the Latham-Glenn mansion at auction in 1885.

Prior to that Horace H. Seaton and his family had been -living at 1167 Jackson Street. Four years after he bought the mansion Horace Seaton was dead, victim of a heart attack brought on by rheumatic gout. He was only 46. But if there had ever been a jinx on this massive home that had brought early death to so many we now come to the man who snapped the hoodoo.

He is Scott Seaton, son of Horace H. Seaton, the Hollywood actor who is now 92 years of age and still clamoring far roles on the stage, screen and for "television. Scott Seaton was reared in luxury in the mansion at Lake and Jackson. There were five servants plus an Irish coachman in livery, a German IGHLIGHT of the 15th annual meeting of the Friends of Ban. croft Library at 3 p.m.

next Sunday (May 6) in Bancroft Library on the University of California's Berkeley campus will be the unveiling of the library's latest acquisition the papers of Don Silvestre Terrazas. Prof. Harry Bernstein of Brooklyn College, a visiting professor in the Department of History at U.C., will be the major speaker. We won't try to list all of Professor Bernstein's accomplishments, but turn instead to Prof. James D.

Hart, acting director of Bancroft library during the absence of Dr. George P. Hammond who is in Europe. Dr. Hart tells us that the exhibition will differ this year from previous displays in that it will concentrate on a single subject.

"Purchase of the Terrazas collection is-of particular importance to Bancroft Library," he says. "It is the first major collection on the Mexican revolution to be acquired by any university in the United States. These personal and public papers of a great newspaperman and one of the leaders in the revolution will provide an insight into the development of modern Mexico. Don Silvestre Terrazas, born in Chihuahua in 1873, was a member of a distinguished Mexican family; the first Terrazas in the New World came to Mexico with the Hernando Cortes expedition in 1519. After discovery of mineral riches in Chihuahua the Terrazas family settled there, acquired wealth and immense holdings of land, and became leaders in political, cultural and intellectual affairs.

They were beneficiaries of the dictatorial rule of Gen. Porfirio Diaz. Don Silvestre grew up in an atmosphere of strong conservatism. He began his career as secretary to the bishop of Chihuahua in 1894 but two years later began publishing newspapers. Don Silvestre supported the candidacy of General Diaz in 1904 but in 1910 opposed the aged dictator's eighth reelection." DR.

HART points out that Don Silvestre supported Francisco Ma- THE LATHAM Square Building at Telegraph Avenue and 16th Street stands today as a memorial to the happy Oakland pioneers, James H. Latham and Henrietta Marshall Latham. What might well prove to be even a more enduring monument is the Latham Foundation for the Promotion of Humane Education with headquarters in the Latham Square Building, a project that reaches to all parts of the world with lavish scholarships and cash awards for boys and girls interested in humane endeavors. Another monument is the beautiful French designed water fountain presented the City of Oakland by the Latham children in memory of their parents. The fountain now stands in the Knowland State Arboretum and Park here, but for years it decorated a triangle at the Broadway and Telegraph Avenue gore.

This man whose name is so lavishly bestowed on the Oakland scene was a native of Ohio. He was a brother to Milton S. Latham, sixth Governor of California and then U.S. Senator and Congressman. James H.

Latham was-17 when he left home and joined the Army to fight Mexico in the war that annexed California to the United States. His brother, Milton came to California in 1850 and was Governor within 10. years. James H. Latham followed later, but hurled his' endeavors at banking and became a stockbroker.

His first success came with Wells Fargo Co. at Virginia City, Nev. The Lathams' daughter, the late Edith Latham, was born there. Not until 1870 did they return to San Francisco where James was a member of the pioneer fitted ifc 8r ills iitii LASSOFn BR SAMUEL MERRITToaklas Exchange Board. But while his business I3tm MAVOR, BUILT ADAM ACROSS WAGES JJUE THEM, DR: JOHN MARSH, IK- 1 An INLET OF 5AN hRANCISCO BAY AMD A CAUSEWAY OYER IT CRE-ATIMG A SCENICSALT WATER WEALTHIEST MAN IN SAN JOA 'was across the bay it was Oakland they called home.

By 1873 they had their mansion at Lake and Jackson Streets. LAKE IN DOWNTOWN OAKLAND WHICH IS NAMED IN HIS HONOR. QUIN VALLEY AND ITS FIRST AMERICAN 5ETTLER STILL REFUSED TO PAY. KNIVES OF THE VAQUETROS LEFT HIM DI ON THE ROAD TO HIS HOME NEAR MT. DIABLO.

THE TWO SONS that blessed the Latham household were Milton S. Latham (named for his Governor uncle) and Charles Latham. Both were law graduates of Harvard University. But already bad luck began to dog this happy family. Charles became an invalid, a misfortune that eventually caused his early death, although it didn't deter him in'authoring several works involving language translations.

Three years after James Latham and his wife were established in the Lake and Jackson Streets home they took off for the 1876 Centennial celebration in Philadelphia and a trans-Atlantic trip to Europe. dero who ousted Diaz in 1911; and when Madero was assassinated and Gen. Victoriano Huerta was put in power in 1913 Silvestre joined force's with Generals Venustiano Carranza and the famous "Pancho" Villa. "With Villa in control of Chihuahua, Don Silvestre served as secretary of government and as administrator of confis- cated property until Villa was forced out in 1915," Dr. Hart "Going into exile in the United States, Don Silvestre remained in El Paso untfl 1925 when he returned to Chihuahua to resume publication of El Corred.

Ten years later the newspaper was" forcibly closed and the presses dismantled by order of the government' and Don Silvestre spent the rest of his life in semi-retirement. He died in' Chihuahua in 1944. The Terrazas, papers consist of correspondence over a 40-year period and extensive files oi newspapers, ipcluding La Patria which Don Silvestre published in El Paso. THE KNAVE TTie California Valley quail HFRprnr I ml OU 1 Uf HU3 uwn MONEY TOWARD Nth was chosen as the state bird inapolltaken by the Audubon sogety inthe 1920s AND MADE OFFICIAL T3 THE LEGISLATURE IN 1931 4 Thp cnwrrpur- QAKIAnu They boarded the steamer Celtic aU New York arid' were bound for Queens-town when James took suddenly and violently ill. Three days out from New York he died.

He was only 47. When TION OF LAKE MeKRITT WHICH WAS PAID FOR BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTIOM LJL 1.