Pages on this blog mentioning Colonel Dailey:
- Wheelmen's Rest
- A MAN WHO LIVES AMONG SKELETONS - The San Francisco Call and Post San Francisco, California · Sunday, January 05, 1902
- Quaint Village of Condemned Street Railway Cars on the Ocean Beach. - San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco, California · Sunday, October 04, 1896
Read more about Carville.
Charles Edwin Dailey was born 4 March 1838 in Farmington, Connecticut to Chauncey P. and Aurelia (Dix) Dailey. (ancestry.com) His father Chauncey was a "waggoner," and he enlisted in his 60s in a Union regiment, serving in the Civil War as a musician. Charles was a State Agent for the state of Connecticut in the Civil War, and his brother Henry served as well. ("A state agent was a member of a committee appointed by a governor during the Civil War to recruit and fund various efforts." - Google AI search result) After the war, he was an administrator for the Connecticut Relief Soldier's Association, then, for seven years, a clerk in the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. He married Louisa (Louise) Maria Pratt (her record on ancestry.com) on 15 November 1864 in Unionville, CT. They had twins prematurely, one stillborn, one, Charles Lincoln Dailey, dying a few months later, in October of 1865. He began studying medicine, but it was not for him. At some point he attained a law degree, or passed the bar. It appears he tried farming in Falls Church, VA for a number of years, 1872 to 1880, before being appointed Receiver of Public Moneys in Florence, Arizona Territory.
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This is a photo of the Dailey family, from
user Judithrichards90 on Ancestry.com. Two of these people are likely Charles and Louisa, I'm guessing
that's him in the second row, behind who I believe is his mother,
Aurelia. |
While in Arizona, he wrote a series of articles for the National Republican, a Washington, D.C. newspaper, about life in Arizona. It becomes clear from these long-form pieces that Charles was progressive, open-minded, interested in civics and a believer in fairness and the legal process. He originated the idea of a Grazing Land Act. (see also) At one point, he applied for the Surveyor General position, appealed for support, then retired from public office when he didn't get it and went into private practice as a land lawyer. As a yankee in the Arizona Territory, where ruthless commerce, land and mining speculators and a rough population of settlers and cowboys displaced Native Americans, Charles was often at odds with locals, both in state and federal office, and also in the business of land. Newspapers represented various factions, either praising his fairness or condemning him as a high-minded official at odds with business interests. He was a temperance advocate. He boosted some mining interests. He applied to be a Republican representative of the Arizona Territory in congress, but was defeated, probably because he was at odds with "rings" of business interests. He endorsed another candidate. He moved to Tucson and got involved in local politics. At one point, he described bad behavior by a clerk, who showed up at his house, with his brother, and beat Charles in front of his wife. (more here, here, here and here) He traveled, with his wife to Washington, D. C., wrote an article for the Washington Post (which I can't find) praising Native Americans and urging for their better treatment, which was harshly criticized by adversarial Arizona newspapers. He visited Boston, met with the President, buried his brother (who'd been fired the year before from a long career in the First Auditors office) and was appointed again to government office in Arizona, this time as Register of the Land Office, much to the dismay of local interests. A fire burned part of his house, while he and his wife were entertaining guests. He remained in open conflict with local "rings" of land interests and newspaper editors, obviously standing up for the rights of settlers over speculators, was proposed to become a land and timber inspector, got into open conflict with the local U.S. Indian Agent over land issues, (more) before being suspended as Register in a really weird, pass-the-buck kind of way. (more and more) His military rank was brought into question. It was obvious the local power structure wanted him gone.
He and his wife moved to Los Angeles in 1887, bought property in Pomona, got involved in local Republican politics and got involved in a local board of trade. Louisa, his wife taught in schools, as a volunteer. After a few years in Los Angeles, they moved to San Francisco in 1890, living at 921 Sutter St. They had often visited San Francisco in the past.
In San Francisco they had many friends, and often entertained, he paid his respects to Clara Barton, again got involved in civic matters, this time about land sales for the Post Office. In 1893 he became representative for the king of the Gilbert Islands, (we know one of them as the Makin Atoll, significant in WWII) who was seeking to have his island become a U. S. protectorate. (more, more) His likeness is drawn in one of the articles:
Sometime around 1893, things went wrong for Charles and Louisa. Whether it was health, money or marital happiness, I don't know, but in 1893 he began living in a horse car in the sand dunes near Ocean Beach, at that time known as Oceanside, on property owned by Adolph Sutro, and Louisa was back east, in Connecticut, visiting with her family.
He is not named in this article, but the "Annex" he ran was:
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| Coffee House at the Beach |
Two old Valencia-street cars have been lying in the sand at the end of the car line at the Beach for some time. Some one bought them for a speculation. Mayor Sutro rebought them for a bigger speculation. Now they are to be opened as a coffee saloon, with sandwiches and other refreshments, if desired. This coffee saloon will especially look to the Sunday patronage and early bicycle riders. The cars are to be placed end to end, with the two meeting platforms dispensed with. A few tables will be placed inside, but the principle business will be done by opening the windows on one side and passing the refreshments out to the waiting multitude.
Later, his residence is described:
Three years ago Colonel Dailey took a deserted real estate office for his cabin home. He excavated his front yard and paved it with pounded shells, with the paths traced by big ones. That was to make it certain that the front door would not be hermetically sealed every gusty morning.
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Charles E. Daily in an
1897 - 1898 San Francisco City directory |
The Colonel was not at all well when he became monarch of all he surveyed. He was troubled with insomnia, and at midnight he used to wander up and down the beach with a lantern and a basket in search of treasure trove. He always found it. The Colonel no longer has insomnia, but he still walks the beach. Now he goes in the early morning, coming back with dripping baskets overflowing with the fruits of old ocean.
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Guide Map Of The City of San Francisco, 1897, Southern Pacific Company, georeferenced on a modern map, showing where Colonel Dailey lived at "cor 49th Av and H," now La Playa St. & Lincon Way |
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Another car is Colonel Dailey's "Annex." This he opened at the request of the wheel people, and he dispenses fruit, sandwiches, crackers, cigarettes, chewing gum and soft drinks.
Quaint Village of Condemned Street Railway Cars on the Ocean Beach. - San
Francisco Chronicle San Francisco, California · Sunday, October 04,
1896
His two cars were known as "Colonel Dailey's Camp." He was known as the "pioneer of Carville," as the area was later named. In 1894, he and his wife were a guest of honor of Adolph Sutro, millionaire, and not yet Mayor of San Francisco. (more)
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| Quaint Village of Condemned Street Railway Cars on the Ocean Beach. - San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco, California · Sunday, October 04, 1896 |
Within a few years, more people copied Charles, buying abandoned horse cars,
newly available for very little money, and renting lots from Adolph Sutro.
"Mayor Adolph Sutro,
who owned the land, encouraged the arrival and development of Carville as a
way to collect temporary rents on his property." [CARVILLE: Suburban Bohemia in Fin de Siecle San Francisco, by Natalie
Jahraus Cowan] Sutro had big
plans for the Cliff House, Sutro Baths and Sutro Heights, including development of the land where Colonel Dailey had his little car
house.
He was in open conflict with the Market Street Railway, the Southern
Pacific Company, the Olympic Club, and wanted to build his own electric
railway, but couldn't. It is interesting that most of the horse cars on rented lots, on his
property came from the Market Street Railway, when they switched to
electrically-powered street cars. Another friend of Colonel Dailey's, a fellow
Connecticut native who had been friends with the Colonel since boyhood days,
and a frequent visitor to the bicycling ladies and bohemians at Carville was
Collis P. Huntington, one of the "big four" behind the Southern Pacific Company. Adolph and
Collis might have had some interesting conversations at these gatherings.
The year 1838 saw the birth of the colonel in Connecticut. When he came to man's estate he studied to become a physician, but the knife was hateful to him - he could barely witness an operation, the sight made him sick.
So when the Civil War broke out Mr. Dailey became military State agent for Connecticut, and was present at the horrors of Bull Run, Gettysburg and Fredericksburg.
Here, indeed, he got his fill of that which he most hated - the shedding of blood.
At Gettysburg the bullets hailed so fast that the trunks of trees were drilled with them and so undermined that they fell. In these three bloody battles he was here, there and everywhere attending the comforts of the wounded. The conscience of the man in the duties before him taught him to overcome and eradicate his loathing of bloodshed and help his comrades.
He was not always at the front. He had his house in Washington and received many men of note.
He did well and the people were proud of him; but the people forgot.
So many people in a nation do well at such a time, and so many in the war did more than well. It is easy to forget.
Later on, however, this little man was to the fore again and he became receiver of Government funds to the Territory of Arizona and that at a time when Arizona was licking the blood of the Texas hoof and was at her worst.
He stood the test and looked after claimants. He saw right done and was not afraid. Millions passed through his hands and he received the thanks of the Territory at the end of his administration.
Colonel Dailey came at last to San Francisco and ran in 1890 for Surveyor General.
The late Senator Stanford saw him several times and regretted that he could not support him, in that he was already working for another man. The Senator said Dailey's letters of recommendation were the finest he had ever read.
A MAN WHO LIVES AMONG SKELETONS - The San Francisco Call and
Post San Francisco, California · Sunday, January 05, 1902
The Falcon Bicycle Club set up a club house in an old horse car. Robert H. Fitzgerald and Ida F. Fitzgerald were also local residents. Robert was a city clerk, like Colonel Dailey had once been. He later became clerk of the California Supreme Court. Ida was one of the seven members of the Falcon Bicycle Club. They threw excellent parties. Joseph Leggett was a frequent visitor, as was Ambrose Bierce, Mayor Sutro, A bohemian group known as "The Fuzzy Bunch" often met out there, and a rather funky neighborhood of cars developed. Ida and Robert reminisced about the early days of Carville was they watched it burn in 1914, making way for development and progress.
Colonel Charles Edwin Dailey was old, infirm, grew ill, and died in 1903. Adolph Sutro, his friend, had died in 1898. After Charles' death, Sutro's daughter Emma L. Merritt sued for possession of the property on which Charles' cars stood, and Louisa, with her nephew Howell Gilbert attempted to keep the title as homesteaders who had improved the land, but the sheriff evicted them. Louisa wrote about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in letters home, published in Connecticut newspapers, and lived for another 22 years in Oakland, with her brother Fred, passing away in 1928.
ROAR OF WAVES IS HIS REQUIEM
Old Colonel Dailey Slips Into Beyond Alone in His Cabin.
Old Colonel Charles E. Dailey, the father of what was once Carville, but is now known by the more dignified title of Oceanside, is dead. Yesterday his body was found lying in the little bedroom of his driftwood cabin out by the ocean beach, just as death had stricken it. With only the boom of the surf for his requiem, the little old hermit with the snowy beard had passed into the great sea of mystery alone; there was no one to close the dim eyes or fold the wrinkled old hands across the breast.
Ten years ago Colonel Dalley received from his boon companion, Adolph Sutro, a little patch of sand out on the beach below the Cliff House. There he gathered together enough of the flotsam of the set - broken bones of dead ships - to build himself a tiny cabin. The rooftree, clapboards and joists all came out of the sea; not a sliver of wood was there which had not been once a part of some vessel, long since lying broken backed at the bottom of the green depths.
Here, housed in by the skeletons of ships, old Colonel Dailey spent the fading days of his life. For years his light was the only one which winked through the blur of the storms, his little garden-spot was the only color in the yellow waste of sands. Then one by one the old street cars began to be wheeled out to the beach and grouped into a mongrel village about "Colonel Dalley's camp." His tiny cabin and flower patch became the nucleus of Oceanside.
The man who had lived so many years with the gulls and the sand pipers had once been prominent in affairs of the nation. A native of Connecticut, he was made military agent of the State when the war of the rebellion flamed out. In that capacity he was on the battlefields of Gettysburg and Fredericksburg in the midst of the fearful carnage. Later, when the war was over, he was appointed receiver of Government funds for the Territory of Arizona and held that position for several years.
But ill health began to wear him down and ten years ago Colonel Dailey forsook the activities of the world to live alone with the roar of the sea and the rush of the salt airs. Alone he was when death came to him on the wings of the mysterious night wind from the west.
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