Santa Cruz Evening News from Santa Cruz, California • Page 9

II FEATURES EDITORIALS SECOND SECTION PAGES NINE TO TWELVE! Vol. 59 No. 27 SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORIA, SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1937 Elihu Anthony, Pioneer Of 1847 Was God Fearing Man And Santa Cruz' First Progressive Business Leader Father of protestantism in Santa Cruz was blacksmith who moved business district from old mission plaza on the hill to "the flat" by laying out lots along east side of what is now on city maps as Front street. Methodist circuit rider of Indiana who came as pioneer to Santa Cruz in 1 847 lived until 1 905, to see village of hundred or so Mexicans grow to city of ten thousand in which he had had part in many improvements. old deed shows that on the preceding August 28, Dunleavy had sold 20 "Spanish acres" of the Laguna Rancho to James and Squire Williams for $100.

It was signed by Dunleavy and "Mary Ann Dunleavy," although of his wife there is no other record. I Anthony established his blacksmith shop about where the Mission Garage now stands at the head of pacific avenue. Doing the iron work on the ox carts which hauled lumber around; the bay to Monterey, making bridle bits and spurs, he began to accumulate a little money and put a small stock of hardware and other goods in the same building with his shop. "OWNED ANTHONY'S BLUFF" The hill along which School street runs extended to the river bank then and the sloping ground had not been used by the native Californians, who had preferred the level terrain around the old mission. Elihu went before Alcalde Blackburn and got title, not only to thejpoint of the hill, which for years was known as "Anthony's as well as to the low land along the west bank of the river, which then ran closer to what is now Front street than it does now.

MADE PICKS FOR GOLD MINERS Back of his blacksmith shop Elihu established a When, in 1848, news of the discovery "of gold on the Sacramento river reached' here he flattened ship's bolts and made eighty-seven picks. Fallon, who had built story and a half wooden house on the hill and had been making saddle frames to earn his living, "off to the mines." With him Fallon took the seven and a quarter dozen picks which he sold at Georgetown for three ounces of gold apiece. At the value put on gold in those days the picks brought about $4500. MADE NEW BUSINESS DISTRICT "Anthony's Bluff" marked the north end of the flat which is today the business district of Santa Cruz. It was a barrier to traffic from the north and redwood logs and lumber brought down the "road to the redwoods" went up over Mission Hill by what is now Potrero street and down the gulch which is Mission street, or down Green street to the beach.

Elihu's purchase of the river front land which runs from the present Mission Garage building south to Cooper street was in 1848. "There was great opposition to having the town located there," he related forty was one of the first from Santa Cruz to be By LEON ROWLAND A GOD FEARING MAN and a progressive citizen was Elihu Anthony. He laid out the first two real estate I subdivisions in Santa Cruz, he built the I city's first wharf, he expanded his black-I smith shop into an iron foundry, he was I Santa Cruz' first postmaster and he was I largely instrumental in establishing the I city's first protestant church. One of his two subdivisions was resi- dential. It was 21 lots on either side of a short 20-feet wide street at right angles to I and at the lower end of what is now School street.

The other was a business district, which ran from the foot of Mission street along-the east side of what is now Front street to the wagon trail from the ford I across the San Lorenzo, which is now on I the maps as Cooper street. 1 Lots in his business district on "the I flat" brought $100. They were 60 feet I wide and 200 feet deep. I MOVED BUSINESS TO "THE FLAT" The upper plaza, the court yard of the 'old mission, had up to that time been the center of both business and residences and 1 Anthony secured his tract-on the-flat for which was the filing fee he paid William Blackburn, the Virginia carpenter and cabinet maker who was acting 5 as alcalde under the survival of Mexican law which prevailed until the organization of the county and state in 1850. Elihu Anthony, who arrived in Santa Cruz on December 24, 1847, and lived nearly 58 years until his death in 31905, had learned the blacksmith's trade 8from his father in his youth, but had been fl'ive years a circuit rider in Indiana after ibeing ordained as a Methodist minister be-jfore he decided to go west to the Oregon California Battalion in California in 1846, who two years later married a daughter of Michael Lodge, an Irishman married to Martina Castro and living at Soquel.

LEFT WIFE IN SANTA CLARA The two made the trip together across the mountains, starting early on the morning of December 23, leaving Elihu's young wife and her two babies in Santa Clara. They stayed that night at Isaac Graham's place on the Zayante, sleeping in the cabin of a man named Green, and coming on to Santa Cruz the next morning. Dunleavy had just finished erecting the first wooden building on "the It was built of split redwood shakes and stood on a site just in the rear of where the present Veterans' Memorial building is. DUNLEAVY WAS LAND OWNER Dunleavy had acquired, at the same time he bought the Rancho de la Laguna from Gil Sanchez. 60 acres also from the old Mexican, on the west side of the ditch and line of willow trees, which had marked the boundary of the old mission garden.

The only use he made of it was to grow potatoes on the spot where the Pacific Ocean house was to be built 20 years later. To the west of his potato patch was a marsh. As Anthony afterward related, "The clover and grain were up high enoueh to mow when I arrived. "Dunleavy said to me, 'Tomorrow is Christmas. Suppose we go and shoot some He had no bullets for his gin but used slugs to kill the geese, which we found in large numbers.

All you could see of the geese were their heads; their bodies were hidden by the clover and grass." GEESE FOR CHRISTMAS DINNER One can picture the two ex-circuit riders from the middlewest, eating their Christmas dinner of wild geese, in Dunleavy's little split-board shack, which survived until the latter eighties, its last year's being as a chicken house back of Goodwin's livery stable. They probably did not do their own cooking, however. An country. CROSSED PLAINS IN 1847 Born in New York state in 1818, he was almost 29 years old when, with his ICouncil Bluffs early in 1847 for the west. WWKKWlWb il mill He had been married in 1845 at Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Sara Van Anda, who cared for her baby daughter, Louisa, through the months trip with the wagon train across the prairies, and gave birth SYSTEM SERVED UNTIL 1876 Building owners in the "lower part of which meant along the two sides of Front street as far south as Cooper, wanted the new service too, and it was promised as soon as the new logs could be bored and laid.

The system was completed by the following October and did service until 1876 when the Santa Cruz Water Works was formed and started to pump water to a reservoir on the hill between Potrero and High streets, which is still in existence. The early day attempt at pumping proved too expensive, however, and the company went to the east side, laid a line of flume down East Branciforte creek and put in a small reservoir there, from which it pumped to the other. EARLY WATER RATES The rates established by Anthony and Hihn in 1859 were from $1.50 to $2.50 a month for private families, with $4 a month for a private fire hydrant. There were no public ones. Elihu Anthony was also Santa Cruz' first postmaster, establishing the office in his store at the upper plaza He operated his foundry until 1864, when he leased it to S.

W. Kirby and W. H. Martin. His building at the upper end of Pacific avenue he replaced in 1875 with a two story structure, providing on the upper floor "Anthony's which was scene of social affairs and public meetings.

The building of 1875, removed to Bulkhead and Water streets, was torn down two years ago. HELD PUBLIC OFFICE Elihu was road supervisor for Santa Cruz township in 1851. There were only two, Pajaro being the other. He also practiced as an attorney in the early day courts, which required no rigid bar examination to qualify for their counsellors at law. In 1852 when the "court of sessions" composed of all the justices of the peace in the.

county was supplanted by the newly organized board of supervisors, Elihu Anthony was its first chairman. In 1880 he was sent to the legislature as assemblyman. Three children were born to Elihu and his wife, Sara, in the years following their arrival in Santa Cruz, Almon, Gilbert and Frank. Louisa, the baby who had crossed the plains with them, was married on September 8, 1867, to Wilbur Huntington. Bascom, who had been born on their arrival in San Jose, was a miner in Calaveras county in the eighties.

MANY OF FAMILY CAME Many relatives of Elihu Anthony followed him to Santa Cruz and made their home here for a time, while others of his family who did not make the trip across the plains achieved honors in the middle west. A cousin of Elihu's was Governor George Anthony of Kansas, and Susan B. Anthony was a relative. A brother of the Kansas governor, William D. Anthony, came to Santa Cruz in 1852 and remained until 1862 or later, operating a hardware store and serving a term from this county in the legislature.

He was a native of England who applied for naturalization here in 1856. A daughter married William II. Bias, one of three brothers of that name who came here about 1870. BROTHERS AND SISTERS Another George Anthony the name ran in the family who was a brother of Elihu, was in Santa Cruz from 1856 to 1872, serving two terms as supervisor. In his latter years he lived at Lompoc, to which so many Santa Cruzans removed.

A third brother was the Rev. C. V. Anthony of Oakland. A sister of Elihu was Mrs.

A. M. Prin-gle, who later became Mrs. Joseph Stewart of Lompoc. She was the mother of Reuben, William and Charles Pringle.

Another sister was Mrs. Harriet Hinton of Blackburn Gulch and a third was Mrs. Lydia Burnett. Elihu's wife, Sara van Anda, died on October 5, 1898, in the home at the lower end of School street, which was torn down only a couple of years ago. Elihu survived until August 16, 1905, in his eighty-seventh year, after he had seen the village of only a hundred or so Mexicans grow to a city of ten thousand people.

years later, "The idea was laughed at. The residents of the upper plaza thought the botton land was worthless. COST WAS $3.62 V2 "I secured it for a mere song in fact I just paid $3,6212 for filing the papers with Alcalde Blackburn. I divided it into lots of 60 by 200 and sold them for $100 apiece. "Lots for business purposes, on the upper plaza, were held for twice that, so, when the mining excitement began to cool off somewhat and Santa Cruz began to fill up again, I sold my lots on the bottom easily, a boom set in and the hum of the ax and the buzz of the saw were heard." HOTEL OF SPLIT BOARDS One of the first buildings to go up was the "Santa Cruz House," a hotel on about the site of the present post office.

It was first built of split redwood, but it was later rebuilt into a two story structure of sawed boards, with a wooden porch roof along the front and hitch rails for saddle horses and teams. Anthony was the leading business man and progressive citizen of Santa Cruz of his day. Supplies for his foundry and goods for his little store, in-which Adna Hecox became a partner in 1849, had to come by schooner or by the slow and expensive haul over the mountains from San Jose. BUILT FIRST WHARF So Anthony built Santa Cruz' first wharf. It was on the beach between the present sites of the Casino and the municipal wharf.

When the powder works were established a couple of miles up the San Lorenzo in Civil War times the same site was used for its wharf for loading its powder aboard ships and for unloading the nitrate which it brought from South America. Despite his business activities Anthony continued as a church leader. On a visit to San Francisco in 1848 he had preached in the school house there; and in Santa Cruz he felt the lack of a church. In January of 1850 he joined with three other Santa Cruzans, all of whom had been "preachers" back east, in bringing here the Rev. William Taylor to establish a Methodist church.

FELT NEED OF CHURCH Services had been held, with Hecox as minister, first in the old adobe Eagle Hotel and later in the residence of John D. Green, at which is now Green and Mission streets, but the man who later became Bishop Taylor on his visit here preached in a room in the residence which Elihu Anthony had built on the point of "Anthony's Bluff." Taylor wrote that he found a class of twenty members in Santa Cruz, of whom four had been preachers before coming west. On a second visit here, on April 13, 1850, Taylor renewed the preaching licenses of the four, Elihu Anthony, Adna A. Hecox, H. S.

Loveland and Enos Beaumont FRONT STREET WAS MAIN STREET Elihu's business district along the east side of Front street it was called Main street then was well built up by the latter fifties when he, with a young German merchant, Frederick A. Hihn, decided the new part of town needed a water system. The old mission ditch, flowing from the Tres Ojos del Agua on the hills to the west, was still running in the artificial ditch across the upper plaza and down School street. At the lower end, on "Anthony's Bluff," at an elevation of fifty feet above the level of "the they excavated, with permission of the board of village trustees, a hole in the chalk rock. WATER PIPES WERE LOGS The reservoir was 60 by 40 feet and held 80,000 gallons.

Pipes were made by boring four inch holes in 12 inch redwood logs and fastening them end to end. The first service was to Anthony's own building and several other structures along the north side of the "San Jose Trail" which is now Water street. On Saturday, December 24 this was in 1859, twelve years to a day after Anthony's arrival in Santa Cruz, the water was turned into the new system. Out of a three-quarter inch nozzle it threw a stream thirty feet into the air. jto a son, Bascom, on the evening of the ar- jnval ot the family at Santa Clara on Octo Methodist Preacher Who Came In 1 847 Had Many Firsts In Santa Cruz To His Credit ber 13, 1847.

I The original intention was to go to the Willamette, where a Methodist colony was I growing up, but at Fort Hall Anthony and Ja number of others heard the stories of 'California and branched away, heading 'for Sutter's Fort on the Sacramento, and fgoing to Santa Clara after a short stay at the establishment of the hospitable old jSwiss. CAME TO BE BLACKSMITH Building done by the United States army at Monterey was responsible for Eli-hu's decision to come to Santa Cruz. James G. L. Dunleavy, a "preacher" who had jbeen an overland immigrant in 1846, had "come to Santa Cruz late in the summer of 1847 after an unhappy and turbulent noli- tical career in San Francisco early in the year.

Dunleavy's failing was strong drink. He had been municipal clerk of San Fran cisco in February under Alcalde William A. Bartlett and had been elected to the town council proposed by Fremont, but had, it is said, got uproariously drunk on the night of his election. Whatever his reason, Dunleavy came to Santa Cruz early in July, apparently with some money, for he bought the Rancho Arroyo de la Laguna, up the coast Elihu Anthony was the first postmaster of Santa Cruz. He was the first chairman of the board of supervisors.

He built the city's first wharf. He helped organize the first protestant church here. He helped build the city's first water system. He moved the business district from "the hill" to "the flat." He established the first, foundry in Santa Cruz. He laid out the first residential subdivision.

In the fifty-eight years that Elihu Anthony, the circuit rider from Indiana who came here when he was 29 years old, saw the town grow from a handful of Cali-fornian Mexicans around the mission, and an equal number in Branciforte, to a city of ten thousand. To his credit as a progressive citizen the city owed many of its measures which kept it in step with the rest of the world. The builder of the first wharf here saw railroads, telephones, gas, electricity, street cars all operating in his town. a few miles, for $800 from Gil Sanchez, and acquired all of the "flat" which is now the business district of Santa Cruz, west of Pacific avenue and north of Maple street. ARMY WAS HAULING LUMBER Dunleavy sent word to Anthony, who had found work in San Jose, that the United State sarmy was buying timber cut from the redwood stand in the San Lorenzo canyon just north of the present city limits, and hauling it around Monterey bay to erect buildings at Monterey.

The hauling, by ox team and carts, required the services of a blacksmith. Anthony found in San Jose Thomas Fallon, a veteran of the Texas war for independence and of the fighting by Fremont's ISIIIID.