Memorial Day in Marinship

Nora Sawyer, Sausalito Historical Society

When the keel for the Liberty Ship William A. Richardson was laid on June 27th, 1942, the United States had been at war for a little more than six months. Just three months before, residents of Sausalito’s Pine Point had been evicted, and their homes relocated or destroyed. The point itself was dynamited, the shoreline and tidal flats filled, and crews worked day and night to build the Marin Shipbuilding Division of W.A. Bechtel Company – Marinship, for short.

Between the laying of the William A. Richardson’s keel and the launch of its last ship, the Marinship saw three Memorial Days.

On Monday May 31st, 1943, the Marinship observed its first Memorial Day with the launch of the tanker Moscoma. “The entire ceremony was keyed to the day,” observed the Sausalito News, “with the birth of a new ship and the honoring of the nation’s hero dead jointly underlying the program.” Among the dignitaries in attendance was U.S. Navy Chaplain Lt. Howell M. Forgy, who gave the invocation “with a voice and delivery which made ‘Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition’ famous at Pearl Harbor.” Forgy had served as chaplain aboard the USS New Orleans, and during the attack had been overheard using phrase, which became widely quoted and was even turned into a popular song by Frank Loesser in 1942.

The next year, the shipyard marked Memorial Day with the dedication of the S. S. Mission Buenaventura, its thirtieth large tanker and forty-fifth ship launched from the shipyard. Though the ceremony took place two days before Memorial Day, its bow was painted with a wreath of red poppies, in remembrance of American servicemen and women who had died overseas.

On National Maritime Day on May 22 that year, shipyard workers gathered to hear from Clarence Smith, known as Smitty, “a man who helped build the ship that was sunk under him in the Indian Ocean.” The shipfitter leadman had helped build the Sebastian Cermeno, a Liberty Ship launched from Sausalito in March 1943. On June 27, 1943, he was serving aboard the merchant ship when it was struck by two torpedoes from a Nazi submarine. Smitty, aboard a lifeboat, barely escaped the vortex created when “the large vessel rose straight on her nose, until almost vertical, and then slipped quickly under the water.”

Three men went down with the ship, and two more died at sea. The rest escaped in five lifeboats. After twenty days at sea, the lifeboat carrying Smitty and 24 other survivors was picked up by a British Convoy, who “gave them tea and cigarettes, washed off the heavy oil which covered the survivors ever since the Cermeno went down, and gave them new clothing.”

“It was the greatest feeling of my life,” the Sausalito News quotes Smitty as telling the Marinship workers “to get into those clean clothes and know you were saved. We stayed aboard the small warship nine days. Now I am crazy about the British.” 

After a medical discharge, Smitty returned to his job at the Marinship. Harry Faulkner another survivor who’d also helped build the Cermeno was re-deployed as a seaman. After Smitty finished his story, “workers stood in a minute of silent tribute to the five men who were lost in the sinking of the Ceremeno, and to the 5,500 seamen lost in line of duty since the war began.” When the war ended, the Sebastian Cermeno was the only ship built at the Marinship lost to enemy fire.

I couldn’t find newspaper coverage of the last Memorial Day observed at the wartime shipyard. Perhaps the yard was too hard at work – June 16 1945 saw the launch of the USS Huntington Hills, produced in a record-setting 33 days, with 28 days on the ways and 5 at the outfitting docks. This broke the prior record of 59 days, set by the Ellwood Hills (also built in the Marinship) that April.

By that final Memorial Day, the war’s end was in sight. Germany had surrendered to the Allied forces on May 9th, and Japan would formally surrender September 2nd. On September 8, 1945, the shipyard celebrated the launch of its last ship, the Mission San Francisco. All told, the Marinship launched 15 Liberty ships, 16 fleet oilers, and 62 tankers — a total of 93 ships in three and a half years.

As you walk or drive through the Marinship this week, you’ll see historical photographs featuring the Marinship and its workers. Sponsored by the Sausalito Working Waterfront Coalition, the Sausalito Lion’s Club, Sausalito Foundation, Marin Performing Stars, and the Historical Society, these posters look back at a proud chapter in the history of Sausalito’s waterfront, celebrate our continuing maritime heritage, and honor those who have died while serving in our country’s military. As you pass, take a moment to remember those who died, and also think of the bustling wartime shipyard, the workers who kept it going, and the ships that were built and launched from our shores.

The Sweetest Little Ferry

By Annie Sutter and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

Most people know that Issaquah Dock at Waldo Point Harbor is named after an old ferryboat. Annie Sutter tells the story of that long-gone waterfront relic in her 1987 booklet, The Old Ferryboats of Sausalito:

PHOTO FROM ANNIE SUTTER

Old “Squash” almost looks squashed in this Marin Scope photo

The Issaquah was described by those who knew her in service as "the sweetest little ferry that ever was." Known as "Squash," the 114' propeller driven double ender was built in Puget Sound in 1914. In 1918 the little steamer was purchased by the newly formed Rodeo/Vallejo line, and the new owner brought her down the coast to San Francisco Bay under her own power. Although "Squash" and the crew were severely knocked about by a storm on the way down, she was put to work immediately upon arrival on July 4, 1918. In 1927 the opening of the Carquinez Bridge put the line out of business — a taste of what was to come — and the Issaquah moved over to the Martinez/Benecia run until 1941 when she went to work on Mare Island/Vallejo service, and then was laid up after the war at Vallejo.

Issaquah remained retired until 1954 when Sausalito artist Jean Varda bought her for his young Greek bride and brought her to Sausalito. But the bride apparently did not appreciate the gift, and after a couple of years the pretty little ferry sold and resold again. There were various plans — a night¬club, a developer's office, a restaurant — there were bursts of enthusiasm and subsequent burnouts over the years; claims, counterclaims and liens, problems which seem to have beset all the old ferries as time went on. In the late 50's the boat was divided into living quarters and rented out to tenants, but by then she had begun to hog, and teredos had bored through the hull.

Most of the tenants on board the Issaquah apparently — and not unreasonably — were unwilling to invest the tremendous amounts of time and money involved in keeping even with the disintegration. But one used his head instead of his energy to get the ferry a facelift, by allowing a movie company to use her in a film in exchange for a new paint job. And paint her they did, but only the side they were filming. And when the cameras began to roll, a banner saying things about the cheap movie company unfurled from the upper deck. Issaquah got the other half of the paint job.

But desultory maintenance isn't enough. Deal only with the surface and you've got but a brief respite, an impermanent truce in the endless battle waged on board the ferries with time, worms, weathering and rot. Both ferries at the edge of the freeway will have to be saved soon — if indeed it is still possible. Why did it happen? Whose fault is it that we are losing these representatives of an important part of our maritime history?

"Blame the corporations that sold them," said the salvor. "They should've cared enough to sell them to someone willing to maintain them, not someone like me."

"But," said the old timer, "old and tired ferry boats were a dime a dozen in those days. Who knew how quickly they would become objects of historical value?"

"Go take pictures of them," said the historian, "for soon that's all you'll have left. Everybody had something that's lost now — if we knew it would have value someday, why we'd have a fortune."

"Blame the people who lived on board. Why couldn't they pick up a paintbrush once a year? They just wanted a pad, and they were too lazy to put a 2 x 4 under a sagging timber."

"Blame [landlord Donovan] Arques. He wouldn't ever turn those boats over to anybody, why should they do all the work when they don't even own it?"

And on go the arguments; blame time, blame teredos, blame the irreconcilable distances between what you think you want and what you're willing to put together. Blame the myriad circumstances waiting to contribute to our roster of historical losses.

According to Wikipedia, the movie mentioned above was "Dear Brigitte" starring Jimmy Stewart. “Squash’s” good side can be seen beached on the mud behind the Charles van Damme.

 In the 1970s the two pilot houses were salvaged from the mud flats and restored. They are the sole remnants of the vessel and are displayed at the foot of Napa Street, in Galilee Harbor.

Fred Peters, Restaurateur/Raconteur

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

In the long list of one-of-a-kind Sausalito characters, Fred Peter’s, founder of Fred’s Place café, is a standout.

A Phil Frank caricature of Fred Peters

Some excerpts from Annie Sutter's story of Fred's life published in this paper in November 1985 describe

Fred as “tall, lean, dark haired, sporting a drooping mustache, waving his spatula about and chewing on a cigar stub cheerily carr[ying] on conversations with patrons filling the counter and tables, and lining up at the door. He's going at top speed, tossing out quips, gossiping, joshing with the employees all the while flipping eggs, whirling omelets, frying mountains of potatoes, pouring coffee and ringing the cash register. Fred learned the restaurant business from the top side down, so to speak, as an apprentice in a fine hotel in post-war Germany....”

Annie’s profile continues: "In 1955, I left for the United States," recalls Fred. "When I got to New York, the immigration agents were all standing there, sorting everybody into lines according to profession. Oh — I was worried if I was ever gonna get work. But when they found out that I was a professional in the restaurant business, I had a job on the spot...it didn't even seem like working. All of a sudden —only eight hours a day and people used to say Thank You! After I was working there a few days —I didn’t even speak English yet—and they said to me, ‘Fred, you don’t have to come here on Tuesday and Friday—you’re off.’ I thought I was fired.

"So then I made it to San Francisco. And one day in 1960 we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and down into Sausalito and into the Mobil Station over there, and I saw the Valhalla. I walked in and said I'm looking for work, and the manager said, 'you start on Tuesday.' I walked back to the car and said, 'let's unpack, we're home.' We moved into the Portofino, right next door with a swimming pool. Life was absolutely beautiful...”

After six years, Fred decided to do something on his own.

"So I decided I'm gonna go into the hot dog business. I looked around for a location and found one that was out of town -- I mean FAR. In 1966, Sausalito ended 6 feet after the Village Fair. Bridgeway was a two lane road going out of town and in front of Spring Street, it was dirt and a little white pony was standing there where I went and opened my business...

And that's how Fred's Place came about. "This was not my business, you know; making hamburgers,” Fred explained. “I can behave myself around frog’s legs, Chateaubriand and Dover sole, but I never touched a hot dog before. I never cooked any coffee before…The first day I opened, I had the place spotless clean and the first customer orders hot cakes. I was a nervous wreck making this short stack…”

The rest of the story is history. People have returned over and over again to eat breakfast and lunch at Fred’s.

PHOTOS BY LARRY CLINTON

One of the more popular features at Fred’s was a large communal table where a group of regulars gathered every morning. Marin Scope columnist Ralph Holmstad described the scene in December 2002: “Sausalito has an unusual organization. Its name is Stammtisch and it meets every morning at Fred's Place, the friendly coffee house and restaurant on Bridgeway at Spring Street. The name is German. It means ‘the regulars.’ It refers to a group of friends who take over a big table in a favorite restaurant, talk together, and solve all of the world's problems. Next morning. they do it again.”

One of those regulars, with a perfect Sausalito name, Dick Seashore, told Marin Magazine that the locals were far from exclusive. Seashore maintains, "We're friendly. In Germany you have to be invited to sit at a stammtisch table. In the summer here we see German tourists and invite them to join us.” Dick says this organization has two or three women members, and according to Seashore they even “brought in a Republican from Mill Valley to broaden the political discussion.”

Dieter Rapp, a landsman of Fred’s from Germany, was considered unofficial leader of the Stammtisch table. Upon Fred’s untimely death in 1988 at age 53, Rapp contributed a fond remembrance to this paper. Here are a few excerpts:

For many of his customers, Fred’s was much more than a coffee shop. It was home. Boat people, lawyers and courageous tourists alike would quickly take a liking to the particular seating arrangement which was common in Germany and which he would often announce to newcomers in his baritone: “Ve share tables here." Big, round oak tables drew people from all walks of life together for easy, down-to-earth conversation and a hearty meal.

Rapp added, “Fred loved to relax on his houseboat where he lived for many years before houseboats were the ‘in’ thing, listening to Willie Nelson records played at concert-hall volume, and enjoy a drink or two.” Fred’s houseboat on Issaquah Dock was a log cabin with an oversize arrow stuck in its roof, as if it were under Indian attack.

A houseboat neighbor, George Richardson, bought the place after Fred’s death, vowing "Fred’s is going to stay Fred's. We’re going to serve the same good food and have the same people coming in.” Since then the place has changed hands a number of times, but the basic ambiance and menu remain consistent. During the pandemic, the tables are smaller and farther apart, and there’s more outdoor seating, but otherwise the place feels the same.

On the Waterfront in 50s Sausalito

By Jack Tracy and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

“Sausalito in 1950 was a peaceful small town once again,” says Historical Society founder Jack Tracy in his book Moments in Time. Here’s the rest of Jack’s account, lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

After the turmoil and the wartime crowds, a quiet settled over the town that had not been experienced in decades. The ferryboats were gone. Steam whistles, for over eighty years a familiar sound to Sausalitans, could no longer be heard. Long lines of automobiles, their occupants impatient to embark for San Francisco, were a thing of the past. In 1950 weeds grew in the vacant lot where once the Northwestern Pacific depot stood. The ferry slips were slowly rotting away.

PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Hulks burning in Richardson's Bay

The Golden Gate Ferry landing at Princess Street was also abandoned and quiet. The tiny building that once housed Lange's Launch Service had become the Tin Angel, a restaurant and bar. The San Francisco Yacht Club was gone. The imposing clubhouse with its graceful arches was now a bait and tackle shop for local fishermen.

The railroad yards and shops were gone from Sausalito. Many trainmen still lived in town, but there was little activity on the remaining tracks. The locomotives built in the Sausalito shops were only memories.

Richardson's Bay, referred to as the "Boneyard" during the 1880s because of numerous sailing ships laid up there, still had remnants of a windjammer fleet in 1950. Most of them would sail no more. The showboat Pacific Queen, ex-Balclutha had been towed to Southern California after a brief attempt in 1946 to convert her to a floating poker palace. The Echo and Commerce were burned before World War II, but the once lovely brig Galilee was still there, on the mud near the foot of Napa Street. The steam schooner Lassen was beached off the foot of Johnson Street near the rotting bones of smaller vessels.

On the night of November 12 1944, the old schooners Wellesley and Santa Barbara and the freighter Mazama were burned near the Madden and Lewis Yacht Harbor, to clear the sand spit of hulks. Hundreds watched as the mayor, with fire chief and city attorney present, ignited an oil-soaked rope leading to the ships. To everyone's surprise, one of the vessels contained thousands of gallons of fuel oil, which burned fiercely through the night. Cities around the bay watched in horror as they assumed Marinship or all of Sausalito was being consumed by flames. The next day as the fire continued, Sausalito was criticized in the San Francisco press for neglecting to inform others of the bonfire.

The waterfront north of Marinship became the final resting place for veteran ferryboats, once worked prodigiously, now abandoned. Here the City of San Rafael, Vallejo, Charles Van Damme, Issaquah, and City of Seattle eventually were left to their fates. Ironically, these ferryboats had never been part of Sausalito's past, but served other Bay Area cities. Nevertheless, Sausalito is where they would live out their final chapter, in Sausalito's future. The huge vessels became living quarters and work spaces for artists and craftsmen and in the 1960s became the nucleus around which the houseboat community grew.

The business community of Sausalito in 1950 was still centered around Princess Street and Bridgeway. The shoe repair shop, the Purity Store, Central Pharmacy, the Gate Theatre and Eureka Market, and other small shops were patronized by locals in the days before tourism became an industry. The bars like the Four Winds and the Plaza were small neighborly places where the bartenders knew everyone who came in. On Caledonia Street, with its own movie theatre since 1943, the pattern was much the same. The Marinship hiring hall had become an auto repair shop once again. Sausalitans still had hopes that Marinship might yet be converted to an industrial plant of one sort or another. Several companies expressed interest in the large marine ways, but the piecemeal dismantling of the shipyard was well under way by 1950.

Sausalito in 1950 was on the threshold of its "art colony" years. Always a haven for writers, artists, poets, and creative souls of many bents, Sausalito experienced. an influx of artists in the decade after World War II. At first some returning servicemen and women may have come to place themselves as far as possible from the insanity and horror of war. They sought the quiet backwaters, as Sausalito was in those days, where natural beauty and serenity abounded. Local artists raised in Sausalito or who came in the 1920s or 1930s welcomed the creative energies released in Sausalito during the 1950s. Art shows held in various places around town over the years evolved into an annual art festival, with established older artists intermingled with newcomers. Many well-known Bay Area artists emerged from the Sausalito art colony of the 1950s. The art festival has become a continuing tradition providing a showcase for local talent.

The film On the Waterfront, released in 1954, was set on the East Coast — on a very different waterfront. Elia Kazan’s masterpiece received eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Marlon Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Eva Marie Saint, and Best Director for Kazan.

Moments in Time, chronicling Sausalito’s history through the 50s, is available at[LC1]  http://www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.com/society-publications.

 [LC1]

Billie Anderson, Fair and Square

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

PHOTO COURTESY OF JILL ANDERSON

Billie Anderson, perhaps reflecting on her Marin Scope years

Billie Anderson, co-founder and managing editor of the Marin Scope and dedicated member of the Historical Society, passed away peacefully at home early April 17 following a long illness.

In a tribute, Kim Huff of the Sausalito Woman’s Club wrote: “Billie was a strong voice for the club as well as the community. She joined the club in 1989 and went right to work serving the membership. She served on several committees during her time as a member most notably Budget and Civics, she served as Treasurer for the SWC and as well as on the Board and Chairwoman of the Scholarship Recognition Fund.

“She was also well known to the Sausalito community as the outspoken Editor and Co-Owner of the MarinScope until it was sold in 1998. Billie was never short of words and always had a well-documented point of view. Billie was indeed her own woman and will be remembered for a very long time for the handprint she left on Sausalito.”

Here are some lightly edited excerpts from announcement in this newspaper of Billie’s retirement in 1999:

For the past 29 years, Billie Anderson has been the driving force behind the editorial content of the Marin Scope Community Newspapers. Originally from Washington, Anderson and her husband, Paul, moved to San Francisco in 1965. Both in their twenties, they shared a vision of launching a community newspaper somewhere in the Bay Area. Sausalito proved to be the ideal location.

"We literally drove around the Bay Area looking for a town without a newspaper and found Sausalito," Anderson said. The vision for the Marin Scope, she said, was to create a forum for community discussion. “Our premise was to start a local paper that would allow the community a chance to participate and to be close to what was going on. To become a resource for the community and not to tell them what to do, but to tell them what was happening,” she said. Residents were, at first, suspicious of the new paper, fearing that the Andersons were aligned with a particular political group. “Over time they figured out what was going on,” she said.

Anderson started out on the production side of the paper but with time took an active role in the editorial side. "She's such an absolutely very, very effective smart person. It became very clear after a while that she had all the abilities and skills that it took to be a first rate newspaper editor," said Doris Berdahl, who wrote for the paper through 1980 and served on the Historical Society board with Billie. “She was the person who really saw to it that things got done,” Berdahl said. “She saw to it that it came together and got out to its readers."

In 1984, the Andersons acquired other community newspapers and later founded the Mill Valley Herald. "We tried to continue the traditions that each newspaper had," she said. With the expansion, the staff blossomed to 25 people with offices in each of its communities. They later consolidated all the offices in Sausalito. “I think that the most rewarding thing has been being able to be a really productive part of each of the communities and able to do something that I think was a significant contribution," Anderson said. “My feeling is that the newspapers have their own life and my hope is that they will move in a direction that still keeps them a community resource and provides a place for dialogue... and working out community problems in a neutral space.

"The papers give everyone in the community an opportunity to say what they want to say and work out issues through the newspaper. Hopefully that philosophy will continue. It has kept them healthy and strong."

Berdahl observed that Anderson has made her mark in Marin. “I know that there's been a great deal of respect for Billie for how she has handled community news... She became a very powerful woman in Marin County as a whole. I have heard from various organizations that they all felt she was the person to go to..." she said.

Supervisor Annette Rose, who served one term on the Sausalito City Council before moving on to the Board of Supervisors, praised Anderson for striving to maintain balanced coverage in the Marin Scope. “I think Billie was really responsible for the coverage that the Marin Scope tried to give to the extremely divisive community issues that we've had in Sausalito, especially during times when people are running for office... they covered every candidate equally and fairly," she said. Rose credited Anderson for taking proper measures to keep her own voice out of the balanced coverage of the issues. "When there was an issue that she felt very strongly about, she would sign her name to the article and make it clear that was her opinion," she said. “

In her later years, Billie contributed columns to this Historical Society space in Marin Scope, and edited Dorothy Gibson’s popular guide Exploring Sausalito's Paths and Walkways. She is survived by her husband Paul, son Matt and daughter Jill and their families.

Santana in Sausalito

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

COURTESTY PHOTO

Lauren Bacall in one of her rare sails with her husband, Humphrey Bogart

Recent mentions of the legendary yacht Santana in Latitude 38 reminded me that the boat Humphrey Bogart made famous spent much of her middle years in San Francisco Bay, in and out of Sausalito.

Santana was built in the depth of the depression, when if you had to ask the price of such a showpiece, you really couldn’t afford it. Originally a 55-foot schooner, Santana changed hands, and configurations, frequently over the years. The first Hollywood celebrity to own her was George Brent, frequent co-star of Bette Davis, who re-rigged her as a yawl in 1941. Brent sold her to Ray Milland, who, after a presumably lost weekend, passed her on to crooner-turned-tough guy Dick Powell after just three months. Bogie took her over in 1945 and enjoyed cruising and racing on her for 12 years. His wife, Lauren Bacall wrote in her autobiography, "When he bought that boat he was enslaved—happily so—and truly had everything he'd ever dreamed of."

Perhaps she was thinking of Santana when Bacall came up with the title for her autobiography: By Myself. According to a 1982 profile in Sports Illustrated: “A typical weekend on Bogart's Santana began Saturday morning and ended Sunday night. The usual destination was White's Landing or Cherry Cove on Catalina Island, a barren, rocky place, 30 miles out to sea where there was little to do but sit in the sun, swim, eat illegally caught Pacific lobsters and drink.

“Sometimes David Niven, an enthusiastic sailor, went along. Except on the Fourth of July, when women were invited, the cruises were usually all-male. Bogart once said, ‘The trouble with having dames along is you can't pee over the side.’” Bogart did a lot of racing with Santana in Southern California, and compiled a very respectable record, SI reported.

After Bogey’s death in 1957, Santana began changing hands again, and was brought to the Bay Area by

Brigadier General W.H. (Wally) Nickell, U.S. Army, Ret., an independent oilman from Sacramento, where she was maintained at a small boatyard in San Rafael. Nickell and the proprietor of the boatyard, Emile (Babe) Lamerdin, competed in two Transpac races and three Mazatlan races in the early 60s, “but the results were only moderately satisfying,” said SI. “By then, Santana and the other ocean racers of her vintage were outclassed by modern boats, but being a good heavy-weather boat, she continued to do well on San Francisco Bay, racing as many as 20 times in a season.”

In 1969 Santana was purchased by Charlie Peet, a real estate investor and part owner Gatsby’s, the popular pizza and jazz joint on Caledonia Street. Peet was quite an adventurer, according to SI: “Early one Monday morning in September 1969, well before dawn, he and his wife and four friends were returning under power to San Francisco from the Monterey Jazz Festival. They were three miles outside the Golden Gate when someone spotted a tiny light bobbing in the darkness. When they drew nearer to investigate, they found five nearly dead men clinging to four life jackets; one had a flashlight. The five, all bartenders, had set out for Los Angeles three hours earlier and just outside the Gate their boat had sunk under them. They had drifted on the outgoing tide and had run out of hope and strength just as Santana happened by. One of the men still carries a laminated card in his wallet that says, ‘God is alive and sailing on the Santana.’ And whenever any of that Santana crew walks into 12 Adler Place, a San Francisco bar, the bartender shouts, ‘Here comes my savior!’"

Peet and his wife Marty took the Santana on a 35,000-mile two-year South Pacific voyage in 1971, and after they returned, he told stories of their adventures with a slide show at Campbell Hall. As he told Marinscope, “Halfway around the world, you can say you’re from San Francisco and everybody knows where that is. But when you say that you’re really from Sausalito, people say ‘Oh. yes. That’s the little town across the bridge!’ Sausalito is the best-known little town in the world.”

Always politically active, Peet ran for City Council at that time, but withdrew his candidacy in 1974. Announcing plans to build a new liveaboard vessel, he sold Santana and another round of musical berths ensued. For a while she belonged to Paul Kaplan, part owner of Keefe Kaplan Maritime (KKM) in Point Richmond and Sausalito. Kaplan restored and re-rigged Santana once more back to a schooner, and then sold her to a group with connections to Nantucket, Mass. The group had Santana hauled to Melville, RI for restoration.

In 2014 the Newport Daily News reported that the anonymous owners “want it to be as original as possible.”

Just like Bogey and Bacall.

John Mays and the Casa Madrona

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

John Mays, who restored and expanded the Casa Madrona Hotel, died in March 2020, but his obituary ran just last week in the San Francisco Chronicle. It tells of some of the innovations he introduced at the venerable landmark, such as naming the upstairs restaurant after his daughter Mikayla. He hired his dear friend, renowned artist Laurel Burch, to help renovate the space. She painted a colorful mural at the entrance titled "The Legend of Mikayla."

PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Mason’s Garage, built in 1924 to accommodate commuters’ automobiles, looms behind the marchers

The large white Italianate building had been built as a private residence in 1885 but was later converted to a boarding house and hotel. Over the years it changed hands several times. Historical Society member Liz Robinson recounted the misadventures of two previous operators of the Casa Madrona, Robert and Marie Louise Deschamps, in a 1979 issue of Marinscope.

The couple had come to Sausalito in 1959 responding to an ad to operate a “small hotel.” Their son, Jean Marie, told Liz, “the building was in ruins. Mattresses on the floor, broken furniture (and very little of that)! It was a flop house!”

Liz recounted: “M. and Mme. Deschamps had no hotel experience when they arrived and nothing had prepared them for the cast of characters they would find inhabiting the Casa Madrona and its rowdy beer/wine bar—a hang-out for a noisy, brawling bunch. . . Often, in the morning, no matter how securely everything had been locked the night before, the bar would have been broken into and all the beer would be gone…”

Jean Marie told Liz, “It was a boarding house for down and outers, most of whom rarely paid their bills. Eventually they decided to close the hotel, ostensibly to remodel, in fact to get rid of some of the least desirable guests.”

John Mays acquired the property in 1976 in an estate sale and one of his first challenges was to keep the structure from slipping down the hillside. John buttressed up the unstable hillside below the old Victorian hotel, and came up with the idea of having rooms stepped up the hillside like little cottages, tying them in with the old hotel at the top. Eventually he purchased the Village Fair next door, which had its own colorful history.

The Historical Society’s Doris Berdahl told the story in this newspaper in 2009:

“The big, bulky structure at 801 Bridgeway--originally a parking garage and purveyor of ‘gasoline, oils, greases, tires, tubes and accessories,’ later the Village Fair and now an elegant inn, spa, and restaurant serving award-winning Tuscan cuisine—has come a long way since it began servicing Sausalito's first horseless carriages back in 1924. 

“In fact, this photo says it all.  As a parade passes down Bridgeway, the man standing in front of his Model T Ford at far right, apparently pouring water into an overheated radiator, avails himself of one of Sausalito's newest amenities—a gas pump and water hose.  They grace the front of the building in a straightforward, no-nonsense display of what the new garage has to offer.

“By the 1940s, it was clear that the massive parking garage in the middle of town, meant to serve San Francisco commuters in the days before the bridge, had to be demolished or put to some other use.  Happily, there were creative people around who saw its possibilities The building became the birthplace of the Trade Fair, which showcased local artists along with then-avant garde furniture, pottery, jewelry, handwoven fabrics and other arts and crafts. 

“When the Trade Fair moved to the ferryboat Berkeley, then moored on the Sausalito waterfront, a kind of natural evolution took place at the former garage site. New owners pioneered the concept of transforming a once-industrial building into an attractive shopping arcade, setting the stage for the later development of Ghirardelli Square and The Cannery in San Francisco.  Small boutiques, selling unusual, often imported, merchandise not found anywhere else, began to fill the old place, converting its former automobile ramps into walkways and stairs.  These ascended to the top floor past lush plantings, fountains and waterfalls. A favorite feature for many years was the lower ramp, dubbed Little Lombard Street.

“The Village Fair lasted for a half-century, attracting devotees from all over the world.  It closed with the transfer of ownership in the late `90s, a victim of a deteriorating building, changing times and the fact that its marketing concept had been extensively copied in other places.  For a long time, regular visitors to Sausalito couldn't believe it was gone.  To this day, they come into the Visitors Center across the street, often after a long absence, still cherishing memories of the Sausalito of 20 or 30 years ago.  And the first question they ask, often indignantly, is, ‘What have you done with Little Lombard Street?’ 

“Fortunately, while Little Lombard is gone, the building that housed Mason's Garage lives on, playing a handsome new role in the life of downtown Sausalito. Who would have predicted the European sophistication of Poggio, or the luxurious accommodations of Casa Madrona, back in the days when a constant succession of little black cars rumbled up the runways and you could fill up your tank right out at the curb.”

John Mays’ Chronicle obituary notes that he also served as a Director and then Board President of the Center for Attitudinal Healing. Ironically, the same issue of the paper carried an obituary for the Center’s founder, Jerry Jampolsky.

Certainties of Life in 1920s Sausalito

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

The personal income tax became a permanent part of American life when the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913. (During the Civil War Congress had passed the Revenue Act of 1861 which included a tax on personal incomes to help pay war expenses. That tax was repealed ten years later.)

By 1921, at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties, the IRS was in full force, as noted by the Sausalito News:

Work has begun on the collection of the income tax for the year 1920. Uncle Sam (through the Bureau of Internal Revenue) is addressing to every person in the United States the question "What was your net Income for 1920?" The answer permits of no guesswork. Every single person whose net income for 1920 was $1000 or more and every married person whose net income was $2000 or more is required to file a return under oath with the collector of internal revenue for the district in which he lives on or before March 15, 1921.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

 With two competing ferry systems during the 20s, traffic jams were routine here

The penalty for failure is a fine of not more than $1000 and an additional assessment of 25 per cent of the amount of tax due. For willful refusal to make a return the penalty is a fine of not more than $10,000 or not exceeding one year's Imprisonment, or both together with the costs of prosecution. A similar penalty is provided for making a false or fraudulent return, together with an additional assessment of 50 per cent of the amount of tax evaded.

The Income tax applies to women as well as men. Husband and wife must consider the income of both plus that of minor dependent children, and if the total equals or exceeds $2000 a return must be filed. A minor who has a net income in his own right of $1000 or more must file a separate return. To be allowed the $2000 exemption a married person must be living with husband and wife on the last day of the taxable year, December 31, 1920. Divorcees, persons separated by mutual agreement, widows and widowers, unless they are the sole support of others living in the same household, in which case they are allowed the $2000 exemption granted the head of a family, are entitled only to $1000 exemption. The normal tax rate for 1920 the same as for 1919 — 4 per cent on the first $4000 of net income above the exemption and 8 per cent on the remaining net income. This applies to every citizen and resident of the United States. In addition to the normal tax a surtax is imposed upon net incomes in excess of $5000.

Full instructions for making out returns are contained on the forms, copies of which may be obtained from collectors of internal revenue. Persons whose net income for 1920 was $5000 or less should use Form 1040 A. Those whose incomes was in excess of $5000 should use Form IO4O. Revenue officers will visit every county in the United States to assist taxpayers in making out their returns and the date of their arrival and the location of their offices will be announced by the press or may be ascertained upon inquiry at the offices of collectors. This advisory service is without cost to taxpayers.

According to irs.gov, average income in 1920 was $3,269.40, the average amount of tax $148.08 and the average tax rate 4.53 per cent.

As Ben Franklin wrote 1789, “in in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”  Judging by the accompanying photo, by the 20s another certainty was traffic jams in Sausalito.

Memories of Phil and Farley

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

If you never knew Phil Frank, you have my sympathy. If you’ve never heard of Phil Frank, here’s an opportunity to learn about one of our most beloved local figures. Cartoonist extraordinaire, mainstay of the Sausalito’s Historical Society and political activist, Phil gave generously of his time and talent to many local campaigns and causes, using his distinctive drawing style and gentle wit to pinpoint the foibles of life hereabouts. We lost Phil way too early in 2007, but fortunately much of his work remains in books, greeting cards, and in the SHS archives.

In 1990 Phil sat down for an oral history with radio personality and longtime Sausalitan Jan Wahl. Jan began by asking about his cartoon alter ego, a newspaper reporter and sometime park ranger named Farley.

“Some people call me Phil, some call me Farley, some call me Frank.” He began. “There are just too many Fs in my life.” Here’s an excerpt from their conversation, lightly edited for brevity and clarity:

Farley is the comic strip in the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s the only locally featured comic strip that we know of in the whole country. The strip used to be syndicated in about 50 newspapers, but I took it out of syndication six years ago. The reason I did it has a very interesting Sausalito connection.

When we had gotten settled in Sausalito and began getting involved in local issues, especially around the houseboats and the development project that was going on about 1975, I found that Marinscope was willing to run cartoons and I proposed that I do an occasional single panel cartoon for the paper. The first one was about a lady going downtown in Sausalito and wanting to know if her husband needed anything. He turns to her and says, “Yeah, pick me up a couple of tee shirts and a redwood burl coffee table.” [Jan cracks up.]

So it grew from that kind of humor satirizing downtown Sausalito and the strips became bigger and bigger and more complicated and right to the heart of local politics. I would draw the cartoon on a Sunday and drop it off Sunday night and it would be in print Monday. It would be all over town, and it seemed to fire a lot of peoples’ imaginations. It kind of took cartooning one step beyond where it is when a cartoon is syndicated, because you have to work so far in advance. I would go from that cartoon, which I had so much fun doing, to having to sit down and draw strips that were going to be nationally run, but not for 30 days. Yet I had to appear timely.

The more I did the cartoon for the local paper, in exchange for free Xeroxing and a photostat made now and then, the more frustrating it became to try and do the syndicated strip. So I showed a handful of the Marinscope cartoons to the Chronicle editor, and said, “What do you think of this as an idea? Let’s take this strip and make it local, just about San Francisco.”

The editor said, “I’ve never seen this done before,” and my response was, “All the more reason to do it.”  It took me a month to sell the idea. In a rough form I’d give them six cartoons every week that never actually ran in the paper. After a month they grasped the idea. Once we set the specific start date, about two months out, I notified the syndicate that I was going to cancel the syndicated strip, and I told Marinscope I wasn’t going to be able to do a local cartoon any more. So, no more free Xeroxing.

I just moved the same characters from national to local.

ILLUSTRATION FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Some of Phil Frank’s Marinscope cartoons seem just as relevant today

Farley is sort of the hero of the strip and a lot of people think I identify with him. I do to a certain extent, but the situations are very different. He’s an urban kind of guy, he lives in San Francisco. We do look a lot alike but he’s single, I’m married, I have a couple of kids in their twenties. We have very different life experiences, and I try to keep it that way.

At a 2008 city-wide memorial tribute, dubbed a Philabration, the Bay Model was festooned with tee shirts, posters and flyers Phil had created for various causes and candidates. He left a lasting impact on everyone who met him, and even on some who never did.

Early Sausalitan Fred Perry Looks Back

usalitan Fred Perry Looks Back

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

Fred Perry, Sr. was born in Alameda on Dec. 7, 1875, and has parents brought him over to the tiny town of Sausalito when he was just two years old. Nearly 70 years later, then known as Pop Perry, he recounted some of his early memories for the Sausalito News.

“Pop Fred Perry is the agile little man whose shock of white hair and tanned, weather beaten face have been a familiar sight around Sausalito for well over the half century mark,” reported the News, adding that the Perry family settled in a home at Pine Station, a cluster of houses on the waterfront that was taken over by the Marinship operation in World War II.

PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Perry family heads up Turney Street in their store’s delivery wagon c. 1909

Fred began school on Water Street (now Bridgeway). “Children from the first seven grades were all crowded into one classroom, and when the walls of the room began to bulge with the large number of us youngsters, we were moved to a ‘new’ school building,” Fred recalled. “It was a great day when all of us little boys and girls carted our bundles of books, and our old fashioned slates to the new school to begin classes.” Fred and his buddies competed in the spelling bees, pulled the little girls’ pigtails, and in general, made life for their teacher something of a problem.

The last couple of years grammar school were spent at school in San Rafael, where he stayed until he reached the "second” grade . . . what is now the seventh grade in the modern school system. “How well I remember the licking I got at the hand of the principal of the school,” remarked Fred, flashing mischievous twinkle at the News reporter. After school, Fred went to work in a restaurant. “Saturdays,” he recalled, "were the big days when the whole San Francisco Yacht Club crowd mobbed the place, and kept us all busy with their orders for special chicken dinners.” That was the beginning of an eclectic career, including various stints in the railroad industry, the work he most enjoyed.

When he left the restaurant, he went to work at Fort Baker and was there when they built the first 13 buildings in the fort. Fred remembered the site of the fort and the hills of that area as wonderful duck shooting country. After 11 months, Fred took a job as storekeeper in the railroad shops, and soon afterwards, became an engineer on the milk tram from Alto to Sausalito.

He stuck at the job for nearly 18 years, until in 1897, he went to work on the Sutter Street cable car line in San Francisco, as conductor. According to the News, “Fred’s dusty old album of pictures contains one of himself, the shortest conductor on the line, standing beside the tallest ‘gripper’ (he who keeps the cable car from careening down the hills). When they took off the horses, and put new fangled cars on the line in 1901, Fred had to resign.” At five feet one, he was too short to reach the bell cord.

“My real start, though,” said Fred, “was when I resigned from the railroad and went into the tea and coffee business, built my little store on Caledonia St., and made a fresh start.” He made a real go of the new business, and in 1917, sold it to his oldest son, Jack, and went back to work for Northwestern Pacific and the government, handling the mail.

In 1922, Fred became a foreman for a contractor, and helped build up the streets and buildings in Sausalito. He went back into his tea and coffee business in 1924, in partnership with his youngest son, Fred, Jr., or “Fritz.” In 1928, the second floor above Perry’s store was built, and became the well-known Perry’s Hall, used for parties and dances by local organizations. Then Fred reversed course again, selling the store to Fritz in 1935.

Throughout his life, Fred remained active in civic and fraternal organizations. He belonged to the Knights of Pythias for 55 years and was also a Forester and a member of Native Son of the Golden West. According to the Historical Society archives, he was also a member of the Sausalito Volunteer Fire Department, sergeant-at-arms of the Sausalito Improvement club, acting secretary of the Sausalito Board of Health and a trustee of Central School. He and his wife Alfay raised three sons, John (Jack), Matthew (Matts) and Frederick B. (Fritz) all of whom became prominent figures in Sausalito. Before he passed away following a stroke in 1952, Fred could look back on a life well lived.

The long, colorful life of 769 Bridgeway

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

While clicking through online copies of the Sausalito News recently, I came upon this intriguing headline:

“Sabotage Try Foiled In Sausalito.”

The July 1944 story goes like this: “The old Empire Garage building at 775 Bridgeway Boulevard, Sausalito. Bridgeway was the scene of an attempt to sabotage the Marinship war effort Wednesday night, July 12, when saboteurs entered the third floor of the building and spread oil on a number of packing cases containing vital electrical equipment.”

PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Village Fair as it looked from 1960-77

At that time, the large upstairs space had been taken over by Marinship authorities and was being used to make wooden templates for cutting sheets of steel according to engineers’ specifications.

The News recounted: “The attempt was frustrated by prompt action of Officer F. E. Graham of Prospect Avenue, a member of the Marinship police force. Graham first detected the presence of an intruder when he found the lock had been pried off a third story door. He entered and in the darkness could not immediately see the oil. Apparently the person or persons had already fled upon hearing his approach.  Acting Lieut. Bolton Hall of Marinship Plant Protection Division was immediately notified. More careful inspection disclosed the oil. If the fire had been started, it is believed that even prompt fire fighting efforts might not have prevented serious loss. Additional protective measures have now been taken at other Marinship warehouses to prevent any further efforts at sabotage. Full investigation is underway by the FBI. Ten years in jail and $lO,OOO in fines are penalties facing such attempted saboteurs under both federal and state statutes. All Marinship officers are fully armed at all times, with definite instructions to defend government property from sabotage.”

There are no further mentions of sabotage in the paper, so this episode remains an unsolved mystery. But the article piqued my curiosity about that location:

In June 1935 the Sausalito News reported that 700 people crowded the garage for a sport show that featured boxing, wrestling, fencing and other events. One wrestling match was between “Kid” Capley and Rolf Pedersen of Sausalito. Rolf was better known as “Swede” Pedersen, a Golden Gate Bridge construction worker and fireman who became a legendary Sausalito historian and raconteur. Swede’s Beach at Hurricane Gulch is named for Pedersen, who pilfered bootleg whiskey that had been stashed there during Prohibition.

The garage was closed for a while after the war but reopened in February 1946. Announcing the new enterprise, the News reported: “The garage building in which the new enterprise is located was built in the middle twenties by the late Clinton Mason, and was known as Mason’s Garage. The garage was later operated by Bert Gazzola and Yates Hammett and known as the Empire Garage. When the latter owners moved to the Ferry Garage, the structure lay idle for some time during the depression years, and made a brief stab for fame when its top floor was converted into a Chinese gambling establishment.”

A year later the News reported: “Heath Ceramics, a new Sausalito industry, is located on the top floor of the Empire Garage building on Bridgeway.”

The Historical Society’s Doris Berdahl, writing in this paper in 2009, recalled: “The building became the birthplace of the Trade Fair, which showcased local artists along with then-avant garde furniture, pottery, jewelry, handwoven fabrics and other arts and crafts.

“When the Trade Fair moved to the ferryboat Berkeley, then moored on the Sausalito waterfront, a kind of natural evolution took place at the former garage site. New owners pioneered the concept of transforming a once-industrial building into an attractive shopping arcade, setting the stage for the later development of Ghirardelli Square and The Cannery in San Francisco.  Small boutiques, selling unusual, often imported, merchandise not found anywhere else, began to fill the old place, converting its former automobile ramps into walkways and stairs.  These ascended to the top floor past lush plantings, fountains and waterfalls. A favorite feature for many years was the lower ramp, dubbed Little Lombard Street. “

Another feature was a pictorial retrospective assembled by the Historical Society. After the expansion of the Casa Madrona Hotel in the late 70s eliminated Little Lombard, the Society moved the exhibit across the street to the Ice House during the City’s 1993 centennial, and established that relic as a visitor’s center.

Today, 769 Bridgeway is the home of Bacchus and Venus wine shop and tasting room.

You can view back issues of the Sausalito Sun and Marinscope at https://cdnc.ucr.edu.

Dorothy Gibson: more than a legacy

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

Throughout her 65 years in Sausalito, Dorothy Gibson gave generously of her time and talent. In addition to her career in social work, the transplanted Buckeye volunteered for various city commissions and non-profits, including the Historical Society, where she served on the Board for six years. And her giving didn’t end when she died on January 18, 2019 at the age of 95. Dorothy bequeathed her 1,200-square-foot home on Johnson Street to the city, to provide low or moderate-income housing to full-time city employees.

PHOTO FROM SAUSALIT0.GOV

Dorothy relaxing in her cozy Johnson Street cottage

Dorothy's civic involvement included serving on the Planning Commission in the 1970s and the Design Review Board in the 1980s. As a volunteer, she was active with the Sausalito Historical Society, the Volunteers in Public Safety (VIPS), and Sausalito Village. Dorothy was actively against the development of hotels along the Marinship waterfront. This became such a hot issue Dorothy ran for City Council in 1974 only to lose to Sally Stanford by 27 votes. Dorothy was later appointed head of the Transportation Committee and was involved in amending and rewriting the General Plan for Sausalito. In 2013 she had the honor of serving as grand marshal of the City's annual Fourth of July parade.

An avid hiker and founding member of The Mt. Tamalpais Interpretive Association, now Friends of Mt. Tamalpais, she incorporated trails and pathways into the city plan.

She published the first edition of her book Exploring Sausalito's Paths and Walkways in 2001 and began leading free Saturday morning walking tours to teach people about Sausalito's history and neighborhoods through our paths and stairs. My wife Jane and I joined one of those off-road treks to north Sausalito and bailed out when she led us close to home at Kappas Marina. The rest of the group trudged all the way back downtown to Viña del Mar Plaza.

Dorothy also published Marin Headlands (Images of America) in 2009 and Sausalito's Parks, Plazas, Playgrounds and Benches in 2017. The Marin Headlands book is available through the Historical Society website: http://www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.com/society-publications.

After she retired, Dorothy traveled the world, visiting more than 50 countries and, from 1989 to 1999, reporting back to Sausalito with her "Travels with Dorothy" letters to this newspaper.

According to an obituary at Legacy.com: “Later on, Dorothy would travel throughout the US, Alaska, and Canada, camping in all the National parks. She would drive her 1968 Volvo 122S Amazon Station wagon with her two cats Simi, the Siamese, and her black and white, Tuxedo. The back seat made nicely into a double bed, the cat box and feed station were on the back seat floor. There was room for skis and poles on the sides. Charcoal, wood and hibachi took up the passenger floor.” All these travels developed into a second ongoing Marinscope feature called "Postcards from Dorothy."

On her passing, the Historical Society’s Steefenie Wicks wrote that Dorothy “had her own path.  That path led her to not only find the paths in Sausalito but also the path to a strong political career here. Her small figure that we have all become accustomed to seeing has now joined the spirits of the paths. So next time you climb one of Sausalito’s hidden stairways or find yourself walking up a path on the hillside, take time to look around and say hello to Dorothy because her spirit is watching you, saying: ’Keep to the path’.” Sadly, Steefenie left us just a few months after Dorothy.

The City Council is still discussing how to best utilize Dorothy’s last gift. The one bedroom, one bath house needs some minor repairs, and could possibly be expanded. Dorothy also left the city some cash to help prepare her home for a new life of service to the community.

Liveaboard Life in 1944

By Tops’l Annie and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

In the 1940s, the Sausalito News ran a feature on yachts and yachting, under the pen name Tops’l Annie. One of these essays described the joys of living aboard a yacht in Sausalito:

To the land-lubber the yacht harbor is always a fascinating pot . . . there is a constant stream of sight-seers every sunny weekend. Occasionally one overhears an incredulous "Do people LIVE in these boats all the time?” ... The remark caused by the sight of a bit of washing strung up in the rigging, or puffs of smoke emitting from the Charley Noble removable kitchen chimney, in case you didn't know. Of course, people live on 'em . . . and like it. Live on them summer and winter .... or just in the summer-time, as they choose.

It's a grand sun-tanned life ... a perpetual out-of-doors camping experience, highlighted by the fact that you have a good permanent stove in your galley and a main cabin (living room or salon) heated by a fireplace or cheery Shipmate stove. The interior of a ship’s cabin is always a thing of beauty. Hardwoods which have a lovely sheen are used as a finish. Shining brass ship-lamps and other nautical equipment complete the harmony of the room, which will also serve as a dining room, with a polished hardwood folding table The book shelves are lined with tales of the sea and well worn mariners’ books. In the larger boats, sleeping quarters are separate compartments. The galley (kitchen) is compact and efficient.

Living is reduced to its essentials on shipboard, quarters are compact, and housekeeping is at a minimum low. Of course, there are inconveniences .... tub baths are out, unless you have a WANDER BIRD, and there are no Bendix installations for wash day ... but the compensations are numerous. There’s an informal friendly atmosphere to living aboard ship .... your neighbors like the same things you do, and there’s a good deal of camaraderie between boat people. It’s no wonder that the traditional response to the host’s toast aboard ship is “It’s good to be aboard.”

One point, incidentally, that should be emphasized . . . the casual visitor to the yacht harbor should not make a practice of going down on private floats, perhaps hopping on an unoccupied craft to "look her over." A boat is a man’s home, just as a house is .... don't go aboard until you're asked.

PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Wander Bird under full sail

The Wander Bird mentioned above was “an integral and beloved part of the San Francisco sailing scene,” according to Latitude 38. Besides her bathtub, the schooner was best known for a 1937 voyage around the Horn to San Francisco. One of the crew members was the son of the owner, 4-year-old Warwick ”Commodore” Tompkins Jr., who went become a premier racing sailor.

Tompkins is also a remarkable raconteur and told that story and more during a 2014 Historical Society panel discussion titled Sausalito Salty Stories. To see a 10-minute film of the legendary voyage, search for 1936 Voyage Around Cape Horn on YouTube.

Marin Attempts Auto Ban in 1903

By Elenore Meherin and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

PHOTO FROM JACK TRACY’S MOMENTS IN TIME
The Wosser family in their 1914 Ford

Gasoline-powered vehicles began appearing in California in 1897, and just six years later a backlash exploded against them. Sausalito News historian Elenore Meherin told the story in the July 6, 1944 edition of the paper:

With robots flying pilotless over stormy channels and with radar magically detecting planes far at sea, it seems unbelievable that a few decades ago the automobile was rated a highly fantastic invention ... so grave a menace, in fact, that Marin County almost passed a law prohibiting use of the horseless carriage in this area. Charles Gunn, pioneer resident of Sausalito and chief of the Gunn, Carle & Co., in San Francisco, came across a 1903 petition to the board of supervisors of Marin County asking for an ordinance to prohibit use of the auto on Marin County roads. The petition was reprinted in a decade-old copy of Pacific Motorist which Mr. Gunn unearthed when cleaning out his desk the other day. The copy has a picture of the high-built, rickety-looking first horseless buggy which it described as a kind of demented dancing dervish.

Autos Menace

Marin County, which today has tens of thousands of cars, was asked to ban the “orrible queer contraption” as the English farm woman dubbed the horseless carriage: “The auto will break down. It will become unmanageable. It will shy and rear up and plunge and maim or kill people. No doubt improvements will be made and the risk of operating the automobile will be reduced until in the course of time it is possible the danger will be no greater than other forms of sports such as Alpine climbing.

“Taxpayers and residents do not want it. They cannot understand why a few individuals should be permitted to place in jeopardy the life and limb of Marin County residents who drive (in their coach and pair, of course) along the highways. The many sharp turns and steep grades in the hills of Marin are illy adapted to the operation of the horseless carriage.”

Marin Horse-loving

Marin County is first, last and always a horse-loving and horsekeeping country. It would attract more residents were it to become known that here, at least, is a refuge from the constantly increasing menace of the horseless carriage. “The auto in Marin can never be anything but a toy for the wealthy. It is a dangerous piece of mechanism: there should be drastic legislation passed to regulate it.”

Of course, the petition was unsuccessful. With the advent of car ferries from San Francisco to Sausalito in 1922, traffic jams and fender-benders became commonplace downtown. And the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 created another boom in auto travel that soon eclipsed the ferries. Ferry service was discontinued in 1941, and not resumed until August 1970 by the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.

The Year of the Pandemic has dramatically reduced automobile traffic in Sausalito, but we can expect another onslaught of cars when the Shelter-in-Place order is lifted for good.

The Negro History Quilt Club of Marin City and Sausalito

 By Ann Batman, Marin History Museum
And Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

PHOTO FROM MARIN HISTORY MUSEUM

The owl sitting on a branch is a symbol of Tubman’s wisdom and her shrewd knowledge of the night.

Hidden away in the archives of the Robert W. Woodruff Library at the Atlanta University Center in Atlanta, Georgia are two quilts huge in size and import as national treasures. The quilts each measure eight feet by ten. They are of particular fascination to us as they were created in Marin in the late 1940s and early 1950s by an interracial group of Marin City and Sausalito residents. The group gathered to discuss racial issues and to promote Negro History Month, a precursor to Black History Month celebrated today in the month of February.

Sometime in 1949 Ben Irvin, an architect and muralist who worked in San Francisco, and was a member of the group, had the idea to create a quilt honoring African American history. The group enthusiastically accepted the project and decided on Harriet Tubman as its first subject. They got to work. First came the design, then they needed to raise money for the huge frames needed to hold the quilt plus quilting materials.

Two years later the quilt was complete. It was displayed at Marin City’s 1951 Negro History Week celebration. Next, it traveled to the California State Fair of 1952 and won second prize. Thanks to Ben Irvin, it caught the eye of historian and activist Sue Bailey Thurman, who was a founder of the National Council of Negro Women and the editor of the Africamerican Women’s Journal.  She saw great value in the quilt for its artistic excellence and as a way to increase awareness of Black history. Sue Thurman took it on a tour of the East Coast where, among other locations, it was displayed at Tubman's home in Auburn, New York.

Additional details of the project appear at https://www.americanpopularculture.com/archive/politics/quiltclub.htm:

The History Quilt Club of Marin City and Sausalito met several times a week, working on their creation for almost two years. It wasn’t just the intricate needlecraft that was time consuming: the huge frame had to be assembled and dismantled for each session. And there were supplies to buy — fabric, thread, needles, embellishments. The quilters’ husbands contributed to the project by cooking a special community dinner to raise funds to buy the materials.

Finally, in early 1951, the Harriet Tubman quilt was complete.

The tapestry depicts Tubman holding a rifle, her image larger than life-sized. She’s seen leading a group of slaves north towards freedom. Her clothing is historically authentic; the quilters even used embellishment such as real shoelaces to create her utilitarian work boots. Over Tubman’s shoulder is the North Star, which she used as a navigation tool while bringing fugitives through the dark night.

The quilting group chose abolitionist Frederick Douglass to be the next subject. Again, they designed the quilt, built the frames and raised money to complete the project.  After another two years of effort the quilt was completed, and they again displayed the finished product at Marin City’s Negro History Week in 1953. This time the public was invited to view the women as they worked to put the finishing touches on the quilt.

The Frederick Douglass quilt was an even more ambitious undertaking than the Tubman one. Using actual photographs as their guide, the quilters created portraits of Douglass, his wife Anna, and William Lloyd Garrison (another leading abolitionist). The tapestry shows Douglass giving a speech at the American Anti-Slavery Society convention.

 Both the Harriet Tubman and the Frederick Douglass quilts were purchased in the 1950s by the Howard Thurman Educational Trust Foundation. They were exhibited at the 1965 World’s Fair in New York; toured with the “Afro-American Art Show” of 1968; and were part of the “Freedom Now” exhibit of African American history, art, and culture in the 1970s. The Thurmans later donated the quilts to the Robert W. Woodruff Library.

Sally Stanford Remembered

By Woody Weingarten and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

Loyal Marinscope readers will recognize the byline of Woody Weingarten, who was the paper’s arts and entertainment editor for 11 years. He recently contacted the Historical Society to research a retrospective on Sausalito’s Madam Mayor, Sally Stanford, for the Local News Matters website.

We’ve told a lot of Sally stories over the years, but Woody dug deep and came up with some fresh ones, which are excerpted below.

PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

In March 1978 Peter Van Meter (center) and Fritz Warren (left) were inducted as Sausalito City Council members, Rene “Buddy” De Bruyn (right) succeeded ex-madam Sally Stanford (second from left) as mayor. The other councilwoman pictured, Robin Sweeny, served for 28 years.

Sally Stanford opened her Sausalito waterfront restaurant, Valhalla, in 1950. Stanford, a not overly attractive woman who tended to wear her hair in a bun and to bedeck herself with jewels and furs, apparently went out of her way to be law-abiding in Marin County after more than two decades running bordellos in San Francisco.

Peter Van Meter, ex-Sausalito councilman and a pallbearer at the 78-year-old Stanford’s 1982 funeral in San Rafael, remembers her well: “She was a very complex, interesting, outspoken character. She could be very hard-nosed, and she could also be very kind. She was a supporter of animals, with a special soft spot in her heart for dogs.”

Jan Wahl, KGO theater reviewer, credits Stanford, a friend, with doing “so much for the community, such as getting the [Sausalito Public Library] done — and it’s still running to this day” — 47 years later.

In truth, the former madam, who moved to Sausalito in her late 40s in 1950, lost five times under her legal name at the time, Marsha Owen, before ultimately making it onto the City Council in 1972 as Sally Stanford, an alias she’d been using for a while before it became her legal name in 1971. Her first campaign in 1962 — spurred by the Council not letting her install an electric sign on Valhalla — emphasized building a public toilet and adding money to the police department budget.

After finally winning a decade later, she declared that “we sinners never give up.”

Surprising her critics, she never missed a Council meeting. She did, reportedly, doze now and then if a session became dull.

She also bent the rules when she wanted. Van Meter cites this as typical: “Sally always smoked, so when a new no-smoking regulation passed, she left the next couple of sessions to go into the hall to smoke. After that, though, she just kept smoking — and was never cited for it.”

Stanford was also known for her philanthropy. Van Meter, for instance, remembers that she funded a Rotary Club scholarship program for the trades. It’s generally agreed Stanford was impulsive about giving — anonymously paying for the funerals of the homeless, mailing money in unmarked envelopes to disaster victims, picking up checks of soldiers who ate at Valhalla.

Reminiscences about Stanford and the restaurant, which drew Lucille Ball, Marlon Brando and Bing Crosby as customers, are plentiful.

Jerry Taylor, Sausalito Historical Society president, recollects: “I lived a block and a half away from Valhalla so for me it was a neighborhood spot, a neighborhood bar. On Halloween, when I was about 10, I walked in the front door and Sally took my hand and walked me through. She always had a jar of jelly beans near the bar, and she let me take a handful.”

Peering into another rearview mirror, Van Meter looks back to when Stanford had placed a barber’s chair next to the cash register so she could “watch over the employees and money with an eagle eye.”

A smart businesswoman, Stanford sponsored a Little League team and served as vice president of the local Chamber of Commerce. Her motives were clear. In her 1966 autobiography, published under the name Sally Stanford, “The Lady of the House,” she wrote, “I knew what I wanted to be: an ex-madam.”

Stanford’s infamy still didn’t go away, having stemmed from running houses of prostitution in San Francisco starting in the late ’20s on O’Farrell, Taylor, Geary, Leavenworth and Vallejo streets and, finally, during the 1940s, at a Pine Street mansion on Nob Hill. Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn supposedly were customers.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wrote that “the United Nations was founded at Sally Stanford’s whorehouse,” professing that so many delegates to its 1945 San Francisco founding conference were her customers and informally met in the living room.

According to a Stanford obituary by Marc Bonagura, associate professor at New Jersey’s Brookdale Community College, “nearly three decades later, Gov. Earl Snell of Oregon gave Sally a pardon. She carried it around in the bosom of her dress.”

That hiding place figures in at least one other memorable moment.

Taylor cites the late Robin Sweeny, another Sausalito mayor, telling him “a story about Sally giving her a $100 bill to help a children’s project. When Robin said that it was a lot of money and she was afraid to carry it, Sally said she should just stick it in her bra and that way she’d know who took it.”

Woody’s full retrospective can be found at https://localnewsmatters.org/2021/01/26/madam-of-san-francisco-mayor-of-sausalito-the-wild-life-of-one-of-marin-countys-most-devoted-civil-servants.

A Fascinating Look at Old Sausalito

By Dewey Livingston and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

The following report has been excerpted and lightly edited from the website of the Anne T. Kent California Room. The author is Dewey Livingston, the historian of the Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History in Inverness.

PHOTO FROM JACK MASON MUSEUM OF WEST MARIN HISTORY

The old port of Saucelito in 1868. The scene had not changed much since the survey map was made in 1849.

As we pull out interesting maps in the collection of the Anne T. Kent California Room for a closer look, a map of great interest is the oldest original map on file: a survey of a boundary line in Sausalito dated 1849. This beautiful example of the mapmaker’s art, is entitled, “Map of part of Northern Boundary of Saucelito Tract Conveyed by Richardson & Family to Charles T. Botts. April 16th 1849.” The map depicts the waterfront of what today is referred to as Old Town, the cove south of downtown Sausalito.

At the time the map was made, there was a small settlement in the cove; six or seven buildings are seen, with a dock and a pier. According to early accounts and to Jack Tracy’s 1983 history of Sausalito [Moments in Time], these buildings included a pioneer sawmill erected under contract with the Navy in late 1848 or early 1849, which produced lumber out of logs barged down from the site of Mill Valley. (Contrary to popular old myths, there was no marketable timber, other than cordwood, on the hills of Rancho Sausalito, only in the gulches and canyons in what is now Mill Valley, Muir Woods and a few other sites.)

It is possible that one of the buildings is the former cabin of John Reed, who coveted the Sausalito site but instead was later granted Rancho Corte Madera del Presidio to the north. This graphical layout of the early townsite is enticing, as the histories written so far indicate that there were fewer buildings here at this specific time than those depicted on the map.

William Richardson sold about 160 acres of the ranch to Charles Tyler Botts on the day this map was made: April 16, 1849. The price was high: $35,000 in gold, probably reflecting the value of the water from springs near the northern boundary, and the potential plans for a large Navy facility (Mare Island got it, instead). Botts, who earlier that year had been elected chairman of the commission to create a provisional government for the Territory of California and, after purchasing this land, participated in the Constitutional Convention, sold lots to a handful of people. A Navy surveyor laid out streets and soon, mill superintendent Lt. James McCormick built a hotel called the Fountain House, and another rose called the Saucelito House. For the most part, it was a Navy town, with so many men of those ranks buying in.

Botts, for his part, never lived on his land. He became a prominent attorney and judge in Oakland and San Francisco, and died in 1884.

Eventually, Sausalito developed on a larger scale north of the historic cove, with its ferry landings, railroad depot and maintenance yards, and the majority of homebuilding and commercial construction taking place on the waterfront and in the hills in the vicinity of Caledonia Street.

The most historically significant details on the 1849 map are the spring sites. From these springs, and probably others nearby, came the water that brought the earliest commerce to Marin County, as a watering depot for whalers, military ships, and civilians on the coast during the Spanish and Mexican periods.

Today we travel through Sausalito on Bridgeway, which hugs the waterfront. On this map, there is no road along the shoreline; it was too rocky and precipitous. The route north from the cove was a series of trails; the map shows an “Old Trail” farther up the hill, and the currently used “Trail” closer to the cliff edge. Of course, there was not much overland travel to the north; any visitor would have been on a boat and if they wanted to reach the inner areas of Richardson’s Bay or the south county, they would have continued sailing to a more convenient and close landing. In 1849 there were no towns in Marin County except for San Rafael, which could barely be called a town at that time.

This 172-year-old map is a treasure in the collection of the California Room, thanks to Marin surveyor William Schroeder, who had the foresight and generosity to have his survey archive become part of Marin County’s public collection. We can enjoy this glimpse into primitive Marin, and future scholars can use this map to uncover further details about the founding of our world-famous town, Sausalito.

Details of the 1849 map may be viewed at the Anne-T-Kent-California-Room-Community-Newsletter. Jack Tracy’s Moments in Time is available for purchase at the Sausalito Historical Society.

Performing Stars Turns 30

Performing Stars was established in July 1990 to help underserved kids in Marin County achieve their full potential. Based in Marin City, the non-profit celebrated its 30-year anniversary on December 12 with an online gala titled Le Cirque des Etoiles (The Circus of the Stars).

PHOTO FROM PERFORMING STARS

Young performers from the organization’s second year, 1991

The driving force behind Performing Stars is Felecia Gaston, who founded the troupe and still manages it today. On the website https://www.performingstars.org/about-us she recalls: “When I was a little girl growing up in Georgia, I watched little white girls go off to ballet class and I desperately wished I could go too, but it was unthinkable at that time due to segregation. However, I never let go of that dream, and I wanted to find a way to help other children of color fulfill their own dreams.”

In the late 80s, when Felecia was serving as an administrative assistant and cultural events coordinator for the Marin City Multi-Services Center, the Marin Ballet gave a mini-performance of the Nutcracker in Marin City. As described in the Performing Stars 30th anniversary souvenir booklet: “Seeing the enchantment on the children’s faces, Felecia was reminded of her childhood dream and contacted Phyllis Thelon, Development Director of the Marin Ballet. Thelon had been wanting to provide dance scholarships to low-income children. Felecia and Phyllis figured out the logistics and budget, and in June 1989, Felecia launched The Black Swan Dance Troupe, a group of 20 Mann City children awarded scholarships for a pilot ballet program.

That summer Felecia learned that the Multi-Services Center was closing. She called Anne Rogers, the Executive Director of the Marin Community Food Bank, knowing Ann had a soft spot in her heart for the kids in Marin City. Anne suggested that Felecia start a nonprofit to bring enrichment activities to underserved kids all over the county. After many conversations, Performing Stars was born.

In the space of a month —with the help of key mentors — a board was established which wrote and adopted bylaws, elected officers and proposed budgets for the next three years. Brad Caftel. an attorney for the National Economic Development and Law Center in Berkeley, provided pro bono legal work to set up the nonprofit status. Board member Mark Schillinger wrote an $800 check to the Secretary of State, and Performing Stars was ready to roll before the doors of the Multi-Services Center closed.

Anne provided office space, volunteers and board members Anne Rogers. Norma Howard, Area Manager at Pacific Bell, Virginia Spencer, author and artist, and Mark Schillinger, a local chiropractor. Each member provided unique expertise.

Meanwhile, Felecia was in survival mode, unemployed and living on her savings, driving a beat-up Volkswagen from San Francisco to Novato daily to pursue her dream. Luckily, she landed a job with the Sheriff's Department as a part-time traffic enforcement officer in Marin City.

By summer 1990, Performing Stars was a full-fledged 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Felecia spent three hours preparing for each hour of class. Her students were being taught appropriate behavior consistent with their expanding horizons. They were given nutritional snacks from the food bank, prepared by "Guiding Star Grandparents." The program grew, and by the fall of 1990, there was a wait list for students.

About that time, Performing Stars was invited to perform in the Mill Valley Memorial Day parade. Felecia recalls: "Anne Elkington volunteered to sew the costumes. I remember shopping at New York Fabrics for patterns and material, and several of us cutting out the fabric. Anne made every outfit for 50 children."

Also in 1990, Jim Farley of the Marin County Fair contacted Felecia about having the kids perform. “This was a very big deal,” she recalls. “Discovered at last!” Performing Stars became a regular event at the fair, and the community recognized it as valuable and here to stay.

As the company struts into its fourth decade, Felecia proudly reports that over 90% of Performing Arts alumni graduate from high school; at least 50% of that number go on to college or trade school and the remainder get jobs, because, as she puts it, “the ultimate ‘performance’ is to become productive members of society.” Many Performing Stars have gone on to become teachers and coaches, bankers, retail managers, medical assistants, cosmetologists, actors, a professional ballet dancer, a pastry chef, a videographer, and other successful careers.

The entire two-hour 30th anniversary gala may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlLM4yft7tI&feature=youtu.be.

Mariana Richardson’s Tragedy

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

Last week we presented historian Elenore Meherin’s account of the murder of Mariana Richardson’s beloved Ramon de Haro by Kit Carson during the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846.

Here are some lightly edited excerpts from Ms. Merherin’s description how Mariana learned of this tragedy at her father’s Rancho Saucelito hacienda:

Mariana stood in the orchard, dropping golden apricots into a basket and telling herself with anxious ardor, “He will come today; he will surely come today.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Mariana’s brother, Stephen J. Richardson, in an 1861 daguerreotype

She twisted a rose in her hair and told herself excitedly Ramon would soon arrive. Was he not the fleetest horseman in a country famous for its riders? Long hours since, by noon at latest, he would have reached Sonoma; he would have seen his cousin, imprisoned at Sutter’s Fort and within the hour be galloping the ribbon of road homeward to her. She listened for the faint clump of hoofs and the snap of twigs in the shoulder-high mustard fields. In the distance a wolf howled; on the hills above the glen a herd of elk emerged, their great antlers making fantastic tracery against the pallid sky. There was no human sound.

She kept thinking of the day in the mountains when Ramon had swung the lariat and brought the wild white stallion, conquered to his haunches. She recalled his exultant smile and the pride and sweetness in his voice when he said so softly, “For you, querida. He is tamed for you!” Folded in a tiny locket on her bracelet was his last message, “Hasta la vista, pearl of my heart.” This promise he would surely keep.

Long after midnight when the moon was a cold white mirror tilted on the waters and the hills and trees were silvered with the coming dawn, Mariana awakened from fitful sleep. The sound of hoofs rang in the Glen. Not a faint and solitary sound but a frantic, crowding drum-roll. Scores of men were galloping onward.

She jumped up and pulled on the clothes she had so recently laid aside. There was a knocking at the door, a stealthy call urgently repeated. Mariana recognized the voices of her countrymen. She ran through the long dim sala, the red rose still twined in her black unconfined hair. Without hesitation, she flung open her father’s door. Joaquin de la Torre stood before her. And with him, thronging into the sala, his haggard, red-eyed, emaciated followers. They had been hiding five nights and five days since their defeat at the battle of 0lompali. Fremont’s fierce and naked Delawares had stalked through the hills, hunting them like wolves. They were hot on their trail. There was not a moment to lose. Starved though they were, they dared not pause to eat. Frightful was the fate meted to Californians whom Fremont overtook. This was the word Joaquin de la Torre feverishly rasped into Captain Richardson’s ear. He stood in the sala, his hands clenched on a rawhide chair. The tapers wavered over his handsome face, showing it sunk and gray. And he spoke of blood on the sands, of murder done. Mariana stood in the shadow and drank in the stark tale.

"There were three men killed,” said Mariana to her father as they stood on the patio.

"One of the murdered men was Manuel Castro, it is thought,” her father answered. “The two with him were probably Indian sailors.”

She said, “He did not say they were Indian boys. They were three men going north, Ramon was one of three and he was going north!”

In the early morning of July 1, Mariana and her brother Stephenr were galloping over the hills of their rancho. They came to a woodland where the wild forget-me-nots were a blue embroidery on the banks of a hidden stream. They rode slowly. And they saw the horsemen coming. Not two or four. There were scores; there were armies. In the lead was a swift rider whose reins glittered with silver and whose stirrups flashed with jewels. Swept across his shoulders was a scarlet and purple serape. It had a long fringe of gold. Mariana halted the white stallion. Her heart stopped with it. She said to her brother, "That is not Ramon; that is surely not Ramon. But he wears Ramon’s cape. He rides Ramon’s saddle!” That was the way the news came to Mariana Richardson. Ramon was dead. Fremont’s soldier came galloping to her in her lover’s clothes! The horsemen, unaware of the white-faced broken girl and the angry boy hidden in the woodland, went cantering brazenly to the Richardson hacienda.

Fremont requisitioned horses for his men and chartered a boat to cross the bay to the Presidio of San Francisco. He spiked the guns, which it chanced were lying on the ground, not a round of powder to fire them, not a soldier to mount them, and thus gloriously he took the fort. He wrote to his father-in-law, powerful U. S. Senator Thomas H, Benton, that he had defeated Joaquin de la Torre, driven him across the bay spiked the guns and freed tie territory north of the bay as far as Sutter’s Fort from Mexican authority. He wrote as though a battle had been fought and brave victory won!

Tragedy Strikes Rancho Saucelito

By Elenore Meherin and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

In recent columns we’ve excerpted tales of life on William Richardson’s Rancho Saucelito in the 1840s, as told by Sausalito News historian Elenore Meherin. They focused on the life of Richardson’s daughter, Mariana. Our last installment told how her bucolic lifestyle was threatened by the Bear Flag Revolt, led by Colonel John C. Fremont.

IMAGE FROM PINTEREST

Kit Carson in a painting by William Tylee Ranney

Fremont had set up camp in San Rafael and the brave but out-numbered and out-gunned Californios attempted to halt his militia from taking their land. Mariana waited anxiously for word of her beloved, Ramon de Haro, who had been missing from the rancho for some time. Today, we present excerpts from Ms. Meherin’s account of a tragic moment in the ensuing struggle, at the hands of a legendary frontiersman:

Just across the bay from San Rafael, General Jose Castro was waiting with two divisions of his men. They were poorly equipped and numbered 150 men in all. Castro’s plan was to cross from San Pablo, unite forces and march on Sonoma. He knew nothing of Fremont’s presence at Mission San Rafael. A messenger was needed to reach de la Torre. Ramon with his twin and his uncle had just reached San Pablo. They were not soldiers of Castro’s army but they were loyal Californians and they were travelling north. Ramon volunteered.

It was a beautiful June morning with the waters rippling like melted sapphires. He was happy and in love. He had a rose from Mariana crumpled in his pocket and her answering note, “Do not make the waiting long, Ramon. My knees wear out with praying. I had rather dance, querido—with you!" Exultant and with the young blood singing in his veins, he took the papers Lieutenant Rico gave him. He stuffed them in his boots. They would be delivered . . . never fear! He was brave and handsome and beloved. What could the world do to harm a man like that?

Lieutenant Francisco Rico has left an account of the departure of the twin de Haro brothers and their aged uncle, Don Jose R. Berreyesa. The pages are in Bancroft Library at the University of California, open for anyone who wants to read. One of the Castros of San Pablo, Sergeant Manuel, took the party across in his boat. They rowed across the straits to Point San Pedro on the Marin County side. And they were seen from the corridors of the Mission building.

Sitting there on the rose-covered patio in the Sabbath peace was Captain John C. Fremont, Captain Archibald Gillespie and a company of Fremont’s men. There also, on a chance visit to friends at the Mission was Jaspar O’Farrell, pioneer surveyor for whom a street in San Francisco is named. O’Farrell's account of the shocking affair was widely published during Fremont's lifetime. It was never denied. Kit Carson, the scout and two trappers were sent forward to intercept the Californians. Carson had advanced a few hundred yards when, according to O’Farrell he returned to the patio and accosted Fremont directly. "Shall I take these men prisoners?”

Fremont replied, "I have got no room for prisoners.”

Carson and his companions then swung their horses about and galloped toward the Point where the Californians were about to land. The boys and their uncle stepped from the boat, they stacked their saddles on the beach and started walking the mile or two to the familiar Mission gardens. Here they would get horses and continue their journey. They had not the slightest foreboding. The lovely chapel was a friendly place. Here, often, they had prayed; here they had come for weddings and christenings and feast days. Laughing, they sauntered on. Horsemen approached. They came at the lull gallop. Fifty yards from the three Californians, the armed riders jumped from their mounts. They raised their rifles to their shoulders.

“But we are friends,” Ramon shouted. "We have no muskets.”

The three men raised their arms and dropped to their knees, confident of mercy. They waited, startled but smiling. The rifles barked. Without a word of explanation, they were shot to death. Meanwhile, back at the Rancho…

To be continued