USA > California > California gold book : first nugget, its discovery and discoverers, and some of the results proceeding therefrom > Part 26
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
376
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
through the shrubbery afford an endless change of scenic bits and views.
The parent company was the Coronado Beach Company. Since its organization the Coronado Water Company has been formed, and has piped distilled water to every lot in the place. In 1890 a mineral spring, flowing a great quantity of water of medicinal value, and known and appreciated throughout the United States, was discovered, and necessitated the formation of the Coronado Mineral Water Company. The water is bottled at Coronado Heights, near the mineral spring, on the mainland, and is shipped every- where in large quantities. Several other companies, all integral parts of the parent company, have been formed, and are in active operation, as the Coronado Railroad Company with its twenty-five miles of road, and the San Diego & Coronado Ferry Company, with two capacious steamers.
Beautiful as all else is, it is the Hotel del Coronado which attracts the thousands to this Eden by the sea. It covers more ground than any hotel in the world, and possesses more attractive features than can be claimed by any other dozen resorts on the known earth, and out of nearly half a million visitors not one has ever been known to discover a feature in house, cuisine, management or location, about which a complaint could be framed. One distinguished visitor says it is a " marvelous institution ;" another that it is "unrivaled in the world ;" and a third that it is "the finest I have ever seen, and I have seen them all." The California Gold Book ranks it with what it imag- ines Paradise to be, and believes that one could dream away all of life reclining on the surf-washed gallery,
377
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
and watching the tireless waves roll in with their stores of ferns and grasses from the islands of the ocean. It is an existence of which one never tires; for the view changes with every moment, and is always grand and enchanting. It is the spot in which to commune with the Creator, and acknowledge the unlimited extent of His power. Like it there is none other, and the wonder is not that so many return again and again to the lotus- scented atmosphere, but that they can ever summon the determination to leave at all.
In 1890 John D. Spreckels bought out the interest of Mr. H. L. Story in all the varied concerns of the Coro- nado Beach Company, and became president thereof, with E. S. Babcock vice president and general man- ager. Prior to that the Spreckels Brothers Commer- cial Company had been established at San Diego, and their immense wharf and coal bunkers nearly com- pleted. In the construction of wharf, coal bunkers and warehouse, Spreckels & Company expended over $200,000, and what is very characteristic of this family, and very unusual in the improvement of harbor prop- erty which is certain to conduce to the benefit of State and National governments, no application was made for help from either to the extent of one cent. These gentlemen determined what would answer the require- ments of their own vast and growing commercial business, and expended money of their own therefor, making everything as strong and capacious as any Government engineer would have considered needful. The wharf is 3,500 feet long. Its width gradually becomes greater as it runs out from the shore, com- mencing with fifty feet and terminating with seventy- five feet at the twenty-six foot water line. It will
378
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
accommodate eight of the largest vessels afloat. It was built at a cost of over $90,000. The coal bunkers on the wharf have a capacity of 13,000 gross tons. They are 650 feet long, thirty feet wide and thirty feet in depth. The machinery is of the most modern and best improved type, and in point of efficiency second to none in America. The wharf is situated at the foot of G street, and has a track connecting it with the southern California railroad. Ships are unloaded directly into the cars, which may be either emptied into the company's large warehouse, or forwarded to the interior or the East, as occasion may demand. The work was completed in good time, and in the most thorough manner, and is ready for the uses of the National navy should a sudden emergency render its use necessary.
No member of the Spreckels family, father or sons, has ever been known to make a business mistake. When John D. and Adolph Spreckels diverted a very heavy capital in the neighborhood of two million dollars, to the improvement of San Diego and Coronado, and so soon after the collapse of the boom, a belief in the recuperative power of that section was engendered, and every interest took on new life. Besides the great impetus given commercial interests on the wharf, and the assurance that the Coronado Beach Company would never lack funds for its greatest and most rapid development, the Spreckels brothers bought out the street railroad companies, and have been spending fortunes in making them ample for all the require- ments of the growing city. Nearly all the horse car roads have been changed into electric lines, and are being extended to the city limits as fast or faster
379
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
than these are settling up. Capt. Charles T. Hindes, of the Commercial Company, not only has general supervision of that great interest, but is the right hand of the Spreckels brothers in executing their gigantic plans for the improvement of San Diego, its land- locked harbor, and Coronado Beach. To return to Coronado Beach an extract from the San Diego Union's great annual for January 1, 1893, may well close this article.
The North island (1,300 acres) is yet intact, and is owned by the Coronado Beach Company. Part of it is under cultivation, while the rest of it makes an excellent coursing ground for rabbits. A fine pack of greyhounds is owned by the hotel, and this makes one of the most attractive features of the sports the hotel guests are privileged to enjoy. Here vast fields of grain wave, fanned by the breath of the salt sea spray. Here, too, are situated the marine ways capa- ble of lifting large ships ont of the water for repairs. Here, too, is the proposed site for the big military post, than which a more appropriate or commanding posi- tion does not exist. The drive back from the kennels or the company's barns is one of great beauty, and is a favorite one with horseback parties. The hotel, seen from this drive, with the curling breakers lapping its terraces on one side and the variegated shrubbery on the other sides forming a setting for this gem, makes a pretty foreground, while the cottages scattered over South island, with the distant hills beyond Glorietta bay in the background, completes a pleasing picture indeed. There is nothing palatial about the houses on Coronado Beach; nothing pretentious either ; but there is an air of comfort, of neighborliness
380
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
and of open-heartedness in the quaint styles of archi- tecture, the fenceless grounds and the open door's which is inviting, and the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land never assails the visitor to Coronado. Among those who have built here are Captain Charles T. Hindes, resident partner and manager of the Spreckels Commercial Company ; J. Malcolm Forbes, the Bos- ton capitalist and owner of America's famous trotting queen, Nancy Hanks ; Charles Nordhoff, who had all the world to choose a home in ; K. H. Wade, general manager of the Santa Fe system in southern Califor. nia, whose office is in Los Angeles, General T. E. Webb, a mining capitalist, and many other wealthy people from the East. Many others from the Atlantic States have bought lots here, and will build on them later, allured by beauties indescribable, and a climate which permits surf bathing every day in the entire year.
ENRY MILLER .- One of the strangest pro- blems connected with the marvelous growth of the various important industries in California is the small number of men whose conrage, energy and genius have made the State remarkable throughout the extent of the globe. Outside of a mere handful of wonderful men, those who have helped foward the car of progress have been mere instruments in the hands of those who conceived the projects, and urged their followers to execute the vast measures they had conceived.
Very few have any positive knowledge of what has been accomplished in improving the " cattle upon a
381
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
thousand hills" and scattered over the plains of the world. Every one has been impressed with the idea that England held the first place as a producer of prime beef. It has been less than three times the years of California Statehood since the average weight of beef cattle slaughtered in Liverpool was under 370 pounds. What must have been the average weight of cattle in California prior to the discovery of gold, up to which time cattle were only useful for the hide, horns and hoofs? A very few attempts had been made by Boston skippers to improve the herds of practically wild cattle in California, by introducing a few American cattle on every trip to the Pacific coast. The object was not to obtain a better quailty of beef, but a greater weight of hide, and a possible quantity of tallow. It was such herds as these that astonished the American pioneers in 1849, and made them despair of having a supply of beef and any taste of milk and butter, until such time as real domestic cattle could be driven across the plains.
To no man is civilization so much indebted for the high rank California holds as a meat producer as to Henry Miller. A brief sketch of his business career will prove an object lesson of inestimable value to every young man who is determined to succeed.
Health and courage are prime necessities in the beginning, and even these will prove worthless unless accompanied by sterling integrity, indomitable pluck, and a determination never to neglect an appointment, nor defer until to-morrow what can and ought to be done to-day. These qualities Henry Miller possessed in their entirety, and to a strict observance of these simple rules he owes his wonderful success.
382
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
Henry Miller was born in Brackenheim, Kingdom of Wurtenburg, July 21, 1828. His early education was attended to in the schools of his native place, and while thorough was not extended. His father was a master butcher, and before his teens young Miller was drilled to know the good points of animals intended for food, and was frequently intrusted with the important duty of selecting and purchasing animals for his father's market. At the age of nineteen, he arrived in New York, and for a considerable time was employed about Washington and other New York markets, giving entire satisfaction to every employer, because he never shirked any duty. The pay, however, and the opportunities to expand, were inadequate to his ambition, and his resolute belief in what he would be able to accomplish. California seemed to promise exactly the field required by his abilities, and to Cali- fornia he came, arriving in San Francisco in 1850, with exactly six dollars in cash. He did not idle one day, nor was he attracted towards the mines by the allurement of gold. He found employment at his trade, worked with energy, and saved every dollar not absolutely required for his support. Living was high, and very poor meals cost a dollar each.
In June, 1851, Mr. Miller concluded that he had sufficient capital to warrant his commencing business for himself. He opened a shop on Dupont street, and began supplying customers with beef, mutton and pork. The latter was then selling at fifty cents per pound, and very frequently was not procurable except at the market of Mr. Miller. He was compelled to buy supplies sparingly, but there was a large profit in all the meats he handled, due mainly to the rare ability he
383
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
possessed of knowing how cattle, sheep and hogs would dress, and almost absolutely what per cent. of live weight would be sacrificed in the operation.
In 1853 his six dollars capital had increased until he was able to pay Livingston & Kincaid $33,000 cash for 300 American cattle, averaging 800 pounds per head. This deal enabled him to begin wholesaling, and his stock was handed over to marketmen at $18 and $20 per 100 pounds.
In 1857, in copartnership with Charles Lux, Mr. Miller bought 1,600 fine Texas steers at $67.50 per head. The profit on this venture was so satisfactory that Mr. Lux sold out his share a few months later, and concluding he had enough went East in the spring of 1858. He came back in September of the same year, and the firm of Miller & Lux, known most favor- ably in financial circles the world over, was consum- mated. This firm existed until the death of Charles Lnx. In its early days the firm purchased 2,000 head of cattle on speculation, and placed them on rented pastures. The cost was so great and the business was becoming so immense that Mr. Miller determined that the firm ought to own its own pasture lands. Individually he bought a part of the Bloomfield ranch, amounting to 1,700 acres, and increased his purchases there until he had 13,000 acres. This is called the home place, near Gilroy, in Santa Clara county.
Miller & Lux also began purchasing large bodies of land. The firm had been paying as high as $1 per acre rent for pasturage, and the Santa Rita ranch, on the San Joaquin river, containing 8,835 acres, was pur- chased for about $1.25 per acre, and with it 7,500 head of cattle at $5 per head. The firm also purchased the
384
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
Tequesquite and Loma Muertas ranches in Monterey and San Benito counties, and continued adding tracts until it owned about 48,400 acres located in eleven different counties, and procured at an average cost of $4 per acre. All the land owned by Mr. Miller and the late firm of Miller & Lux was choice, and some of the Bloomfield ranch and the Santa Rita ranch have been sold at $150 to $500 per acre, and considerable more could be subdivided and sold at more than $500 per acre. The company also owned tracts of valuable pasture land in Nevada and Oregon.
Miller & Lux had, at the death of the latter, not less than 100,000 cattle and more than 80,000 sheep. The number can only be given approximately. They are located on the various tracts of land owned by the firm, though an average of 20,000 sheep per year are fattened for the San Francisco market, and the sales of beef and mutton in this market by this firm will aggregate about $1,500,000 per year. Besides, when- ever there is garbage for hogs, large droves of these are raised, and great care is taken to improve the breeds of all the animals used for food.
By the efforts of Mr. Miller and his followers, the meat industry has grown to immense proportions. By careful estimate, San Francisco uses one hundred and seventy-five million pounds of fresh meat every year, and about fifteen million pounds are exported from San Francisco alone. The State contains over a million neat cattle, ten million sheep and two million swine.
As stated, Henry Miller arrived in San Francisco with six dollars cash capital, and an amount repre- sented by energy, courage, and unswerving integrity, upon which no estimate can justly be founded. Re-
385
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
duced to dollars and cents it would appear immense. By careful management, and industry which never rested, this capital has been increased in less than forty years to a cash value of probably fifteen inillion dol- lars, and the sterling integrity, courage, and energy have lost nothing by use. Mr. Miller possesses fine judgment, and the ability to decide any question instantly, and the courage to stand by his decision to the end. He is one of those rare men whose bare word is a bond. Many times, after a day of severo labor, he has rode all night simply to keep an appoint- ment. In the management of such vast affairs a small army of subordinates has been requisite, and these have always been treated with such frank courtesy that there has never been an important clash between him and his employes.
It is said that labor is practical prayer. Mr. Miller has been engaged in earnest devotion every day of his life since he was ten years old. His prayers have been answered most bountifully. He has found no time for what the idle style recreation. When his immediate interests have not commanded his exertions, mental and physical, the great interests of the State, such as irrigation, have received the support of his money and genius ; and in this direction he has changed at least 100,000 acres of practically barren waste into the most productive soil in the State. His own home at Bloom- field is an improved garden of Eden, and lovely beyond the dream of the most luxurious Oriental. Through all economic care has governed, and the waste for which wealthy Americans are noted is nowhere appar- ent. In everything-courage, integrity, energy and constant watchfulness-he has been a wise example,
386
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
and it will be well for California and the country at large if the lesson of his successful life is even partially learned and followed by those who are to succeed him.
The domestic relations of Mr. Miller have been of the happiest and most satisfactory kind. In 1858 he married Miss Naney Wilmot, sister of his partner's wife. She lived but a short time, dying in 1859. Thirteen months later he married Miss Sarah Wilmot Sheldon, neice of his deceased wife.
CHAPTER XVI.
WOMAN IN FRUIT GROWING.
The genuine lover of the human family rejoices greatly when a new avenue is opened. for the cul- tivation of the best ambitions of women. Chief among the many advantages resulting from the discovery of gold in California, is that cosmopolitan principle in society which has tended to develop in women, as well as men, the power to lead and direct others in almost all industrial enterprises, and especially in the import- ant line of fruit production. In that they have shown their fitness to a remarkable degree. In every detail from preparing the ground, selecting the trees and vines, pruning, cultivating, and superintending the picking, packing, shipping and marketing of the product, they have been granted no advantage over their brothers, and yet they have proved that it was exactly the call- ing suited to the peculiarities of their genius, and in every case, so far as we can learn, they have proved pre eminently successful. The experience of three female fruit growers will sufficiently emphasize the
387
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
truth of this position, and we hope may incite others to attempt what has been generally deemed a line of labor for which man alone was adapted.
Nine or ten years ago Mrs. Elise P. Buckingham found herself a resident of the Palace Hotel, with plenty of money to meet reasonable wants, and scarcely any time that was not required for the round of social duties exacted of a cultured, refined and fashion- able woman, with a large number of intimate friends in the highest classes in the first literary and social circles stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Mrs. Buckingham is of Scotch origin, a mem- ber of one of the most noted families in the East, her grandmother, Martha Hamilton, having been a descend- ant of the Duke of Hamilton, and married to an officer in the Revolutionary war. The old family homestead was known as Sir William Johnston's Hall and is yet a show place finely preserved at Johnstown, Fulton County, New York. Mrs. Buckingham received a thorough education at the Ingham Institute, Le Roy, New York. She married there and removed to Janes- ville, Wisconsin, when she was yet in her teens, and soon after again removed, and this time to California. By instinct and culture, and those nice charming quali- ties which mark the refined lady; beauty of form and face, and possessing perfect health, she would be recognized in any assemblage as the one who would be the most sought after by the discerning. We men- tion these qualities in evidence that Mrs. Buckingham was a success in the favored position she occupied, and we know from random sketches which have been published from her pen, both in this country and Europe, that she would have been an equal success had she selected a literary or any other profession.
388
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
Nine years ago a talented son, T. Hugh Buckingham, was about ready to graduate from his scholastic studies, and would then demand something to do. In looking around for an investment for her money, Mrs. Buck- ingham heard of a ranch near Vacaville, some fifty miles from San Francisco, which was in the market, and which might return a fair profit if divided up and sold in lots of smaller acreage. Vacaville, and, indeed, all of Solano county, then gave promise of being specially adapted to the profitable growth of fruit ; and it had become known throughout the East as send- ing the most luscious fruit to market earlier than any other locality in California. Before making the pur- chase, Mrs. Buckingham visited those owning adjoining lands, and bargained with them to take a portion of the purchase off her hands at prices which would give her a nice profit. The ranch was then a stubble field, a good crop of grain having just been harvested. There was a house on it with a history. About 1850 it had been constructed in Kennebec, Maine, and shipped around Cape Horn to Benicia, California. In fact it was intended for four residences, one being a story and a half high, and the others one story. Jose Demetri Pena, a wealthy Mexican, then owned the ranch, and he purchased all four houses, hauled them to Laguna valley, and placed them end to end, making a building 125 feet long, and 18 feet wide in the widest part. A porch extended the entire length, and accord- ing to the fashion prevailing the only way of going from one room to another was by passing out to the porcb Every room opened on the porch, and did not have a connecting door. Senor Pena was engaged in cattle raising, and later planted his ranch to grain.
389
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
He did plant a few vines of the old Mission variety, a few peach trees, ten or twelve pear trees, and half a dozen fig trees. These remained on the ranch when purchased by Mrs. Buckingham, and showed such won- derful growth and perfect health, being now thirty years old, that all her intentions in regard to the dis- position of her experimental purchase were changed.
Soon after Mrs. Buckingham made this investment, she had a business conference with her son, who, though a mere lad, and wholly inexperienced in any class of farm or ranch work, was rich in courage and hope, and insisted that he and a much loved class associate of his own age, directed by his mother, could cultivate the ranch in fruit, and could make a greater profit than could be obtained from the would-be purchasers, besides giving him congenial and much desired employment. That was the course determined upon, and the whole ranch of about 400 acres was retained intact. Practical people gave an outside limit of five years in which Mrs. Buckingham and her college boy assistants would sink the capital invested, fail utterly, and, as the more brutal put it, find a home in the poorhouse. This was more than eight years ago. There has never been an interval when improvements were not in progress, and the pros- perity of every interest of the marvellously clean and well cultivated orchard and vineyard at high tide. The house was remodeled to accord with comfort and con- venience, the wheat fields plowed so deeply that they were practically subsoiled, and as many acres as possi- ble, year by year, placed in pears, prunes, apricots, nectarines, peaches and cherries. Twenty acres are in prunes, and more are to be planted. Twenty acres are in cherries, and about the same amount in pears. There
390
CALIFORNIA GOLD BOOK.
are seventy acres of choice varieties of table grapes, and in seasons of average moisture these may be picked over three times, being really three crops. Most of the Lagunita rancho is in fruit. The crop of pears for this vear-1892-netted clear of every conceivable expense, $196 per acre, and the trees are only about seven years old, and have barely begun to produce. Mrs. Bucking- ham sold eight pound boxes of cherries in the Chicago market, at a price which netted her $6 per box. This was because they were intelligently graded, artistically packed, and reached the market ahead of any others from any where. The pear venture was so satisfactory that forty-five acres additional were planted last fall. There does not seem to be any scent of " poorhouse " in these achievements. For two seasons young Mr. Buckingham has had charge in the main of the fruit interests, assisted by his whilom college mate, Mr. Hamilton Boyce, who is thoroughly in touch with the prosperity of the Lagu- nita rancho.
Three years ago Mrs. Buckingham was offered nine hundred and thirty acres of partially improved land a little over a mile distant from her home, and separated from the Laguna valley by a hill of moderate size. She could buy it on time by mortgaging her own home to secure the payment of $100,000. Having never owed a dollar in her life, even a consideration of the proposition was approached with fear. Finally the bargain was closed, and was followed by three days of seclusion and anxiety. Then hope returned, and her plans for disposing of the tract were systematized. First the county surveyor cut it up into lots conven- ient for handling, and wide avenues were provided between each tract. When ready for the market it
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.