Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 136

i 00 cry cjp 'mmRfl vo 3 3 11 v. FIFTY years ago this week Oakland's venerable Edward Tompkins Elementary School at Fifth and Linden Streets went up in smoke. A pre-dawn incendiary act was blamed for the Aug. 21 blaze in 1914, and Oakland residents were incensed that the then 36-year-old school building should have been a. target for such evil-doers.

Within 14 months the school was rebuilt. Pupils were back at their deskjs in the new building on Oct. 11, 1915. Its continued use has made Tompkins School an 86-year-old landmark in Oakland. The school first opened on Jan.

1878, with Principal C. H. Clement in charge. All these things come to mind today because Tompkins School is now threatened with demolition. Its doors will remain closed next month when other Oakland schools reopen for the new school year.

Those pupils who would have returned to Tompkins will now go to either Cole or Lincoln Schools. The land on which Tompkins now stands will be cleared for the Acorn Redevelopment Project. There will be no more Tompkins School, once the center of world attention when Edwin Markham successfully published his poem, "The Man With a Hoe." The poem was written by Markham in San Jose in 1885, but it didn't bring him fame until 13 years later while he was principal of Tompkins School. He was principal there from 1891 to 1900. Tompkins School opened in 1878 burned in 1914 and rebuilt now it is destined for demolition schooners, the San Pablo and the Anna Johnson sailed from San Francisco on Feb.

9 and after lying becalmed several days below Hock Farm they arrived at Marysville March 11 and 12 respectively. Another schooner, the General Sigel, made better time, leaving Feb. 22 and arriving March 9, bringing pig iron for the Marysville Foundry. A fourth schooner, the Clara, with 1,250 kegs of gunpowder, arrived in April and departed with 20 tons of wheat. Lowering water forced them off the Feather, and not until a year later Mid they reappear.

First to arrive was the General Sigel on Tompkins School was built here it had such -'extras" as blackboards, grading and graveling, a fuel shed, wooden shutters, walls to deaden sound, sidewalks, a sanded picket fence, downspouts, and a name board in gilt and black letters. In addition to Principal Clement the first faculty included A. A. Johnston, Mrs. T.

Crawford, Mrs. Walker, Miss Kingman, Miss Cu-berry, Miss Stevens and Miss Gar-vey. There were 231 pupils. It was at Tompkins School on March 6, 1890, that the American flag was first raised in an hoisting to fly over an Oakland school. On Oct.

15, 1894, Tompkins became an observation school, being placed 4 under supervision of the University of California's department of peda- gogy. This led to it having the first kindergarten in Oakland. Dr. Edward Von Adelung of U.C. organized the first health study program there' in 1895.

In 1909 the first experimental playgrounds in Oakland were tried out at Tompkins and Prescott schools. day Examiner in San Francisco. His wife, Anna Catherine Murphy, slipped a copy of her husband's poem, "The Man With a Hoe," in his pocket to be read as part of his contribution to the program. The poem was suggested by Millet's famed picture of the same title. Following its publication in San -Francisco the poem was translated into 37 languages.

An elementary school was eventually named after him and New York University conferred a Doctor of Literature degree upon him in 1930. Another degree was conferred on Markham by St. Lawrence University, and the Academy of Arts and Letters elected him to membership. He died March 7, 1940, just 47 days short of his 88th birthday. The complete list of principals atTompkins includes C.

H. Clement, 1877-1881; W. F. Clawson, 1881, 1883; S. T.

Black, 1883-1884; A. F. Craven, 1884-1886; Mrs. R. R.

Johnston, 1886-1888; G. W. Frick, 1888-1891; Edwin Markham, 1891-1900; Miss A. E. Walton, 1900-1914; Miss Susan Feely, 1914-1931; Alfred E.

Baker, 1931-1934; Roy T. Granger, 1934-1948; Fredric B. Zimmerman, 1948-1963; Arthur R. Wagner, 1963-1964. TOMPKINS School was named for State Senator Edward Tompkins, an Oakland attorney who came to California from New York in the 1850s and who subsequently bequeathed to the University of California to establish the Agassiz Chair in Oriental Languages.

He was one of the first regents of the university. Tompkins first settled on Rancho Pescadero (now Pebble Beach) which he owned and later sold to -David Jacks, who later sold to the railroad. On Dec. 26, 1861, Tompkins married the daughter of U.S. Judge Fletcher Haight.

Her brother, Henry H. Haight, became Governor of California. Shortly after the marriage the couple moved to Oakland where Tompkins bought 40 acres that stretched from 14th Street up to where the Kaiser Building now stands. Tompkins had an intense interest in education and while a legislator he constantly urged appropriations for When the first two-story March 19, 1868, laden with pig iron for the Marysville Foundry. In April the schooner Jane and sloop Carolina, towed by the steamer Pioneer, docked with 1,500 kegs of gunpowder, pig iron and potatoes.

Next came the Maid of the Mill, followed by the Artful Dodger, both loaded with general merchandise. There is no evidence that the other sailing vessels came up the Feather after this tijme. The departure of the Maid of the Mill and Artful Dodger ended all opposition on the Feather for over a year." A STEAM barge designed to haul Wood to Oroville was built in Marysville in the spring of 1867 for the Union Lumber Company, the Hoffman story "Named the Hoff- AFTER the 1914 fire that destroyed the first Tompkins School building there was an attempt to rename the school after Edwin Markham. But the idea was vetoed by the school board. Markham was a native of Oregon who came to Oakland with his widowed mother in 1857.

During his boyhood he is said to have herded sheep and cattle, and worked as a farm hand. He later enrolled at the State Normal School in San Jose. He was named principal at Tompkins in 1891, but it was not until 1898 that fame came to him for his poetry. He was invited to contribute to a literary circle meeting at the home of Bailey Millard, editor pf the Sim- The Feather WHILE most boats on the Feather River in opposition to the Combination in the 1860s were steamers, a few were wind driven, according to H. Wilbur Hoffman and his History of Feather River -Navigation.

"Taking advantage of the prevailing southerly winds that gently blow up the Feather, Captain Trueworthy sent several schooners from San Francisco to Marysville early in 1867," man. reports. "Typ. qf hjs.