History of Santa Clara County California with biographical sketches, Part 117

Author: Sawyer, Eugene T
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1934

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WILLIAM SHERMAN GARDNER .- A repre- sentative citizen of California, keenly interested in all the problems pertaining to progressive horti- culture, agriculture and the development and advance- ment of the county is William Sherman Gardner, an orchardist living southwest of San Jose on Phelps Avenue. He was born in Santa Clara County at the old Kenyon homestead on Homestead Road, Decem- ber 13, 1864, the son of Daniel and Sarah (Kenyon) Gardner, the former born in Ohio, the latter a native of Missouri. Daniel Gardner came in an ox team train to California in 1850, when twenty-three years old, and after spending some time in the mines in Northern California, came on to Santa Clara County in 1853 and settled on part of the Quito Ranch. Later he bought 167 acres on the McCall Road and farmed there; he also set ont fifty-five acres of orchard, among the first to set out fruit trees in that section. He died there at the age of eighty- seven years, the mother preceding him about one year, at the age of sixty-seven. Grandfather James M. Kenyon also brought his family across the plains in the early '50s and was a pioneer of this county. Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Gardner were the parents of six children; William S., the subject of our sketch: Frank and Clarence H., deceased; Fred H. resides on a part of the home place, as do Mrs. Mattie D. Harmon and Alice M., who became the wife of F. D. Sanders. During the Civil War, Daniel Gardner was a lieutenant of a militia company formed in Cali- fornia but was never called out of the state; he re- ceived his commission from Governor Stanford. He was always an adherent of the Republican party.

William Sherman Gardner enjoyed the advantages of the public school system in the district of Sara-

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toga, also helping his father on the farm. When he became of age he engaged as a fruit grower and operated a ranch of his own. At Saratoga on June 18, 1890, Mr. Gardner was married to Miss Hattie Smith, also a native of California, born in San Fran- cisco, and the adopted daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. M. Smith. Her father was James Harris Ham, a native of Portland, Maine, who came around the Horn to San Francisco in about 1854. A passenger on the same sailing vessel was Miss Harriet Hill Brown, who was born in New Hampshire, and the acquaintance thus made culminated in their marriage in San Francisco. Mr. and Mrs. Gardner became the parents of four children: Winnifred, deceased; Lillian; William Raymond; and Daniel Harris. In religious faith, they are affiliated with the Congre- gational Church.

FATHER JEROME SEXTUS RICARD, S. J .- Distinguished among the already large number of scholarly leaders in the Roman Catholic Church in America, Father Jerome Sextus Ricard, director of the Observatory of the University of Santa Clara, and popularly termed, on account of his remarkable snc- cess in predicting weather changes, the Padre of the Rains, has come to be especially famous along the Pacific Coast, and has conferred additional fame on the steadily-developing institution of learning with which he has been so long and actively identified. He has also set the scientific world to thinking about several matters of profound interest, including the sun-spot conundrum, concerning which he has a theory of his own; and if all the fellow scientists in the universe do not exactly agree with him, he has at least caused them to sit up and notice the exist- ence and the industry of the University of Santa Clara, and has directed their thoughts frequently toward one of the garden spots of the Golden State.

He was born at Plaisians, near Avignon, France, on January 21, 1850, a son of Leger and Mary Ann (Eysartel) Ricard, the only one of seven children in America, the rest of the family being three brothers and three sisters. His grandfather, Joseph Ricard, was a substantial French peasant, and his father fol- lowed the same rural occupation, on which account our subject, too, worked on the home farm and tilled the soil. His early education was in the common schools of the Plaisians district; and there he was taken up by the parish priest, who taught him Latin and Greek. He then entered the Jesuit College at Avignon, France, and there pursued a regular college course. He then traveled extensively through Algiers and Northern Africa, and having returned to Mar- seilles, he took a boat for Alexandria, Egypt, bound for Syria. His plans, however, were changed. He stopped at Messina, then went to Naples, and after that to Rome and Turin, and there he finished his course in belles lettres; and then, meeting the Superior of the Jesuits, on June 21, 1871, he joined their order. He was sent to Monaco, and was sta- tioned near the Casino, and there he studied, prepara- tory to taking up the work of the ministry.

On September 10, 1873, he came to Santa Clara, as one of five Jesuit students from Northern Italy and France, and he then entered the University of Santa Clara, where he pursued a three years' course in rational philosophy, including logic, psychology, on- tology, cosmology and moral science. He next went to Woodstock College in Maryland, and there pursued

the regular four years' theological course; and having concluded the work required of him, he was or- dained, by the late Cardinal Gibbons, in ceremonies lasting through August 24, 25 and 26, 1886, and so made a member of the Roman Catholic priesthood. He then returned to Santa Clara College and became professor of mathematics and moral philosophy; and when, in 1890, the Observatory was installed, he de- voted to it his spare time. Since then, under his able leadership, the interest in the work of the Ob- servatory has grown, and the astronomical depart- ment has become the most widely known of all the divisions of the University.

There is a fairly good working telescope, with an eight-inch objective made by Clark of Cambridge, and mounted by Fauth & Company, of Washington, D. C .; and there is also a complete radio receiver, 120 feet high. There is a seismographic laboratory con- taining two instruments for recording earthquakes, and a second telescope with a four-inch objective, to serve as a companion, or quid, to the astronomical camera, a brand-new camera, one of the most up-to- date instruments in existence, being now on the way from Paris. There is also a fairly complete set of meteorological instruments. Three assistant profes- sors, all graduates of the University of Santa Clara, are adjuncts to Father Ricard.

The Santa Clara Observatory publishes a seismic bulletin, which appears occasionally, and contributes astronomical matter, from time to time, to the lead- ing San Francisco and San Jose papers. It also pub- lishes an astronomical magazine devoted to astron- omy, sun-spots and the weather, and it makes weather observations gratis for the Government. In many respects, Father Ricard has departed from the old ruts, and as with Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, he has been singled out for unfriendly criticism and oppo- sition, even perhaps to the point of persecution. He has a new view regarding sun-spots, especially in reference to the weather, and he has been prompt and frank in making known his revolutionary theories. The old method consisted in taking the spots in the sun indiscriminately, making no distinction between position and position, making the sum of them for a given month, a given year, a given period of years, and then comparing the average sum with the known records of sun-spots and weather for corresponding periods of known weather conditions; but according to the new method proposed by Father Ricard, sun- spots are considered as having an effect on the weather, only when they stand on the central merid- ian, in which case, if they happen to be in the North- ern hemisphere, they produce storms, on the Western Coast of the United States; but if they are in the Southern hemisphere they produce the opposite effect, and thereby the sun-spots account for all the weather in the United States and Canada. This is an entirely new theory which originated solely with Father Ricard, and while he has been the subject of attack and unfriendly criticism, the basic principles of his theory have not suffered at the hands of his op- ponents, and he has become, in consequence or despite the opposition, world-famous. On July 8, 1921, he published his observations on sun-spots and atmospheric waves looking back to 1913, when he declared that daily observation revealed only a few sun-spots and faculae, and this coincided with the year as a stern, rare, extreme minimum. But even so, the

J.J. Ricardof.

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HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY

physical law connecting the sun-spots with highs and lows in relation to cause and effect held as invariably as since. The only difference has been that whereas, throughout 1914-20, one could, by means of the spots and faculae, account for every high and low in the weather way, the fewness of the spots and faculae during 1913 has left very many highs and lows un- accounted for. Since the conclusions were reached the review of sun-spot weather work has been pushed back to the year 1907 with the same results. All the highs and lows have now also been accounted for by means of planetary conjunctions and oppositions to which the sun-spots are originally traced.

Personally, Father Ricard is a very interesting and congenial character, and at seventy-two is bright and active, all of which was evident at the Golden Jubilee Celebration in his honor at the University of Santa Clara on May 30, 1921, which was largely attended. It marked the fiftieth year of his entrance into the order of the Jesuits, and the bells of fourteen mis- sions rang forth merrily as the joyous day opened with high mass. Graduates of Santa Clara, dignitaries of the church, and friends and visitors, ten thousand persons or more in all, gathered to pay homage to the Padre of the Rains, and against the old adobe walls of the historic mission the redwood altar at which the mass was sung was banked with flowers, and tower- ing high was a redwood cross standing out in a back- ground of golden broom, so that the veteran prelate may well be said to have taken his place in the sun, following his prediction that for the big celebration the skies would be bright.

The celebration commenced at eleven with a solemn high mass, at which Father Ricard was the celebrant. His Grace, Archbishop Edward J. Hanna, of San Francisco, preached the sermon. Assisting at the mass were: The Rt. Rev. Joseph S. Glass, bishop of Salt Lake City; the Rt. Rev. Thomas Grace, bishop of Sacramento; the Rt. Rev. John J. Cantwell, bishop of Los Angeles; Monsignor James P. Cantwell, Rev. William Flemming of San Rafael, Rev. Thomas O'Connell of Oakland, and Rev. Joseph P. McQuaide of San Francisco. Thirty-three choristers, from St. Patrick's Seminary at Menlo Park, sung the mass, while at eleven o'clock, in various portions of the state, fourteen historic missions tolled their bells. Immediately following the mass, the tolling of the bells of the Mission Santa Clara was the signal for the alumni to rise and observe a "minute of silence" in memory of the Santa Clara men who were killed in the World War. Then came a public reception to Father Ricard, and after the alumni luncheon, ath- letic contests, alumni election and banquet, speech.es were made by William F. Humphrey, president of the Olympic Club and the toastmaster; Rev. Timothy L. Murphy, president of the University; Chauncey F. Tramutolo, president of the Alumni Association: Joseph Scott of Los Angeles, James A. Bacigalupi, John J. Barrett, Senator James D. Phelan, James L Flood, Col. Charles E. Stanton, M. Delmas, Arch- bishop Edward J. Hanna, and, last but by no means least, Father Ricard. The speeches commenced at half-past eight o'clock in the evening, and an hour later there was illuminated flying, when the celebra- tion concluded with an aerial parade, during which the name "Ricard" was spelled in the skies.

Apropos of the celebration, Father Ricard received a delegation sent by aeroplane from the San Fran- 35

cisco Call, and gave to them a message for the great body of his friends throughout California. In this, transmitted, with photographs of the events of the day, by flying machine to the Call's office in the Bay city, he said: "Fifty years ago I joined the Jesuits because I knew that they cultivated sanctity, loved learning and science. During my stay with them I have been happy as a lark, and shall ever be grateful to a kind Providence for the blessings of my vocation. Availing myself of this opportunity, I shall thank all those who have appreciated my efforts in harmonizing the noble science of astronomy to something practical on behalf of Coast navigation, and the general farm- ing and industrial interests of California and the whole country. Your humble servant had, with this end in view, to knock down a few antiquated ideas in regard to sun-spots, and introduce new ones. My warmest thanks to Professor See, Mare Island Ob- servatory; to the wise director of the students' ob- servatory, University of California; to Dr. W. W. Campbell of the Lick Observatory, for valuable criti- cism and encouragement; to Prof. Walter Adams and Prof. G. E. Hale of the Mt. Wilson Observatory, for new lore about sun-spots; to Prof. Alex. McAdie of Harvard, to Messrs. Beals and Willson, Weather Bureau at San Francisco, and to R. F. Stupart, direc- tor of the Canadian Meteorological Service."

Father Ricard has attained much distinction on account of his predictions in regard to the weather, verifications of his forecasts having been published month after month. Following is given the May, 1922, schedule of predictions, published the previous month :

May I, still under the previous disturbance, but rather fair. A strong high pressure wave hastening to clear the sky.

May 2, 3, 4, fair.

May 4, a rather severe storm will invade the Nortli- west, be reinforced on the fifth and move to the Southeastward over Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Ari- zona, with some threat in California and little or no chance for rain.

May 6, a smart cool wave driving the storm away, continued on the seventh. (Cool wave is here synony- mous with high pressure area.)

May 8, 10, a moderate depression passing over the Canadian Northwest, affecting portions of the North Pacific States and barely touching California, owing to the resistance of high pressures on the ninth. Nearly fair on the eleventh, fair on the twelfth and thirteenth.

May 14, an unually severe storm will arrive from the North Pacific ocean, land over British Columbia and Washington, slur over Oregon and, on the fif- teenth, make it cloudy or partly so in parts of Cali- fornia, even as far as Tehachapi. A high pressure area will at the same time settle on the Southern side of the low and arrest its Southward motion.

May 17, fair here, cloudy over Northern California and beyond to the Northwestward and Eastward.

May 18, 19, 20, another accumulating disturbance of some intensity will run over the North Pacific States, producing general cloudiness, promising some rain over there, with little change of reaching serene California. High pressures beginning to enter on the eighteenth.

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HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY

May 21, 22, diminishing cloudiness from here to Vancouver. Clear or partly cloudy in Southern Cali- fornia.

May 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, high pressure dominant, making it fair and increasingly warm from San Diego to Prince Rupert, British Columbia. May 27, late in the day, a minor disturbance (area of moderately low barometer) will reach British Columbia and run Eastward, with little or no effect in California, be- yond some transient cloudiness on the twenty-eighth, when a high pressure will take possession.

May 31, another minor depression of no conse- quence in these parts, except a few clouds.

June 3, 4, bad weather over North Pacific States; way open down the Coast; possibly some rain in Cali- fornia, Northern and Southern.

Conclusions :---

1. The Centennial Celebration at Santa Clara will be held without any serious meteorological visitation. 2. The Sacramento Fair, in gay attire, will gladly run its course unmolested.

EDWARD CARPENTER ELLET .- Prominent among the various distinguished members of the fa- mous Ellet family of American patriots may be in- cluded Edward Carpenter Ellet of Mayfield, the father of Alfred W. Ellet, vice-president, and Charles Ellet, cashier of The Stanford Bank at Palo Alto and May- field. He is a son of the late Brig .- Gen. Alfred Washington Ellet of Civil War fame. The Ellet family originates from French Huguenot and Quaker stock and goes back to the days of William Penn. This family is closely related to, and descended from, two noted pioneer Quaker families of Pennsylvania, namely that of Thomas Lloyd and Samuel Carpenter, both of whom were intimately connected with the carliest Colonial history of Penn's Woodland The Lloyd family is one of the most ancient and sub- stantial families of Great Britain, having a genealogy which reaches back to William the Conqueror and even to Charlemagne. Thomas Lloyd, the progenitor of the Lloyd family in America, served many years as Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania. He was the son of Charles Lloyd, a gentleman of rank and fortune and of ancient family and estate called "Dolobran" in Montgomeryshire, in North Wales. He grew up in Wales and was educated at Oxford and is repre- sented as possessing superior attainments joined with great benevolence and activity of character. He died in Philadelphia in 1694, aged fifty-four years. The historian, Watson, in his Annals of Philadelphia, says: "Having established his colony on the broad principles of charity and constitutional freedom, he ( Penn) left his executive power in the hands of the Council under the Presidency of Thomas Lloyd, an eminent Quaker. Penn was absent about fifteen years. Thomas Lloyd joined the Society of Friends in 1662 and became a highly useful and eminent member thereof. He arrived in Pennsylvania in 1683 and died July 10, 1694, honored by all who knew him."

The second noted progenitor of the family was Samuel Carpenter, who was also a Quaker, a con- temporary of, and a co-worker with, Penn. He was born in 1650 in England, and joined Penn in Phila- delphia in 1682; became a great merchant and very prominent in political ways and died in 1714, being then the treasurer of the province. Of him Watson, the historian says: " The name of Samuel Carpenter 13 connected with everything of a public nature in the

annals of Pennsylvania. I have seen his name at every turn in searching the old records. He was the Stephen Girard of his day in wealth, and the William Sansom in the improvements he suggested and edi- fices which he built."

Samuel Carpenter settled near the present site of Salem, N. J. and from the union of his daughter io one Charles Ellet, who was of French Huguenot extraction, was born another Charles Ellet. He was a man of sterling quality and married Miss Mary Israel, the daughter of Israel Israel, a Philadelphian of wealth, political and social standing, who was noted in his day as a patriot, and who did much as a member of the "Committee of Safety" to establish American Independence. From this union sprang the great Ellet family of the Mississippi River Ram Fleet and Marine Brigade which attained undying fame during the course of the Civil War. Mary Ellet was also a patriot, and her wonderful character is truthfully and eloquently set forth in the following extract from an article by John W. Forney, pub- lished in the Philadelphia Press: "Her familiarity with American history for seventy-five years, includ- ing many of the characters who figured in and after the Revolution -- her patriotic ancestors and descen- dants-her own passionate love of country inherited from one and transmitted to the other -- her spotless reputation-entitles her, I think, more than any other of her sex, to the appellation of the American Cor- nelia. In writing of her, I cherish no purpose of vain eulogy -- I write solely to preserve the record of a remarkable life, that it may not be lost among men, and to present an example which every Amer- ican woman may study with pleasure and with pro- fit. Rarely has there been such a resemblance be- tween two persons as between the illustrous Roman matron and Mary Ellet -- both renowned for purity of character, vigorous intellect, and a virtuous am- bition. Their love of country was supreme."

Charles and Mary Ellet became the parents of six sons, four of whom grew to manhood and all of whom gained distinction and prominence, namely, Charles Ellet, Jr, the famous engineer and inventor who or- iginated the Naval Ram and built and commanded the Mississippi River Ram Fleet; John 1. Ellet, the pio- neer of the West, well known to the early history of San Francisco and San Jose; Dr. Edward Carpen- ter Ellet, a well known physician at Bunker Hill, Ill .; and Brig. Gen. Alfred Washington Ellet, who was the father of the subject of the sketch.

Charles Ellet, Jr., the famous engineer, naval genius and hero, was born in Bucks County, Pa., January 1, 1810, and although he grew up on a farm, his inclinations led him to mathematics and engi- neering pursuits. After helping to build the Chesa- peake & Ohio Canal, he was able to visit Europe for study, and completed his education in the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, after which he became an engineer on the Utica & Schenectady Railroad, then on the Erie, and subsequently was chief engineer of the James & Kanawha Canal. In 1842 he planned and built the first wire suspension bridge in this country, it being a foot bridge, stringing it across the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia. He designed and built the first suspension bridge across the Niag- ara River below the falls in 1847. As a matter of in- terest and as a showing of his bold fearlessness, it may be here related that he drove a team or a carriage with

Ed to Excel

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HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY

hus daughter, Mary Virginia Ellet, who is now Mrs. Mary Virginia Ellet Cabell of Washington, D. C., in the seat behind him across this bridge without any side railing, swaying with every footstep, over the surging waters of the rapids below, from Canada to the United States, while thousands of terrified spectators who were skeptical as to the safety of the bridge, held their breaths in silent horror. Mrs. Mary Virginia Ellet Cabell, formerly of Norwood, Va., but now of Washington, D. C. is, and for about a quarter of a century last past, has been President Presiding of the Daughters of the American Revo- lution, a position of honor which no one else has ever lield. She is an own cousin of Ex-Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, and of United States Sena- tor John Daniels of Virginia,

Among the many important engineering works planned and successfully consummated by Charles Ellet was the laying out of the temporary route of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad across the Cumber- land Mountains, which was used while the great tunnel was being made.

Charles Ellet, Jr., has the particular distinction of being the first to advocate a definite plan for the use of steam rams, and suggested a plan to the Rus- sian government by which the allied fleet before Sebastopol might be destroyed. At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, he became interested in military matters and devoted much attention to the use of rams in naval warfare. He sent a plan for cutting off the Confederate Army at Manassas to General McClellan, who rejected it, and Ellet then wrote two pamphlets censuring MeClellan's mode of conducting the campaign. He urged upon the Gov- crnment the construction of steam rams, for use on the large rivers of the West, and after his plans had been rejected by the Navy Department, he presented them in person to the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, by whom they were approved, the rebels already having taken advantage of his ideas, in the construction of the Merrimac and several other rams of the coast. He was then commissioned Colonel of the Staff of Engineers, and converted several pow- erful light-draft steamers on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers into rams. In his letter to Charles El- let, Jr., dated April 26, 1862, Secretary Stanton made it plain that he wanted Ellet to have a high legal authority and an independent command over the Ram Fleet. The rank of "Colonel of Staff" was the high- est he could bestow without the concurrent action of the Senate, which would have caused delay, else his commission would no doubt have been of greater dig- nity. As it was, Mr. Stanton made it clear that his command should be concurrent with, and not under. the Naval Commander. Thus the Ram Fleet and the Marine Brigade acted in closest cooperation with the Army and was the only independent command on the side of the Union forces, reporting direct to the Secretary of War. With the fleet of rams thus con- structed, he engaged in the naval battle off Mem- phis on June 6, 1862, and sunk and disabled the entire fleet of Confederate vessels except the ram known as the General Van Dorn, which escaped up the river. During the battle, Ellet was struck above the knee by a pistol-ball, and died from the effects of his wound.

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History of Santa Clara County California with biographical sketches, Part 117

Author: Sawyer, Eugene T Publication date: 1922 Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1934

Author: Sawyer, Eugene T
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1934