Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or Santa Clara county, California, Part 22

Author: Foote, Horace S., ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 844

USA > California > Santa Clara County > Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or Santa Clara county, California > Part 22

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ment of the same. These bonds bore interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum, and were payable in fifteen years. The work of building the road commenced immediately, and on the sixteenth day of January, 1864, the road was completed and form- ally opened with a grand excursion to San Jose. There was great rejoicing when the first train arrived. Flags were hoisted and everybody took a holiday.

The county had a railroad, but it also had an in- debtedness of $200,000, on which it was paying a large interest. The question was soon mooted as to whether it would not be policy to sell the railroad stock owned by the county and apply the proceeds toward extinguishing .this debt. As the stock was paying no dividends, an affirmative conclusion was soon reached. The Legislature was appealed to, and in April, 1864, an act was passed authorizing the county to sell the stock owned by it in the "San Francisco & San Jose Railroad," and to apply the proceeds to the redemption of county bonds. In

November, 1864, B. G. Lathrop offered to buy the stock and pay $200,000 in currency. This would be equiv- alent to about $170,000 in gold. The proposal was accepted, but Lathrop neglected to make his offer good, and the transaction was canceled. In Febru- ary, 1865, Messrs. C. B. Polhemus, Peter Donahue, and H. M. Newhall, offered to buy the stock for $200,- 000, cither in currency or in the bonds of the county, which had been issued to pay for the stock when it was subscribed by the county. On March 4 an agreement was made with these parties as follows: the purchasers were to pay the sum of $200,000, either in currency or county bonds, as above stated, payment to be made in eighteen months from April 4, 1865; the purchasers in the meantime were to have the right to represent and vote the stock at any meeting of the stockholders, and after the expiration of eight months were to pay to the county treasurer all interest that might accrue on the county bonds above referred to. Having the default of Mr. Lathrop in mind, the Board of Supervisors exacted from the purchasers a bond for the fulfillment of their contract. Notwithstanding this bond, the purchasers neglected to comply with the contract until the Board lost pa- tience, and in 1867 directed suit to be brought. This brought the purchasers to the front with propositions for a compromise, and the suit was discontinued pending these negotiations. This lasted for two years more, when, there being no prospect of an amicable settlement, suit was again instituted in 1869. In this interval Mr. Polhemus had disposed of his interest in the Railroad Company, and had been suc- ceeded by Mr. Mayne. The purchasers then made another proposition, to the effect that they would pay for the stock $100,000 in money and would build a line of railroad from San Jose to Gilroy. This prop- osition was accepted, and its terms complied with. In 1869 the railroad was extended to Gilroy.

In 1863 the Western Pacific Railroad Company was constructing that portion of the transcontinental railroad between Sacramento and Oakland, and of- fered, if the county would subscribe $150,000 to its capital stock, to construct a branch from Niles to San Jose, thus placing this city on the through overland line. On the fourteenth of April, 1863, an act was passed authorizing the county to make this subscrip- tion, and the election held for this purpose resulted as follows :-

For subscribing to the stock, I,OII votes; against, 479 votes; majority, 532 votes. With this authoriza- tion the Board subscribed for $150,000 of the stock,

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and directed the issue of seven per cent bonds payable in twenty years, in payment thereof. These bonds were issued as follows :--

March 27, 1865, $45,000; August 19, 1865, $60,000; October 23, 1865, $45,000. In September, 1869, this road was completed, but it never met the expecta- tions of the people. It gave two routes to San Fran- cisco instead of one, but as there was no competition between them, it had no effect in reducing the rates of fare or freight. The stock paid no dividends, but in the manipulation of the road it became necessary that it should be got out of the hands of the county. Ac- cordingly, in 1871 a movement was made for its purchase. Under the act of 1864, the supervisors had authority to sell, but they thought best to submit the matter to a vote of the people before acting. Ac- cordingly, a special election was held with the follow- ing result :-

For selling the stock, 2,001 votes; against, 2,368 votes; majority against, 367. Notwithstanding this result, the Board, at its session in October, 1871, re- solved that it was for the best interests of the county that the stock should be sold, and appointed agents to negotiate the sale, the agents to receive a com- mission of ten per cent on the amount received for the sale. In February, 1872, a sale was consummated, David Colton being the purchaser, for $120,000. The claim of the agents was compromised for $9,000, leav- ing a net loss to the county of $39,000.

These two railroads are now part of the Northern Division of the Southern Pacific Company.

As the country to the north of San Jose began to develop fruit culture, especially strawberries, black- berries, etc., necessity was found for a more con- venient and rapid means of transportation to San Francisco. The two railroads already constructed just skirted the border of this fruit district, and ship- pers were compelled to haul their fruit to San Jose, Santa Clara, or Milpitas to get it on the cars; arrived in San Francisco, it had to be hauled on trucks for a long distance from depot to market, and this, besides the delay, bruised and injured the fruit, to the great

loss of the producer. In addition to these inconven- iences, the railroad company could not see the ne- cessity of adopting a time schedule to accommodate this traffic. This caused the question of a narrow- gauge railroad to connect with fast boats at Alviso to be revived. In 1870 a meeting was held and sub- scription books opened. Strenuous efforts were made to get the stock taken. Chief among the promoters of the scheme were John G. Bray, then president of the Bank of San Jose, S. A. Bishop, and Cary Peebels. Pending the floating of the stock, a fast boat was put on the line between Alviso and San Francisco, and the fruit-growers hauled to the Alviso wharf instead of shipping by rail. The narrow-gauge proposition made but little progress for several years, when a company was formed called the "Santa Clara Valley Railroad Company," but it accomplished nothing ex- cept to establish an office in San Jose and procure a few conditional rights of way. Finally, in 1876, a new company was formed, under the name of the "South Pacific Coast Railroad Company," with A. E. Davis as its president. This company asked no favors. It had money to buy everything it needed, including the right of way. It built the road, and in April, 1878, the first train came into San Jose, and in May the road was opened for business. They immediately proceeded to extend the line south to Santa Cruz, and completed it after much time and labor spent in tun- neling the mountains. The road did a prosperous business from the first. In 1887 it sold out to a syn- dicate of stockholders of the Southern Pacific, and changed the name to the "South Pacific Coast Rail- way." In 1886 a branch was constructed to the Almaden mines, leaving the main line at Campbell. In the same year the Southern Pacific built a line to the same point, connecting with the trunk line at Hillsdale.

In 1885 a railroad was projected from Murphy's, on the Southern Pacific Road, near Mountain View, to Saratoga. Several miles of this road were constructed, but, there not being money enough under control of the projectors, the enterprise was abandoned.

THE

DICK

BSERVATORY

ON MOUNT HAMILTON.

T THE history of the great observatory on Mt. Hamil- ton, containing the largest telescope in the world, and the biography of its founder must necessarily be both interesting and important. James Lick was of a quiet, uncommunicative disposition, and left but little from which to write his life history. The prominence which he achieved by his princely gift to science has caused people from all sections of the country to re- call incidents of his life, and these fragments have been gathered together and woven into a connected narra- tive by the San Jose Mercury, from which we compile the following :-

James Lick was born at Fredericksburg, Pennsyl- vania, August 25, 1796. His ancestors were of Ger- man extraction and spelled the family name "Lük." His grandfather had come to America early in the century and had served in the army of Washington during the War of the Revolution. Nothing is known of the life of James Lick, until at the age of twenty- one years he entered himself as an apprentice to an organ-maker at Hanover, Pennsylvania. He worked here for a short time, and in 1819 took a position in the employ of Joseph Hiskey, a prominent piano manufacturer of Baltimore, Maryland. An incident of his experience here has been recalled.

One day a penniless youth, named Conrad Meyer, applied at the factory for employment. He attracted the fancy of young Lick, who took the stranger in charge, provided him with food and proper clothing, and secured him a place in the establishment. The friendship thus formed lasted through life. The pref- erence of James Lick for the youth was justified by his later life. In 1,854 the pianos of Conrad Meyer took the first prize in the London International Ex- hibition, their maker possessing an immense manufac- tory in Philadelphia and ranking as one of the most eminent piano-makers in the United States.

In 1820 James Lick left the employment of Joseph Hiskey and went to New York, expecting to start in business on his own account. This venture was re-

stricted by his want of capital, and, if attempted at all, was brief, for in the following year he left the United States for Buenos Ayres, South America, with the intention of devoting himself there to his trade. He found the Buenos Ayreans of that period a singu- larly handsome and refined race of almost purely Spanish extraction, and attaining, by their mode of life in the fine climate of that region, a remarkable physical and social development. By careful atten- tion to business he prospered among them, accumu- lating a considerable competence during his first ten years of South American experience. "In 1832," writes his friend Conrad Meyer, in the Philadelphia Bulletin, "I was in business on my own account on Fifth Street near Prune, Philadelphia, when I was suddenly surprised one day at seeing James Lick walk in. He had just arrived from South Amer- ica, and had brought with him hides and nutria skins to the amount of $40,000, which he was then dis- posing of. Nutria skins are obtained from a species of otter found along the River La Plata. He stated that he intended settling in Philadelphia, and to this end he some days later rented a house on Eighth Street, near Arch, with the intention of manufact- uring pianos, paying $400 as rental for one year in advance. In a few days he left for New York and Boston, and, writing me from the latter city, an- nounced that he had given up the idea of remaining permanently in Philadelphia, and requested that I should call on the house agent and make the best set- tlement I could with him. I did so, and receiving from him $300 out of the $400, I returned the key." The sudden change of purpose which led James Lick to abandon his design of remaining in Philadelphia and return to South America seems to indicate a whimsical temper. It may be, however, that during his ten years' stay in Buenos Ayres he cherished, as many men do, an ideal of his youth, and dreamed out a business career in his native land which, when he returned to it, he saw to be impracticable. He went

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LICK OBSERVATORY (Mount Hamilton).

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back to Buenos Ayres, filled certain piano orders he had taken, settled his affairs there, and sailed for Val- paraiso, Chili, where for four years he followed his vocation. Occasionally his friend, Conrad Meyer, heard from him, the correspondence being limited to orders for pianos to be shipped to him, with drafts for their payment; but outside of these indications that Mr. Lick was engaged in trade, little is known of his life in Valparaiso or the business ventures he en- gaged in outside of his trade. At the end of four years he quitted Valparaiso, and went to Callao, Peru.

He lived in Peru for eleven years, occupying himself in manufacturing pianos, with occasional investments in commercial enterprises. That he was successful is shown by the statement, made by himself, that in 1845 he was worth $59,000. At this time he began to think seriously of coming to California. His friend, Mr. Foster, of the house of Alsop & Co., of Lima, urged him to remain in Peru. He told Lick that the United States would not acquire California; that the inhabitants were a set of cut-throats who would mur- der him for his money, and that it would be folly for him to abandon a lucrative business to go to a new country that had so bad a reputation. To all these arguments Mr. Lick replied that he knew the charac- ter of the American Government; that it was not of a nature to let go of a country it had once acquired, and as for being assassinated, he had confidence in his own ability to protect himself. He determined to go, but before he could go he had to fill orders for several pianos he had contracted for. This would not have been a difficult matter had it not been for the fact that, at this juncture, all his workmen left him to go to Mexico. As he could not replace them, he went to work himself, and after two years of hard labor finished the last of the pianos. He determined that there should be no further delay in his departure.

His stock, which his inventory showed him was worth $59,000, he sacrificed for $30,000. This money, which was in Spanish doubloons, he secured in a large iron safe, which he brought with him to California. Among the odd articles which James Lick brought to California from Peru was the work-bench which he had there used in his trade. It was not an elab- orate affair, and the object of its deportation to this land of timber hardly appears, unless Mr. Lick had acquired an affection for this companion of his daily labors. He retained this bench through all his California experience, and it now stands in the hall of the Lick Observatory at Mt. Hamilton.

Mr. Lick arrived in San Francisco late in 1847. At

that time there was little to indicate the future pros- perity of the metropolis of the Pacific Coast. Cali- fornia Street was its southern boundary, while San- some Street was on the water front. Sand dunes stretched out to the southern and western horizon, with occasionally a rough shanty to break the mo- notony of the landscape. Mr. Lick quietly invested his money in these sand hills, paying dollars for lots that were not considered, by the inhabitants, as worth cents. He came to Santa Clara County and pur- chased the property north of San Jose, on the Guad- aloupe, which afterwards became famous as the Lick Mills property. He also bought the tract of land just inside the present southern city limits, and which was afterwards known as the Lick Homestead. All these lands were vacant and unimproved; at this time the agricultural lands were not considered of any value. Even as prominent and intelligent a man as John B. Weller said he "would not give six bits for all the agricultural lands in California." It is a ques- tion with some people as to whether these purchases by Mr. Lick were the result of luck or foresight. Although considered eccentric, Mr. Lick's business sagacity has never been doubted, and it is fair to sup- pose that he foresaw the commercial importance of San Francisco, and the future agricultural importance of the fields of the Santa Clara Valley.

During seven years after his arrival Mr. Lick en- gaged in no particular business other than to invest his Spanish doubloons as above stated. The first improve- ment of his property made by Mr. Lick was done upon that portion of his Santa Clara County lands known as the "Lick Mill Tract." An old flour mill had stood upon the property when he purchased it in 1852, and this fact may have moved his mind toward the erec- tion at that point of his own mill. In 1853 he began to lay the plans and gather the material he intended to employ in its construction. In 1855 work was be- gun, and to those who saw the structure rise, it was the wonder of the time. The wood of which its in- terior finish was composed, was of the finest mahog- any, finished and inlaid in the most solid, elegant, and expensive style. The machinery imported for its works was also of a quality never before sent to the Pacific Coast. The entire cost of the mill was esti- mated by Mr. Lick himself, at $200,000. It became known by the name of the "Mahogany Mill," or perhaps more commonly as "Lick's Folly." When put in operation it turned out the finest brand of flour on the Pacific Coast. It will always be a mat- ter of doubt whether this mill was erected by Mr.

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Lick as a whim of his eccentric nature or as a protest against the flimsy, cheap, and temporary style of building then common to the new State.

There is a romantic legend preserved in the mem- ory of the old acquaintances of Mr. Lick which goes to explain the origin of the famous mill. The tale runs that when Lick was a boy he was apprenticed to a miller who, besides the possession of a competency and a flourishing business, had also an exceedingly pretty daughter. Strange as the assertion may seem to those who were acquainted only with the unlovely old age of this strange character, James Lick was a comely young man, and upon him the miller's daugh- ter cast approving eyes. Lick met her more than half- way, and a warm attachment sprang up between the apprentice and the heiress. The ancient miller, how- ever, soon saw the drift of matters, and interposed his parental authority to break the peaceful current of true love. Young Lick declared that he loved the girl and wished to marry her, with her father's con- sent. Thereupon Hans became indignant, and, point- ing to his mill, exclaimed: "Out, you beggar! Dare you cast your eyes upon my daughter, who will in- herit my riches? Have you a mill like this? Have you a single penny in your purse?" To this tirade Lick replied that he had nothing as yet, but one day he would have a mill beside which this one would be a pig-sty !

Lick at once departed, and at length drifted to Cal- ifornia, seeking the fortune which in one minute he had determined to possess, and which determination never afterward for a moment left him. Nor did he forget his last words to the miller. When he was a rich man he built this mill, and when it was finished there had been nothing left undone which could have added to the perfection of its appointments. Its ma- chinery was perfect, and its walls and floors and ceil- ings of polished, costly woods. Not being able to bring the miller to view the realization of his boyish declaration, Lick caused the mill to be photographed within and without, and, although his old sweetheart had long since been married, he sent her father the pictures and recalled to him the day he boasted of his mill.

Although the Mahogany Mill gratified Mr. Lick's pride in its construction and in the brand of its product, and although it may have satisfied the ancient grudge against the traditional miller, it was not a financial success. The periodical floods of the Guadaloupe River inundated the lands about it, destroyed his or- chards and roads, and interfered with the operation of

the mill. In the year 1873 he surprised everybody with the gift of the whole property to the Thomas Paine Memorial Association of Boston. For some years he had been a close student and great admirer of the writings of Paine, and he took this means of proving the faith that was in him. On January 16, 1873, he made a formal transfer of the property to certain named trustees of the association, imposing upon these the trust to sell the same and donate one- half of the proceeds to the building of a memorial hall in Boston, and so invest the other half that a lecture course could be maintained out of its increase. The association sent an agent out to California to look over the acquisition, with power to deal with it. Without consulting Mr. Lick, he sold the property for about $18,000, and returned home, at which proceeding the donor was so completely disgusted that he lost all his past interest in the advancement of the theories of Thomas Paine !

The next scheme of improvement to which Mr. Lick turned his attention after the completion of his mill was the erection of the Lick Hotel in San Fran- cisco. He had bought the property upon which it stands for an ounce of gold-dust, soon after his arrival in California, and until 1861 it had lain idle and un- improved. The lot originally extended the entire length of the block, on Montgomery Street, from Sutter to Post, and the hotel would have covered this space had not Mr. Lick sold the Post Street corner to the Masonic order. The story goes that Alexander G. Abell, on behalf of the Masons, approached Mr. Lick with an offer to buy the property. The owner, in accordance with his seldom violated custom, refused to part with the property, until Mr. Abell frankly ex- plained that the Masons had been all over the city looking for a site and could find none that answered their requirements like this, when Mr. Lick gave way and sold them the corner. The hotel is a familiar object to all who visit San Francisco. At the time of its construction it was the finest hostelry on the Pacific Coast, and it still ranks well up among first- class family hotels. Its internal finish was, in the main, designed by Mr. Lick himself, who took a special pride in the selection of fine materials and in their combination in artistic and effective forms. The dining-room floor of the hotel is a marvel of beauti- ful wood-work, made out of many thousand pieces of different wood, and all polished like a table. It was probably the early devotion of Mr. Lick to the trade of a piano-maker which caused him to take this keen delight in the use of fine woods, which manifested

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itself both in his Mahogany Mill and in the Lick Hotel.

That part of the life history of James Lick which lies between the years 1861 and 1873 is full of inter- est to those who would form a correct estimate of the man. The course of affairs had amply justified his early judgment of the future values of California real estate. His sand-hill lots, bought for a song in 1848, grew to be golden islands of wealth amid the rising rivers of metropolitan trade. The investments made in Santa Clara County lands all proved profitable and yielded rich returns. By the very bull-dog tenac- ity with which he hung to his acquisitions, he became, during the '60's,' one of the wealthiest men on the Pacific Coast. His reputation, too, was State- wide, made so not only by his wealth, but by the rumor of his eccentricities. He had already passed the age of sixty years, when most men begin to "glide into the lean and slippered pantaloon." He even attained and overstepped the prophetic boundary of three-score years and ten. Yet he still maintained the positive, energetic, self-possessed individuality of his earlier years.

It is very probable that the advancing age of James Lick acted upon his nature in developing into active eccentricities the natural peculiarities of his disposi- tion. Most of the pioneers who remember him during the first decade of his California career, describe him as a close, careful, self-contained man, cold and some- times crabbed of disposition, going his own lonely way in business and in life. Those who knew him between '61 and '73 intensify these characteristics and declare him to have been miserly, irascible, selfish, solitary, who cherished little affection for his race or kin, and whose chief delight appeared to lie in the indulgence of the whims of a thorny and unfragrant old age. It is probable that this later estimate of Mr. Lick presents his character with too much of shadow, and that, as our narrative develops, and combines the incidents and traditions of this period of his life, and lays them alongside the grand conceptions of his closing years, his real self will be revealed in outlines less repulsive and more consistent with the achieve- ments of his completed career. In fact, from these few men who held the confidence and shared in all the plans of Mr. Lick, has ever gone out the denial that he was miserly or selfish or forgetful of his duties to mankind, and the claim that beneath the ice of his outward nature flowed the warm currents of a philan- thropic heart.

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Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or Santa Clara county, California, Part 22

Author: Foote, Horace S., ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 844

Author: Foote, Horace S., ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 844