History of Alameda County, California : including its geology, topography, soil, and productions, Part 53

Author: Munro-Fraser, J. P
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Oakland, Calif. : M.W. Wood
Number of Pages: 1206

USA > California > Alameda County > History of Alameda County, California : including its geology, topography, soil, and productions > Part 53

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It has been elsewhere stated that on August 23, 1820, the Spanish Government, on account of services rendered to his country, granted to Don Luis Maria Peralta an estate comprising no less than five leagues of land of the fairest territory on the Pacific Coast. In this was included the Encinal de San Antonio, now known as Alameda Township, which he transferred to his son Antonio Maria, who held it intact until the year 1850, when he leased a portion of it to two Frenchmen named Depachier and LeMaitre, who acquired the tract for the purpose of supplying the San Francisco market with fire-wood, the cutting of which they claimed under the provisions of their lease, but which, we are informed, actually forbade them doing so. These two gentlemen were the actual pioneer settlers of Alameda Township; the next were W. W. Chipman and Gideon Aughinbaugh, the latter of whom still resides on the peninsula.

1850 .- In a lengthy interview with Mr. Aughinbaugh he informed us that he arrived in San Francisco in the year 1849, and after keeping a grocery store at the corner of Mission and First Streets, where now stand the gas-works, he came over in September, 1850, with Chipman and subleased from Depachier and Le Maitre the eastern end of the Encinal, comprising one hundred and sixty acres fronting on San

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Leandro Bay, where they pitched their tent; the site may be described as lying south- east of Versailles Avenue. They were soon followed, indeed before the end of the year, by a Belgian named Parfait, who put up a cabin on the south side of what is now Monroe Street, between Mound and Court Streets, and three brothers named Salmon, who located on the "Sandy Point," which, on account of the depth of water, was the then landing-place for the Encinal. These last were hunters. In the mean- time Chipman and Aughinbaugh sent to the Eastern States for fruit-trees of various kinds, chiefly peach, apple, and cherry, and in May, 1851, planted them on the land now occupied by the High-street Station and adjacent tracks of the South Pacific Coast Railroad, and the contiguous lands on the northeast. Some of these trees are still standing. The next phase of proceedings on the Encinal was its purchase. Whether Colonel Henry S. Fitch intended or proposed to buy it, we have nothing to do; our duty is to record who were the actual purchasers.

1851 .- During the month of October, 1851, negotiations were commenced and consummated between Gideon Aughinbaugh and Antonio Maria Peralta, at the resi- dence of the latter in Fruit Vale, whereby the entire Encinal passed into the hands of William W. Chipman and Gideon Aughinbaugh for the sum of fourteen thousand dollars, and immediately thereafter, in the following month, they commenced the erection of the first frame dwelling-house in the township-one of those which had been brought in pieces from the Atlantic Coast to California. It may still be seen standing a little' southeast from High-street Station. As Mr. Aughinbaugh naively remarks, "money was scarce," therefore it was necessary that that essential commodity should be raised. The partners therefore determined to dispose of some of their real estate; consequently, tracts representing one-fourteenth interest were sold to Messrs. Hays and Caperton, J. J. Foley, J. J. McMurtry, H. S. Fitch, and Wm. Sharon (this last in 1852), and a one-third interest to B. F. Hibbard and C. Minturn, besides about one hundred and fifty acres to C. C. Bowman. The consideration (three thou- sand dollars) for the Fitch-Sharon one-fourteenth interest was a fifty-vara lot at North Beach, San Francisco, and the balance secured by mortgage on the interest sold. The same tract was conveyed in 1854 to Charles L. Fitch, and in 1857 he obtained possession and held it by force of arms until the "Squatter's League" then existing, declined to assist the squatter claimant to regain possession.

1852 .- In September, 1852, Chipman and Aughinbaugh partitioned off forty-three lots, each four acres in extent, in the eastern portion of the Encinal, fronting on what is now High Street, offered them for sale, and under the persuasions of the "silver- tongued" Colonel Fitch, brought an average price of eighty dollars per lot. Thus had the town of Alameda its start. Among the purchasers were the Rev. William Taylor and his brother Harvey Taylor, names which are still familiar in the Alamedan groves. About this time the Rev. A. H. Myers settled on the land already said to have been sold to C. C. Bowman, where he started the first nursery in the peninsula, while to him is also due the credit of being the first to administer to the devotional wants of the then small community. Louis Ettebleau also came in this year and erected the first hotel in the Encinal. As soon as the four-acre lots were disposed of

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HISTORY OF ALAMEDA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.

the construction of a levee across the slough between them and the point was under- taken by Chipman and Aughinbaugh, while in that year we have learned that John D. Brower lived about half a mile north of where now is the Willow-street Station of the Central Pacific Railroad. Franklin Pancoast dwelt about a quarter of a mile east of Park-street Station; Henry and Russell M. Rogers had their abode near where Chestnut Street and Central Avenue now are; Mason and Wickware, now of San Francisco, were called squatters in those days, not "capitalists," and claimed and occupied nearly all the tillable land lying between wha tis now the Fitch Tract and Webster Street, on the creek side of the peninsula, that is north of Mastick Station; Dr. B. F. Hibbard had a large two-story frame-house built from drift-lumber picked up on the beach, and situated on the tract of land purchased by himself and C. Min- turn, which may be to-day described as being situated between Clinton Avenue and the Bay-shore, and Union and Lafayette Streets.

1853 .- In the year 1853, there arrived on the peninsula Thomas A. Smith, N. W. Palmer, H. S. Barlow, A. S. Barber, and several others whose names are not now remembered, but it is pleasing to be able to state that nearly all these gentlemen still survive the "whips and scorns of time," with every prospect of many useful years before them.

1854 .- In 1854 Chipman and Aughinbaugh desired to still further increase the size of their town, and at the same time replenish their somewhat exhausted excheq- uer, for they had established the Bonita on the ferry route between San Francisco and Alameda, but she was found unsuited and was to be displaced. To these ends they laid out a number of blocks of two hundred and thirty-three feet square, con- taining lots thirty-three by one hundred feet, which realized fifteen thousand dollars at auction. With this product, the Ranger was purchased at Sacramento, replaced the Bonita, and a series of attractions known as " watermelon excursions" inaugurated. Chief among these was the offering of a lot free of expense to any one who, on acceptance, would build a house thereon. This tender was made by public advertise- ment, and produced no fewer than three hundred applicants, who were promised their title-deeds upon completion of a building, but only twenty complied with these pro- visions, and the balance were forfeited and sold by auction. Among those who fulfilled this engagement were C. C. Mason, who at once started the first livery-stable in the town, and a man named Keys who opened a boarding-house. Each of these received two lots. Still further in the hope of benefiting their property, a charter was granted in 1854, by the Legislature, to these gentlemen to build a bridge and road from Alameda to San Leandro via Bay Farm Island. Accordingly they built a bridge across the neck or mouth of the bay at a cost of about eight thousand dollars-which bridge was subsequently removed by these parties and used for constructing a wharf at the west end of the Encinal. They also proceeded to throw up a road twenty feet wide on the top, from the bridge, across the marsh to the Island, a distance of over a mile, on the roadway of which was placed a surface of oyster shells one foot deep. This sec- tion of the road cost five thousand dollars. Another section of the road was thrown up from the Island to the main-land toward San Leandro, which was not finished, but cost six thousand dollars, but from all this outlay they never had any return.

Howare Overacker

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Although the entire population of the Encinal did not muster more than one hundred souls in April, 1854, it was found necessary to undertake the glories of incor- poration, which boon was granted by the Legislature under the title of the Town of Alameda. By Section Two of that Act the boundaries were fixed as follows: "On the northwest by the northwest line of the land of James J. Foley, Jr., purchased of W. W. Chipman and Gideon Aughinbaugh, running north 3416° east from an oak- tree eight inches in diameter, on the shore of the Bay of San Francisco, eighty-nine and eighty-three hundredths chains to the line of the land of Antonio Maria Peralta; thence south 61° east along the line dividing the land of said A. M. Peralta from the land deeded to said Chipman and Aughinbaugh by said Peralta, October 22, 1851, until said division line strikes the Estero de San Leandro, at the head thereof near Romby's brick-yard; thence following down the center of said estero to its mouth, in the Bay of San Leandro; thence following the center of the channel thereof, and the deepest water along the southern border of the Encinal San Antonio, about two hundred yards from the line of ordinary high tide thereof, until the said line in the water of said Bay of San Leandro, running a southwesterly course, following the general outline of said southerly border of said Encinal, strikes the center of the channel opposite to the present steamer-landing in said town of Alameda; thence fol- lowing the center of said channel northwesterly, until the said center line strikes the first boundary line projected; thence with said boundary projected north 3412° east, to the beginning." No election of officers being held under the Act, however, it became void.

In 1854 Dr. Hibbard laid out his tract into the town of Encinal, and in the year following built out therefrom his wharf, which was afterwards so well known by his name, while not long thereafter, the town of Woodstock was planned and platted, both of which are now grafted on to the parent stem of Alameda, although deeds still speak of land being "near the town of Encinal." In this year, too, the first store on the peninsula was opened by Zeno Kelly, now of Oakland, and stood at what is to-day the corner of High Street and Central Avenue, while about this time A. B. Web- ster, father of the present County Treasurer, started the first lumber-yard.

In a town which has grown so quickly as has Alameda, it is impossible to men- tion the names of residents as they arrived and settled. This is a difficult enough task in farming districts where inhabitants are scattered over a large tract of country, but whose arrival may still be recollected from the fact of a neighbor having cast his lot in a certain section. With locators in towns, however, this is different. For a long time citizens are but "birds of passage" at best, and their coming or going causes no remark, consequently there is no beacon whereby the memory may be guided. Among the early settlers of Alameda we have the names of Doctors W. P. Gibbons and Henry Haile, the distinguished lawyer A. A. Cohen, who was the moving spirit in the establishment of the Alameda and Haywards Railroad and the San Francisco and Alameda Ferry, the late eminent and lamented Henry H. Haight, Governor of California from 1867 to 1871, E. B. Mastick, Hon. Henry Robinson, Hon. Nathan Porter, General M. G. Cobb, R. H. Magill, and many others.

1855 to 1869 .- As early as the year 1855 the attention of the public. was 25

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HISTORY OF ALAMEDA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.

attracted to the necessity of providing means of education for the few children that were then there. To this end a school-house was established in a cabin sixteen by twenty feet, standing on a lot forty by one hundred feet, part of the site of the pres- ent school-house in Old Alameda. In 1864 the school district, which then comprised the whole peninsula, was divided, and the main structure of the present Alameda School-house was built by contract for the sum of two thousand six hundred and twenty-six dollars, which sum was raised by a special tax. The furniture was pur- chased with the proceeds of a festival, given by the ladies of the town, some of whom are still residents of it, among them being Mrs. Hastings, Mrs. J. N. Webster, Mrs. A. S. Barber, Mrs. Millington, Mrs. Palmer, Mrs. W. B. Clement, and others. The old school-house was sold at auction to the late H. S. Barlow, and by him moved to Park Street, where it constituted the original Loyal Oak Hotel. What remains of it now stands in the rear of that building, and is occupied as a dwelling.

Until the establishment of the San Francisco and Alameda Ferry regular route, which sprang into life mainly through the exertions of A. A. Cohen, the mode of access to the metropolis was by means of ferries of various kinds-first the whale- boat and followed by steam communication from the several landings at Old Alameda Point, West End, and Hibbard's wharf, or by a weary, plodding journey to the slimy banks of the San Antonio Creek, across it to Oakland, and thence to the Bay City.

1869 .- On Thursday, September 16, 1869, the first number of the Encinal of Alameda was issued. The town had by this time grown to such proportions that a newspaper was felt to be needed, and F. K. Krauth, who still owns the sheet, seeing that necessity, sent forth his excellent paper to the world. In his salutatory article, the editor enters upon the "whys and wherefores" of the Encinal, and says: "Our hopes of success are based on material considerations. About five years ago this place was aroused from a state of hibernation by the whistle of a locomotive. The Alameda Railroad Company had finished and stocked a road extending from the bay to Haywards, a distance of fifteen miles. Since that time it has carried an immense amount of freight, and over two million five hundred thousand passengers; and through the uniform prudence and good judgment which have directed its oper- ations, not an accident has ever occurred to one of these. Six years ago the whole town of Alameda might have been bought for three hundred thousand dollars. Now the same property could not be purchased for four millions. And yet another era has dawned upon us, in the completion of the Western Pacific Railroad, and the termina- tion of one of its branches, which will convey its freight from Alameda wharf to the foot of Second Street. It will thus be seen that the elements of material prosperity are in activity within the limits of this little town." But scarce two months had passed when the boast of freedom from accident on the line of the railroads was dashed into nothingness. On November 14, 1869, there occurred one of those dis- tressing casualties into the details of which we need not enter, the cause being made sufficiently apparent in the following verdict of a jury of inquest held in Alameda three days after the event: "We, the jury impaneled on an inquisition held at the town of Alameda before Judge Clement, Justice of the Peace and acting Coroner for the County of Alameda, State of California, to inquire into the cause of the death of

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Alexander White Baldwin, A. Boulet, Edward Anderson, George Thompson, Charles Martin, Frank B. Milliken, J. D. McDowell, David Wand, Max Sherman, Thomas F. Sandoz, James Curly, Brunson H. Fox, and Henry L. Peterson, do find, from the evi- dence before us, that the said persons, and each and all of them, came to their death from the effects of a collision which took place between the westward-bound train of the Alameda Railroad and the eastward-bound train of the Western Pacific Railroad, near Damon's Station, in the said county of Alameda, on Sunday, November 14, 1869, at or about the hour of 9 A. M. of said day, and that the said collision was the result of and was caused by the ignorance and incompetency of the switchman, Bern- ard Kane, employed at Simpson's Station, in giving a signal to the officers of the Western Pacific train indicating that it was 'all right, go ahead,' and in saying to the locomotive engineer of said Western Pacific Railroad 'all right.' The jury further find from the evidence of said Bernard Kane, that he cannot read, and that the officer of the railroad company whose duty it was to instruct the said Kane in his duties was deceived by said Kane as to his inability to read. Dated at Alameda November 17, 1869. (Signed) H. D. Bacon, Foreman; F. K. Shattuck, F. M. Campbell, C. F. Woods, Robinson Gibbons, Charles Wood." A warrant was at once issued for Kane's appre- hension, who was acquitted on the 29th of the same month. In the month of Novem- ber, 1869, we find that the survey of the Main and Winchester tract was being pro- ceeded with, while many other improvements besides were being carried on.

1870 .- On March 19, 1870, the periodical mentioned above made its first appear- ance under the changed name of The Encinal, pure and simple, and a month after published the following sketch of the rise and progress of Alameda. The writer informs us that, " The town was originally laid out by Chipman and Aughinbaugh, with its principal street (High) forming its extreme eastern limit, and where all the busi- ness of the town centered; but on the advent of the railroad, it was deserted, and the business transferred to the neighborhood of the 'Station,' where it has since remained, and is constantly on the increase. Alameda Station, which is near the center of the peninsula, is about ten miles east of San Francisco across the bay. Its westerly point is reached by ferry-boats from the foot of Davis Street, and the road travel is made over the Western Pacific (or Alameda, as familiarly known) Railroad. Between the point of landing and Alameda there are three stations about a mile apart, viz .: Woodstock, Mastick, and Encinal. All the freight-trains from the East pass over the road, which runs through the town. The trains are at present ' switched off' at Simp- sons' from the Central Pacific Road. An extensive wharf, with weather-proof sheds for receiving and protecting merchandise in transitu has been erected at 'the point,' or landing, from whence freight is conveyed by boats to the foot of Second Street, San Francisco, without transhipment. The town contains thirteen hundred inhabit- ants. There are two public schools in Alameda, one at Encinal Station and the other in the upper town, or Old Alameda. There is also a private academy with about twenty-five pupils. Within the next twelve months, we have good grounds for believ- ing, we shall also have a first-class academy for young ladies, within a mile or two of our Station. At the head of High Street, in the old town, a new wharf has recently been erected by Moulton Brothers & Co., for the purpose of running a daily line of schoon-

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HISTORY OF ALAMEDA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.

ers in the carrying trade between Alameda and San Francisco. There are about four hundred families in the township, most of whom occupy their own premises. There are two churches-Presbyterian and Methodist-and two lodges-Masons and Odd- Fellows. From the foregoing remarks it will be seen that Alameda had made prodig- ious strides towards prosperity up till 1870; its subsequent career speaks for itself. On the 16th April of this year George L. Lewis once more started his stage line from Alameda to Oakland via San Antonio and Brooklyn, while about this time the dis- cussion of the construction of what is now the Webster Street Bridge occupied con- siderable attention.

1871 .- On January 15, 1871, the Episcopal Parish of Christ's Church was formed, and the following vestrymen elected: Thomas A. Smith, W. N. Weeks, Dr. Eustace Trenor, R. H. Magill, Charles H. Dickey, the Rev. Sidney Wilbur being pastor. On the 3Ist of the same month the Private Insane Asylum of Doctors Trenor and Tucker, located on Park Street, was destroyed by fire. The history of this building is interesting. In 1863 it and the Alameda Park Hotel were erected by a company of capitalists with a view of establishing a first-class hotel for summer guests, together with a club-house, with the adjuncts of elegant billiard-rooms, bowling-alleys, etc. The building destroyed by fire was intended for the club-house and was fur- nished in very superior style. The bowling-alleys were laid, etc., but the hotel proper was, for causes unknown, never built. The premises thus furnished and ready for occupancy were leased to Frank Johnson, who opened them to the public under the most flattering auspices. People came over in crowds to Alameda, and the hotel, large as it was, proved insufficient to accommodate them. After a while, Johnson, finding that he was making nothing, notwithstanding "the rush," disposed of his interest to McDonald, who formerly kept an eating-house at the corner of Clay and Leidesdorff Streets, San Francisco, who, in a. very short time, discovered that he " couldn't keep a hotel;" and he in turn was succeeded by Mr. Reed, formerly of the Weber House, Stockton. Reed's path was not strewed with roses; for the business had fallen off-the prestige of the place had gone-and he very soon went with it. It then stood unoccupied for some time, and, until purchased by Doctors Trenor and Tucker, to be used as a Private Insane Asylum with the first-named gentleman as resident physician. This purchase was made in the latter part of 1866, from which time, up to the middle of December, 1870, it was used as a refuge for insane persons whose friends could afford to place them beyond the prying eye of the general public. On June 20, 1871, the hall belonging to the Independent Order of Good Templars was dedicated, while, on the 8th August, the Alameda Academy of Professor J. T. Doyen was destroyed by fire and its entire contents consumed. The following " shooting scrape," the circumstances attending which we glean from the Encinal, took place on August 29, 1871: " Our usually quiet and peaceable community was terribly startled on Tuesday evening, on learning that a triple shooting scrape had taken place within our borders. A meeting of the "Independent" party had been held in Good Tem- plar's Hall, and had just terminated at a trifle after 10 o'clock; a number of people who had attended the political gathering were engaged in conversation in the bar- room of the 'Loyal Oak,' when a young man ran in to inquire the whereabouts of

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Dr. Trenor, at the same time stating that a man had been murdered by a burglar. A stampede was at once made in the direction indicated by the informant. Constable Val- entine immediately closed up his saloon, and in company with three others, also started for the scene. In going through Pacific Avenue, and when within about fifty yards of the spot where the affray took place, this party observed a strange-looking man step out from under a tree into the middle of the road. Going up to him, one of the men asked him who he was and whence he came; to which he made answer that he had just walked in from San Leandro. He at first denied all knowledge of any shooting, but finally acknowledged that he had just shot a man, and said that he had been compelled to do so in self-defense. He was thereupon taken in charge and con- veyed into the presence of the one whom he had shot, who, instantly recognizing him, exclaimed, 'Patton! O you devil, Patton ! You did it!' Patton was immediately taken away and kept in custody until a conveyance could be procured in which he could be taken to the jail at Oakland." The cause of the quarrel was a girl!

1872 .- Let us now turn our attention to the second incorporation of the Town of Alameda. During 1870 some of the citizens took measures to have this “ consumma- tion devoutly to be wished " brought to a focus, therefore on January 27th of that year a meeting was held at the Yosemite House to hear the report of a committee that had been appointed to draft a bill for the incorporation of the town. It was agreed that such was desirable, but it was evident that many of the large property-holders were averse to making the town anything other than a place of country residence. The bill agreed upon at this time slumbered in the Legislature, and never became law; but, on March 7, 1872, " An Act to incorporate the Town of Alameda" received the Governor's approval, the first section of which ordered as follows: "The people of the Township of Alameda, in the County of Alameda, are hereby constituted a municipal corporation by the name of the Town of Alameda, and the boundaries of said town shall be the same as now form the said township of Alameda." The Government of the newly incorporated town was vested in five Trustees; one Assessor, who was ex- officio Superintendent of Streets; one Treasurer, who was also Clerk of the Board of Trustees; while the township Justices of the Peace and Constables were, by the Act, authorized to perform their duties in the town. An election was ordered to be held on the first Monday in May of each year, and the Trustees were ordered to assemble ten days after the first election for the transaction of business. This Act was amended in 1876, and in 1878 a new charter was adopted. These Acts restricted the amount of taxes that could be levied for town purposes and restrained the officials of the town from creating any indebtedness, or expending in any year a larger sum than was derived from taxes in that year. By this wholesome restriction Alameda is entirely free from debt at the present time (1883), save forty thousand dollars which the Legislature authorized by special Acts, for the purpose of purchasing lots and build- ing school-houses. As a result the credit of the town stands high, while as a showing for the bonds issued to build school-houses, Alameda has five splendid institutions of learning with a capacity to accommodate thirteen hundred pupils, while the school department gives employment to twenty-six teachers. But to return to the original Act of 1872. On the 30th March the Board of Supervisors ordered that the town

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History of Alameda County, California : including its geology, topography, soil, and productions, Part 53

Author: Munro-Fraser, J. P Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Oakland, Calif. : M.W. Wood Number of Pages: 1206

Author: Munro-Fraser, J. P
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Oakland, Calif. : M.W. Wood
Number of Pages: 1206