Knave - Oakland Tribune - Sunday, February 19, 1961

 

I'm leaving out the first few paragraphs, which deal with current politics, and moving right to the histories and stories. Click the clipping below if you want to read what you missed, here.

Whaling Ships

"The old town has changed," commented Capt. W. T. ("Bill") Murnan this week on his arrival in Oakland to show his "Spain and Portugal" travelogue at the Oakland Auditorium Theater next Friday night, Feb. 24. What Captain Murnan was thinking about was the Oakland of 1911, the year he arrived here as a 15-year-old youth and stowed away on the F. S. Redfield, one of the old whaling ships of the Pacific Steam Whaling Co. The whaling ships in those days anchored well down stream in the Estuary from the Alaska Packers fleet, and Murnan recalls he had been aboard the Redfield pleading for a berth and a chance to sail. "They told me I was too young... go home and tell my mother she wanted me... or something like that," he recounts. While looking wistfully at the ship from ashore he was given more advice by some "old salts" who chanced to be loafing nearby. That night Murnan returned and under the cover of darkness crawled, hand over hand, up the bow line and hid out under the forecastle head on the forward deck. The skipper didn't find him until next day when the ship was out beyond The Heads and it was too late to do anything about it. The skipper, he recalls, was Capt. James McKenna of Berkeley. Murnan thrilled to whaling and trading in Alaska and Siberia. He had never before been at sea, but he was an adventuresome boy. He ran away from his Chicago home in 1909 and made his way to the Alaska-Yukon Exposition at Seattle. Two years later he headed for California and landed in Oakland. The new adventure was to be more exciting than he had bargained for. The Redfield was driven on the point during a storm at Cape Prince of Wales and was pound to pieces. But not before all aboard were rescued by the great old Cutter Bear of Oakland. One of his fondest recollections of his adventure aboard the Redfield was the meeting aboard ship of an equally adventurous young man from Oakland named Bob Dalziel. [Maybe? - MF] Bob came back to Oakland aboard the Bear after the shipwreck, but Murnan returned via Nome and Seattle aboard the coal ship Eureka of Buffalo. "I never saw Bob again," he says.

'Thar She Blows' 

Captain Murnan's travelogue here next Friday night will have nothing to do with Oakland history, or whaling, or his adventures in the Pacific. Instead he will deal with Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Malaga, Sevilla, Jerez, Lisbon, Oporto, Fatima and Estoril. It seems the adventure that was born in Captain Murnan as a boy back in those exciting days when he strolled the Oakland waterfront have remained with him always. After the Redfield he shipped aboard the California, and in 1912 the Elvira, and in 1913 the Beluga. In 1914 he took time out to hunt for gold in Alaska and the Yukon Territory, but with no luck. He joined the crew of the revenue cutter McCullough for one year and was paid off at Sausalito, then during 1915-1916 and 1917 he was aboard the Belvedere under the command of both Capt. Billy Mogg and Capt. George Porter. The Belvedere was finally ran ashore in Siberia. About that time the United States became involved in World War I and Murnan made his way to Nome where he joined Uncle Sam's Signal Corps. "That was the Aviation Corps of our early days and I found myself a balloon-a-tic in an observation balloon on the San Mihiel front." Once the war was over he was quick to return to California and Pacific waters and has since captained his own small ship in worldwide adventures. "But I've never forgotten those days when I was an oarsman in the whaling trade," he smiles. In the early days Oakland Creek, as the Estuary was then known to sailors from all the seas, was a favorite laying up place for the old square riggers, whalers, and sealers during the off season. Captain Murnan said he usually spent from December to May in Oakland during the off seasons. Oakland's reputation had long been well known as a whaling harbor by the time Murnan arrived here. "I think it was second to none outside of New Bedford and Nantucket," he muses. The sealers and the whalers were the "hard case" residents of the Estuary, for they led a hard life under two-fisted mates.

The Dents Again

Mention of the Dent family and their connection with Knights Ferry awakened youthful memories of Vicksburg, Miss., for Mrs. D. S. Alverson of Santa Cruz. "I attended high school with Julia Dent, a granddaughter of John Dent, President Grant's brother-in-law. Her father was a member of the law firm of Hirsch, Dent & Landau of Vicksburg, then a city of 25,000. I think President Grant appointed John Dent postmaster there during his term in office, and the Dent family never left the city. They were well liked and were a family of culture and learning. I often wondered why President Grant didn't give his brother-in-law a bigger job in Washington. There is also a Grant house on the outskirts of the city, where Grant lived during the siege of Vicksburg. The town in 1860 was a wealthy port on the Mississippi River where travelers boarded boats to St. Louis or New Orleans, or took a train to points east or the northeast. It was the western border of our country for many years. Many '49ers headed for the gold rush from this area. I recall such names as Sen. William Gwin, William Walker, Governor Foote, Judge Terry, and Tevis. I doubt if any were born in Vicksburg, but they lived there...."

[I tried to verify some of this in genealogy trees, but it doesn't work. - MF]

Oakland's skyline kept pace in the 1880s as Broadway pushed beyond city limits. Here Webster Street intersects Broadway

Booming Broadway

By the time Oaklanders began keeping pace with the Gay '90s they looked back on the 1880s with wistfulness and envy. The "Elegant '80s" they called those bygone years. It was during the "Elegant '80s" that Oakland built Grant School on the east side of Broadway at Prospect St. (now 29th St.), and the Christian Brothers moved St. Mary's College from across the Bay in San Francisco to a site on the west side of Broadway at what we now call 30th St. Webster St. had been extended across Broadway some years previous and came to terminate at Hawthorne St. and the junction of Webster Ave. Webster Ave., in turn, once again crossed Broadway and terminated at the gates of Mountain View Cemetery. Modern Oaklanders know Webster Ave. much better as Piedmont Ave. It was also called Cemetery Ave. Husted's Oakland Directory for 1891 identifies Broadway above this junction with Webster Ave. as New Broadway, "a continuance of Broadway beyond the city line." The photo on this page today shows Webster St. crossing Broadway at Bay Place, or 26th St. Forming the skyline is the five-story brick St. Mary's College and the two-story wooden Grant School. The small two-story frame building in the gore is unidentified, but there's a sign on the board fence along Bay Place that tells of Dr. Stimpson's veterinary offices on 24th St. We doubt if you can read it. The photograph is from the collection of Mrs. Helen Rigney of Oakland, daughter of Charles V. Estey. Estey was for years a partner of Edward "Doc" Rogers in San Francisco. They were portrait photographers. Just prior to the 1906 earthquake and fire Rogers came to work as a photographer for The Tribune, and Estey joined the photo staff at The Bulletin in San Francisco. Both are deceased.

Map number one (Alameda County farm map. Published by Thompson & West, Oakland, Cal., 1878) via georeferencer.com

 

Historians to Meet

The Knave: The Solano and Contra Costa County Historical societies will hold a joint meeting and dinner at the Concord Inn this coming Thursday (Feb. 23) at 7:30 p.m. Ellis Randall, president of the Solano County Society, will be the program moderator. There will be seven brief 10-minute talks by members of the Solano society officers including Ernest E. Wichels, a director, who will talk on "Mare Island." Wichels is chief administrative assistant to the commander of the U.S. shipyard at Mare Island. He has served there for 47 years. Percy Neitzel, another director, will talk on "Cordelia and Green Valley." The Neitzel family came to Solano County in the 1850s, residing in Suisun Valley. The man who will speak was born and raised there; he is steeped in its lore and history. Robert Power, still another director, plans to tell of "Vacaville." Power is a past president of the society and editor of its monthly publication, "The Note Book." His folk were among the earliest settlers of Solano County. Director Glen Richardson will speak on "Fairfield and Suisun." His subject matter will include historic Benicia. Richardson is a former mayor of Fairfield. He and his wife are avid historians. Miss Anna Mae Morrison, vice president of the Solano group, will tell of "Rio Vista," where she has been a distinguished teacher and lifelong resident. Her interesting story will be worth hearing. Director Ralph Moss is scheduled to talk on the Dixon area. He comes of a banking family and is a member of the Solano County Planning Commission. Director Edgar Strouse will be the seventh speaker. He is the chief ranger of the old Benicia State Capitol and is thoroughly acquainted with all aspects of Benicia's history. Benicia is the oldest town in Solano County, founded in 1847. All friends wishing to attend the dinner gathering should send in their reservations at once to the Manager, Concord Inn, Concord, Calif. At a meeting of the Contra Costa County Historical Society held last fall at the Concord Inn more than 50 guests failed to make reservations. Somehow the inn's management served them, but it was a problem. Justice A. F. Bray, president of the Contra Costa Society, and Ellis Randall, president of the Solano Society, arranged the Feb. 23 meeting. They plan another joint gathering in Vallejo later in the spring. A tour of the Navy Yard will be an interesting part of the next program. Watch for the announcement. - John W. Winkley.

Frontiersman

Jacob Zumwalt was a versatile American frontiersman - first in Ohio, then Indiana, next in Illinois and, finally, in California. He was the father of Dr. Rockwell D. Hunt's mother. "My personal recollection of him goes back to early boyhood, the 1870s, when he and my grandmother lived on Ninth St. near L St. in Sacramento," Dr. Hunt relates. "The particular object about that city home that I now remember best was a tall plum tree near the back steps of the house. Somehow, the plums that grew on that tree seemed to me to be better than those from our own orchard at the Freeport Ranch. The real hero in every phase of the western frontier in America was the resourceful farmer. First of all, he needed a brave wife who knew how to get along with little and get things done in addition to bringing up the children. One of the first major tasks on the 80 or 160 acres of his woodland farm was to build a house to live in. But there was no lumber, no saw mill, no keg of nails, no architect anywhere near - only the trees awaiting the farmer's axe. Of course it had to be a log house, built of the trees standing there. Log houses were not all exactly alike. They differed with place and circumstance. But, the typical log house of the frontier, allowing for divergencies, may be described as being made of logs from the trunks of young trees, 20 to 30 feet long, about six inches in diameter, with notches cut in their extremities' to hold them in place. The roof was made of the same material, although usually smaller logs, sloping on each side. It was usual to have two doors which served also in place of windows. These were made by sawing off part of the logs. At one end was the chimney, ending in clay six inches or more thick. Spaces between logs were chinked in with clay. A careless job left the cabin cold in winter. The doors were swung on wooden hinges, without locks as a rule, but fastened with wooden pegs. There was no such thing as smooth floors. Seldom was a house of more than two rooms found.

Versatile Grandpa

"By steady work," continues Dr. Hunt, two men could build such a house in four or five days. But not a single nail was used. As a rule, two big beds were used for the entire family. If lucky, they had featherbed mattresses. Instead of having closets for their meager supply of clothing (mostly homemade), the garments were hung up around the room, or suspended from a long pole stretched across. Today we hear and read a good deal about the log cabin, but we have no realization of the deprivations and hardships endured by the wife and mother in these log homes. As a girl and later a young mother on the Illinois frontier my own mother enjoyed such a house. It was her home. From mother's own words I record some of the things her father did on the frontier: 'He could make almost everything we needed to use in those pioneer days. He would go down by the Oplane River and cut down a cedar tree and rive out the staves, then work them up, half white and half red, into washtubs, keelers and buckets; taking hickory saplings and splitting them into strips for hoops. He made scrubbing brooms by sawing a rim around a hickory stick, working the upper end for a handle, and splitting the other end into fine splints. He tanned the deerskins and made mittens and whip lashes. He made our shoes and boots, did his own carpenter work and blacksmithing. From cows' horns he made good coarse combs and back combs. He was uncommonly ingenious.' Being a skillful hunter, and because deer, grouse and other wild game were plentiful, the family of three sons and three daughters fared well for meat. There was no doctor within miles of the farm, but grandmother knew many home remedies. I doubt if there was really any more sickness in that family than in the pampered family of the average city home today.

Cherished Heritage

"My grandfather's versatility may be thought of as another kind of division of labor," adds Dr. Hunt. "Instead of concentrating on a minute portion of complex total production by use of the assembly line (as in the modern making of automobiles), he displayed proficiency in creating many total products in an extremely simple economy, satisfying nearly all the needs of his frontier family. In contrast, I do not even shine my own shoes. Some of my friends go to a professional manicurist to have their fingernails trimmed, and to the chiropodist to have their corns treated. Each system has its advantages; but no one today would wish to return to the simple economy of the frontier, though all will admit the danger of losing self-reliance and personal initiative because of the assembly-line method. Historically, as indicated, the real hero of the Old West - from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown - is the farmer. His were the traditional traits of self-reliance and love of personal freedom. The typical individual farmer on his limited acreage was the very embodiment of industry and thrift. It was the frontiersman farmer that held the outpost of oncoming civilization. It may even be said that the long road West was marked with trial and triumph. As I now look back through a long perspective, I have a sense of gratitude for a frontier grandfather of such versatility, for my own versatile farmer father, and for my own childhood years as a farmer boy. It's a heritage to be cherished a factor in establishing the American way of life.'

THE KNAVE

Knave 19 Feb 1961, Sun Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Newspapers.com