Late-Night Ferries in Marin

By Robert L. Harrison and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

“Late night ferry service between Marin County and San Francisco has been a long-running concern for county residents,” according to local historian Bob Harrison. Here are some lightly edited excerpts from a report he recently posted on the Anne T. Kent California Room website:

The call for late night ferry service has been ongoing for over 100 years. In an April 17, 1897 article, long before there was a Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Call reported the North Pacific Coast (NPC) Railroad planned to operate the first late evening service from Marin to San Francisco. The plan called for trains direct from San Rafael and Mill Valley to Sausalito where the ferry would leave at 10:45 p.m. Rather than listing the route in its official printed schedule, the NPC simply posted a notice at stations announcing its availability. The railroad used this approach to enable the service to be promptly abandoned if it proved unprofitable.

In 1899 the NPC scheduled a boat leaving San Francisco at 9:00 p.m. three nights a week. By 1903 the railroad now named the North Shore (NS) had added Marin electric train service and scheduled a ferry from the city at 10:15 p.m. Two years later improvements to the rail service allowed all scheduled ferries and trains to operate seven days a week.

Marin’s other railroad, the California Northwestern (CNW), also offered late-night ferry service connecting Tiburon with San Francisco. In 1903 a “Theatre Boat” operated seven days a week leaving the city at 11:30 p.m. In the early 1900s the Marin-San Francisco late night ferry connection was served by two railroads and four ferry crossings.

In 1907, Marin’s two railroads were merged into the Northwestern Pacific (NWP). The NWP operated night ferry service direct to Sausalito leaving the City at 9:30 p.m., 11:30 p.m. and 12:45 a.m.

A popular ferry service change was reported in the May 4, 1928 Mill Valley Record: “New Night Boat; More Service.” The paper noted: “Commencing last Sunday, for those who wish to take in a show, or attend a party, a boat leaves the Ferry Building each morning at one o’clock with connecting trains [in Sausalito] to all suburban stations.” The service was added in response to numerous requests and continued through summer months but operated in the winter dependent on patronage.

In the early 20th century, many were eager for the late-night ferry service so that Marin County residents could enjoy the City after dark. With the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge Marin’s primary ongoing interest in the late-night boat was to bring City residents to Marin in order to support evening businesses, particularly in Sausalito and Tiburon.

In 2001 the Blue and Gold ferry operator offered two Friday night ferry runs to and from Marin for a $30,000 ($48,000 in 2022 dollars) subsidy from local jurisdictions. The boats would have served ferry terminals at both Tiburon and Sausalito. Several jurisdictions including Tiburon, Sausalito, Belvedere and Marin County together approved a total of $18,500 to offset the cost of the Friday night ferries. There is little if any evidence that the service ever operated or how successful it may have been. In any event the proposed late-night ferry clearly was a very short lived experiment. As of June 2022 the latest scheduled weekday boat to Marin departs from the City at 8:15 p.m.

As late as January 2022 the Town of Tiburon contracted for the Tiburon Transportation Program (TTP) operated by the Tideline Marine Group, Inc. to provide two years of late-night ferry service Thursdays through Sundays. The agreement required three round trips between 5:30 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. with one departure from Tiburon no earlier than 10:00 p.m. The service is based on an on-call system and not on a regular schedule.

The maximum public subsidy was agreed to be no more than $298,000. Tiburon planned to offset this cost using funds available from the American Rescue Act of 2021. According to the website https://tideline-tiburon-night.mytrakk.com/ tickets are $20 each way.

The service will be evaluated on a continuous basis over the contract period. Early public response has been limited.

Marine Mammal Center Reopens to Public

By Patricia Arrigoni and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

The Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands, the largest hospital in the world for seals, sea lions and other pinnipeds, reopened to the public in June, after a 2 ½ year Covid hiatus. While it was closed, the Center undertook a major remodel, resulting in lots of new exhibits and informative signage.

Today the Center treats hundreds of patients a year, and rescues stranded animals throughout 600 miles of the California coast, from Mendocino to San Luis Obispo. As a teaching hospital, the Center also conducts research into conditions leading to these strandings, including climate change, ocean pollution, and human-caused problems such as entanglements and over-fishing.

This year is the Center’s 47th anniversary since it was founded by three volunteers. One of the three, Patricia Arrigoni, was a newspaper writer and editor at the time. She has written her recollections of the Center’s development, entitled “The Marine Mammal Center — How It All Began.” Here are some lightly edited excerpts from her book:

There were three of us involved in the creation of the Center, which opened in 1975 and which we named the "California Marine Mammal Center." (The state name was dropped later as it was thought to limit fund-raising efforts, and it caused some people to consider he Center a government facility).

Paul Maxwell, Lloyd Smalley and I had all actively worked for a small natural science Museum named after famed Arctic explorer, Louise A. Boyd, when we met. It was located at 76 Albert Park Lane in San Rafael [the home of Wildcare today]. I had served as Secretary of the Board of Trustees; Paul was our hired Executive Director and Lloyd was the Animal Curator. Paul, who had moved on to take a position with the County Superintendent of School's Office directing an outdoor education program, began to think about having a place to release rehabilitated wild animals and birds. He also had a strong personal interest in marine mammals which started with a rescue experience some ten years earlier. Lloyd was concerned with providing better animal facilities, especially for marine mammals needing rehabilitation. The two men began to look around for a site to accomplish their goal and it was Paul who came up with the idea of the abandoned Nike missile site in the Marin Headlands above the Golden Gate Bridge. I was brought in as a facilitator.

We were all wide-eyed, enthusiastic and undaunted by the enormity of what we had in mind and, amazingly enough, we succeeded with the help of thousands of grassroots volunteers.

The museum at that time contained exhibits of live reptiles and animals, including a bear cub that grew too large for its cage (though a massive fund-raising effort that resulted in a new facility corrected that), A small pool was used for the rehabilitation of birds and marine mammals. Orphaned animals being brought to the museum were a regular part of its services and Smalley became concerned that the facilities needed to be upgraded for their care. He became especially interested in marine mammals.

"Getting food and medicine into a sea lion or an elephant seal was an ordeal of hit and misses, and trial and error," he wrote to author Joe Quirk when providing him information for the Center's book, “Call to the Rescue.” He experimented with "stomach tubes containing fish milkshakes loaded with vitamins."

Patricia Arrigoni was married to Peter Arrigoni, a former Marin County Supervisor, who died in 2018. She became involved with the Boyd Natural Science Museum in the 1960s when women's guilds were organized throughout the County of Marin to provide financial support for the museum. She recalls:

When Paul Maxwell called me to help with establishing a cooperative wildlife rehabilitation center, I became as enthusiastic as he and Smalley. We all began scouring the county for a site. When Paul suggested the old Nike missile site at Fort Cronkite, we all thought it would be perfect, and I went to work politically to obtain it.

After a letter-writing campaign to everyone from County Supervisors to Senator Alan Cranston, the Board of Supervisors unanimously endorsed the idea and urged the director of the Golden Gate Recreation Area, which had taken over the old missile site, to “look with favor on Mr. Smalley’s request to establish the Center at Fort Cronkhite.” The GGNRA issued a permit for use of the site in July 1974, and the Center opened there in 1975.

Visitors are now welcome at the Center Fridays through Mondays, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is free, but reservations are required to control crowd size. Reservations may be made on the Center’s website: https://www.marinemammalcenter.org/visit/getting-here. Pat Arrigoni’s book is available at Marin County libraries.

PHOTO FROM “THE MARINE MAMMAL CENTER — HOW IT ALL BEGAN.”

Facilities were rudimentary when the Boyd Museum first started treating patients

Water Equals Prosperity in Sausalito

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

Water literally put Sausalito on the map. The town’s name derives from the Spanish term Saucelito, or little willow. Groves of willow trees were a sign of pure spring water that attracted sailing vessels here as early as the 18th century. But by the 20th century, Sausalito had outgrown its domestic water supply, so the town issued $100,000 in bonds and contracted for a water distributing system using “healthy and pure Lagunitas water,” according to the Sausalito News.

In its July 3, 1909, issue, the paper pointed out that “Scarcity of water has been the greatest drawback to the advancement of Sausalito,” then proudly declared:

“In less than a month from today Sausalito can truthfully and conscientiously say to the world ‘We have at last cast off the heavy yoke of water famine and we Invite you to make your home in the most picturesque and sanitary place in the world, only a stone's throw from the future metropolis of the world. We have installed our own Municipal Water Distributing System."  The News predicted that the new system would be operational by August.

And sure enough, one month later the paper giddily announced a water carnival to celebrate the new system:

“The business houses are decorated and the town presents a gay appearance. For the reception of guests Sea Point Parlor will maintain headquarters at Eagles' Hall, the ladies' committee at the town hall and the Ross, the firemen at the fire house and Golden Gate Yacht Club and the Foresters at Lowder's Hall. In the evening a dance will be held in Eagles' hall. A special boat will be run to San Francisco at 12:45.

“The parade will start at 10 A. M. It will be made up of five companies of United States troops from Fort Baker, headed by the Third Artillery Band; Sea Point, and Tamalpais Parlors, N. S. G. W. and Keith Parlor, Native Daughters, headed by St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum Band; Volunteer Fire Departments of Sausalito, Mill Valley and Larkspur, veteran firemen of San Francisco and their old equipment; Mill Valley Redmen, high officers and Court Star of California Ancient Order of Foresters of America, headed by their boys' band; Court Sausalito, Foresters of America; Sausalito Aerie of Eagles and Sausalito Camp, Woodmen of the World; Sausalito Band; Officers of the Day; Orator. Queen and attendants; invited guests and county and town officials.

“There will be fourteen aquatic races, the firemen will compete in a race for a perpetual trophy cup, and the Tamalpais Union High School team will play baseball against the local Sausalito team. There will be fireworks in the evening from a barge in the bay, literary exercises will be held in the park where Rev. Father Valentini will begin the program with prayer. School children will sing national hymns, former Judge Ferrel will deliver an oration and Rev. Dr. Fruhling will say the benediction. This will certainly be a grand day for Sausalito and one that will remain in the memory of the town for years to come. With this celebration Sausalito enters on a new era, and one of prosperity. Sausalito invites everybody to come and help celebrate and promises a good time.”

The following week, the News reported, “Several thousand people from all over the county and around the bay, were at Sausalito last Thursday to help celebrate the completion of the Sausalito municipal water system and Admission Day. Sausalito certainly welcomed the vast throngs with open arms and gave them the town for the day.” After crediting virtually everyone who participated in the festivities,

the News concluded: “The celebration wound up late in the evening with a grand ball, which was a most befitting close to such a successful day. Sausalito should feel justly proud of herself for the excellent manner in which the whole long list of attractions were successfully carried out.”

PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

This hose cart company of the Volunteer Fire Department turned out for the water carnival parade

Sausalito and the Gold Rush

By Robert Ryal Miller and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

When the gold rush began, it was a bonanza for Captain Richardson who transported gold seekers up the Sacramento River and supplied them with victuals. Robert Ryal Miller tells the story in his biography of William Richardson, part of the Historical Society collection. Here are some lightly edited excerpts:

Stephen Richardson remembered how it all began early in 1848 when “strange stories began to float into San Francisco about a great discovery of gold in the mountains, not far from Sutter’s Fort.”

At this time a few men were quietly leaving San Francisco for the American River. Some prospectors went by land; others chartered watercraft, including Richardson’s launch, to take them to the mining district.

Richardson’s son recalled that he had heard many rumors about gold when, in the latter part of May he visited San Francisco. “It was seething with excitement, but the population was intact. I visited it a week later. It seemed like a city of the dead—barred doors and windows everywhere; here and there an ancient custodian of the otherwise vacant stores, with an occasional old crone to care for the children too young to walk.”

Captain Richardson employed his launch Guadalupe to take many would-be miners from San Francisco to the future site of the town of Sacramento. Working sails, oars and tiler, the captain and a few crew members made the trip upriver in two and a half or three days, depending on winds, currents, and weather. Passenger fares and freight charges brought earnings up to $2,600 per trip.

Like most members of the important California ranch families, the Richardsons scoffed at mining for gold. Captain Richardson was occupied with his own maritime activities, especially after his posts as collector and captain of the port reverted to the military about the time the Mexican Ward ended. And family affairs always occupied a lot of the family’s time.

The Richardsons attended happy social events in the gold rush years. Some of these were religious festivals such as the Carnival before Lent, Easter, All Souls day, and Christmas, all of them occasions for some merrymaking. Family members also celebrated baptisms and marriages, as well as their name-saint day which, like birthdays, featured special dinners and a fiesta.

Mariana Richardson, twenty-two years old when the gold rush began, was a key attraction at many of these gatherings. An American who met her in July 1848 described the “Belle of California.”

“Miss Richardsoin is of rather more than medium size & height, with a fine figure, a dignified lady-like carriage & a full fine face & expressive dark eyes. She is certainly very handsome…Notwithstanding the suitors which she is described as then having, she is not yet married, tho’ I understand it is from no lack of candidates for her hand. She does not speak English but understands it well. She is lively in conversation & the evening passed very agreeably…“

One of Mariana’s suitors was army Lieutenant William Tecumseh Sherman, who later torched Atlanta during the Civil War. But señorita Richardson chose a Peruvian, Manuel Torres y Garcia. As a wedding present, the Richardsons gave their daughter and son-in-law their old frame residence on Whaler’s Cove and a plot of land including the gulch where the springs were located. After the wedding the bride’s parents hosted a fiesta at the Richardson hacienda, which was vividly recalled by one attendee:

“I was a guest at the wedding feast—if you can call anything a feast that lasted ten solid days. Never had such a good time in my life, and never saw any people as well dressed as those Californiansgorgeous you might call it, but in perfect taste… Of course I didn’t hold out for the ten days…

“The best dancers in California were in attendance. By that I mean dancers who were especially trained in the most beautiful and difficult creations pf the terpsichorean art. Of course, they were purely of the amateur order, but they far surpassed anything I’d seen in the way of professional performance.”

Late in 1848 news of the gold discovery reached the East Coast where the dazzling stories were officially confirmed by officials of the United States government.

At least 90,000 Americans became the legendary “Forty Niners,” some argonauts going by sea, while others crossed the continent by covered wagon or pack trains. The port of San Francisco was swamped in 1849 by the arrival of more than 700 ships carrying 41,000 passengers.

Captain Richardson had visited the gold regions in the spring of 1849, but he had no desire to dig for gold. His son Stephen, felt the same way, later recalled his visit to the mines:

“Purely to satisfy my curiosity, I paid a visit to the ‘diggings’ myself, just a looker-on. I visited several camps on the branches of the American River. The activity was amazing along the riverbeds where were strung long lines of struggling men, working ceaselessly from sun-up to sun-down, and carousing more or less, through the night. Wherever there was a camp, gambling joints and saloons sprang up like mushrooms…

“But looking it over from every fascinating angle, I easily discovered that gold mining was not for Steve. I much preferred my less exciting life at Sausalito, herding cattle, my own master and carefree. As it turned out later, it would have been much wiser in the end had I tried my luck.”

ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF BANCROFT LIBRARY

The Fandango was a popular dance at the Richardson Hacienda

Independence Day in the 19th Century

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

The 4th of July had already been a federal holiday for 15 years when the Sausalito News began publishing in 1885, and the paper diligently reported on local celebrations:

“The San Francisco Yacht Club had a very enjoyable run up to Pittsburg Landing for their Independence Day cruise,” noted the News in 1885. “The yachts started from Front Street wharf at 3 o'clock Friday afternoon with the exception of the Chispa which left about half an hour later but overhauled most of the other boats coming in at Martinez but a few minutes behind the winners. All the boats had a very good time around Pittsburg being hospitably entertained, and on Saturday morning the start was made for the city. All the boats were gaily decorated with Chinese lanterns on the night of the Fourth and seemed to vie with each other in the display of fireworks.”

The following year, the paper recounted, “Independence Day was celebrated in Sausalito by the usual display of flags and fireworks. The pyrotechnical display from vessels on the bay appeared especially beautiful as viewed from the shore. On the fine ship Morna the celebration kept up till a late hour, fireworks dancing and general merriment being the order of the occasion.”

In 1891 the News waxed rhapsodic over the holiday: “Saturday will be Independence Day when all American born citizens and most of those who have made this country the land of their adoption, will celebrate in hearty sincerity the anniversary of the act of the fathers of the nation, in throwing off the yoke of a tyrannical government. Even resident British subjects bear us no ill will for renouncing the rule of George III, and his minions. The whole world has gained by the Declaration of Independence and the subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty have lost no rights.”

In 1889 two picnics were held at Wildwood Glen on the Fourth. “The Donegal Society of San Francisco accompanied by the celebrated First Infantry Band of Angel Island will occupy the lower platform,” announced the News, “while on the upper ground a Scotch picnic will have the good old bag pipes and pibroch [music] going for their merry lads and lassies. Ireland and Scotland will celebrate the American National Independence day at Sausalito.”

The merrymaking was interrupted in 1893, when an inferno broke out about 9:30 p.m. at Hunter’s Resort, located directly below the grounds of the El Monte Hotel (where the former City Hall building now housing Gene Hiller’s menswear stands today). Here’s the News’ description of that catastrophe:

“Sausalito on the Fourth offered a costly sacrifice on the altar dedicated to the commemoration of our National Independence. The residents of Sausalito are nothing if not patriotic, but on Tuesday evening the exuberance of their patriotism did a similar work to that attributed to Mrs. O'Leary's cow at Chicago. May it bring as good results and give us better more commodious, and more artistic buildings than those destroyed by fire.

“The fiend did his work rapidly and had he had a friendly gale there would have been nothing left on Water Street from the Tamalpais, (Portuguese) hotel to the San Francisco Yacht Club House and many of the handsome residences on the hillside and the El Monte Hotel must have succumbed to the flames. All is well, however, that ends well, and nothing is so bad but that it might have been worse. A great black gap where on the eventful night eight or nine two-, three- and four-story buildings stood occupied by prosperous business men, disfigures the street opposite the ferry landing. By the exertions of the engineers and crews of the steamers San Rafael and Tamalpais with their steam pumps and hose they not only saved the large two-story building adjoining the wharf and also the wharf, sheds and landings, but checked the fire in its progress south. The town's people with the voluntary help of transient visitors, yachtsmen and others, tore down one small building so as to secure the safety of the Hotel Sausalito and formed a cordon along the edge of the bluff and fought the fiend as fiends would fight a fiend whenever he sought to effect a lodgement on the summit of the hill. It was a battle in noise, heat and stifling smoke between the fire which strove to scale the steep incline and the brave garrison above. Pluck, endurance and intelligence won the day, and beat the enemy back. The cause of the fire or how and why it started in the Hunter's Resort saloon will probably be investigated by the insurance companies but there is so far a heavy preponderance of testimony that it did not occur through any careless or thoughtless act of any of the guests of the El Monte Hotel.” Among the sufferers there are one or two persons who have lost nearly all their possessions, but aggregating the total loss at $30,000 the insurance companies will have to make good one-half.”

In his book Moments in Time, Jack Tracy wrote: “The San Francisco Examiner blamed the El Monte Hotel fireworks display.  But nobody knew for sure.  Whatever the cause, it was a 4th of July not easily forgotten.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The only sign of a business district still standing after the fire is the singed barber pole on the far left.

Richardson Finally Settles in Sausalito

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

We previously reported that William Richardson first applied for a Southern Marin land grant in n 1827. That application turned into a convoluted process lasting more than a decade.

According to Robert Ryal Miller’s biography of Richardson, in late 1829 he decided to go to San Diego, where the governor resided, to present petitions for full naturalization and for a rancho grant.

That December, Captain Richardson put his wife, son, and daughter aboard a Mexican brigantine he had restored, “and sailed with them from San Francisco Bay to the harbor of San Pedro. From there they went overland to Mission San Gabriel, where the family was to live for the next five and a half years.

In San Diego on February 18, 1835, Richardson submitted a diseño (crude map) which showed the boundaries and its relation to adjoining properties.” Addressed to the "Superior Political Chief," the document stated in translation:

“Citizen William Antonio Richardson, before your Excellency, in due form of law respectfully represents: that having a considerable quantity of cattle in the vicinity of the Port of San Francisco, together with a growing family, in conformity with the laws in relation to the matter, he requests that you may be pleased to grant him the place that is marked out on the sketch that accompanies this petition.

“This land is vacant; it is not recognized as the particular property of any individual, corporation, or pueblo”

The application process was passed on from one governor to another until Governor Alvarado signed the final grant papers in February 1838. Finally, Richardson moved his family across the strait from Yerba Buena to his Rancho Sausalito in June 1841.

Richardson’s son Stephen explained his father’s decision to move to Sausalito:

“Having laid the foundation stones of a city and watched its progress long enough to know with certainty that it would grow, my father turned his back on it. Had he waited a few years longer till the great gold rush began, with a probable acquisition of land and water rights, his wealth would doubtless have been enormous—large enough to withstand the mishaps that wrecked his fortune in his old age.

“Indeed, my father believed that two cities would spring up on each side of the Golden Gate, and he preferred to cast his lot where he owned everything.”

At first, the Richardson family occupied a two-room wooden house near the springs on Whaler’s Cove (at today’s Second and Valley Streets), but about a year later they moved to a new adobe hacienda. “This larger home, befitting the owner’s newly acquired title of Don (a gentleman[LC1]  and estate owner’s title used before the last name),” in Miller’s words, “was situated in a broad valley near the Sausalito anchorage, almost a mile north of Whaler’s Cove and the waterworks. The central portion of the adobe dwelling measured 16 by 20 feet, to which a room was added on either side, making the house about 20 by 40 feet, with a storage loft above. (The site was on the present Pine Street, between

Bonita and Caledonia Streets.) Indian servants of the family had huts nearby.`````” \

Stephen’s sister Mariana was fifteen years old when they moved to the ranch. Many years later she recalled some aspects of her life at their hacienda:

“Our furniture was plan and substantial… The carpets were woven by the Indians… Indian women worked the wool into strips, and the Indians [also] made them into blankets. The women did excellent work with the needle, all the bed clothing being done by hand, all the sheets and pillow slips having Spanish [lace] work, also the table linen, the ends of which were made into fringe. The Indian women dressed plain and neat and made excellent servants. They took good care of children and were fine cooks and very trustworthy.

“Our tables were generally furnished with an abundance of good food, consisting of meat: mutton, steaks, chickens, eggs; also vegetables: corn, beans, peppers and squash… For bread we had tortillas made of [maize] flour and milk… Large ovens were built out in the yard. These ovens were large enough to roast a good-sized sheep. We always had the finest chocolate which came from Mexico.”

Richardson’s home became famous throughout the Bay Area as a scene of lavish hospitality.

Besides neighboring ranch families, Richardson and his wife Maria entertained visiting ship captains from all over the world. His acquaintances included mountain man Jedidiah Smith, General Vallejo, and John Sutter, whom he transported up to Sonoma so he could begin the explorations that led him to develop Sutter’s Mill, the site of the 1849 Gold Rush that, ironically, contributed to the collapse of Richardson’s empire.    

ILLUSTRATION FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Richardson’s Rancho Sausalito house, 1847

William Richardson Jumps Ship

We’ve presented a number of anecdotes about the life of William Richardson. A book in the Historical Society collection, “Captain Richardson, Mariner, Ranchero and Founder of San Francisco” by Robert Ryal Miller, fills in some of the gaps in the Richardson narrative. Here’s a lightly edited excerpt describing how Richardson first arrived in these parts:

In the early evening of August 2, 1822, Mexican soldiers at the presidio (fortress) guarding the entrance to San Francisco Bay fired a cannon thus signaling an incoming foreign ship to drop anchor. The vessel was the 351-ton British whaler Orion, whose captain, William Barney, wanted to obtain fresh meat and water for his crew before beginning the long homeward cruise via Cape Horn. Because the first mate, William Richardson, spoke some Spanish, the captain ordered him ashore to explain the pacific nature of the visit and to make arrangements for purchasing provisions. The mate's shore leave would dramatically change his life.

Richardson had been a sailor for fifteen years, having gone to sea at the age of twelve. He had been born in London on August 27, 1795, and began his maritime career as a cabin boy in the British merchant marine. Subsequently, he made a number of voyages to North Sea and South American ports, meanwhile rising through the officer ranks to become a captain. Then, after an accident in which he lost a ship, he was temporarily reduced in rank and obliged to sail on the next voyage as the first officer. In that capacity he sailed from England in 1820 aboard the Orion, which had just undergone a major overhaul including new topsides and a copper bottom. The ship had been at sea for two years, mostly in North Pacific and Arctic waters, when it put into San Francisco Bay.

After being rowed ashore to the sandy beach, Richardson accompanied a squad of Mexican soldiers to the presidio where Comandante Ignacio Martinez welcomed him warmly. Assuring the visitor that he would be given the necessary supplies, the commandant invited him to his quarters where he was hosting a fiesta that very evening. Don Ignacio introduced the visitor to his family and guests, poured some brandy, and called for the music to begin. The guests, who were fellow-officers and their wives, took up partners and performed the jarabe, jota, contradanza, and other Spanish dances, and the English visitor did an Irish jig. Richardson found a charming dancing partner in the commandant's eldest daughter, Senorita Maria Antonia Martinez. They made a handsome couple; she was nineteen years old, had flowing black hair and flashing brown eyes, and he was almost twenty-seven, tall and slender, fair-skinned with blue eyes, and light brown hair with a tendency to curl. The Englishman wore a braided coat, white nankeen trousers, and glistening black boots. Merrymaking and feasting continued until dawn, whereupon Richardson made his way back to the ship.

Furious at being left all night in rough waters, and perhaps envious that he had not been invited to the fandango, Captain Barney severely castigated his first mate. Richardson then seems to have jumped ship, or else he was discharged and sent ashore. With his few belongings the Englishman arrived back at the presidio and explained his predicament to the commandant. Always hospitable, Don Ignacio invited the young man to stay with his family until another ship could take him aboard, or until he received permission to remain in California if he so desired. Almost immediately the mariner decided to stay, a crucial reason being that he was enamored of Maria Antonia Martinez.

Richardson thus became a member of the Martinez household, which at that time included the comandante, his wife Maria Martina, and their five daughters and two sons. During subsequent conversations Martinez advised the Englishman that he should go to Monterey, capital of Alta California, and petition government authorities for permission to remain in the province. Borrowing a horse from the presidio stable, in late September Richardson rode south along El Camino Real, stopping overnight at a rancho and the missions of Santa Clara and San Juan Bautista. Finally, after a trip of about one hundred and twenty-five miles he reached Monterey. There, on October 7, he presented the following petition to Governor Pablo Vicente de Sola: "W. A. Richardson, a native of Great Britain and a resident of this province, hereby respectfully represents that he arrived at this port of San Francisco on the second day of August last, as mate of a British whale-ship, and it being my intention to remain permanently and become domiciled in this Province at some place with suitable climate, I most humbly pray your Honor to grant me this privilege and favor." Governor Sola, who was about to return to Mexico, approved the petition and noted in the margin, "Being aware that the petitioner, besides being a navigator, is conversant with and engaged in the occupation of a carpenter, I hereby grant the privilege he asks for, with the obligation that he shall receive and teach such young men as may be placed in his charge by my successor."

Captain Richardson, as he became known, had found his new home.

ILLUSTRATION FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Presidio of San Francisco in 1822

Richardson Finally Settles in Sausalito

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

We previously reported that William Richardson first applied for a Southern Marin land grant in n 1827. That application turned into a convoluted process lasting more than a decade.

According to Robert Ryal Miller’s biography of Richardson, in late 1829 he decided to go to San Diego, where the governor resided, to present petitions for full naturalization and for a rancho grant.

That December, Captain Richardson put his wife, son, and daughter aboard a Mexican brigantine he had restored, “and sailed with them from San Francisco Bay to the harbor of San Pedro. From there they went overland to Mission San Gabriel, where the family was to live for the next five and a half years.

In San Diego on February 18, 1835, Richardson submitted a diseño (crude map) which showed the boundaries and its relation to adjoining properties.” Addressed to the "Superior Political Chief," the document stated in translation:

“Citizen William Antonio Richardson, before your Excellency, in due form of law respectfully represents: that having a considerable quantity of cattle in the vicinity of the Port of San Francisco, together with a growing family, in conformity with the laws in relation to the matter, he requests that you may be pleased to grant him the place that is marked out on the sketch that accompanies this petition.

“This land is vacant; it is not recognized as the particular property of any individual, corporation, or pueblo”

The application process was passed on from one governor to another until Governor Alvarado signed the final grant papers in February 1838. Finally, Richardson moved his family across the strait from Yerba Buena to his Rancho Sausalito in June 1841.

Richardson’s son Stephen explained his father’s decision to move to Sausalito:

“Having laid the foundation stones of a city and watched its progress long enough to know with certainty that it would grow, my father turned his back on it. Had he waited a few years longer till the great gold rush began, with a probable acquisition of land and water rights, his wealth would doubtless have been enormous—large enough to withstand the mishaps that wrecked his fortune in his old age.

“Indeed, my father believed that two cities would spring up on each side of the Golden Gate, and he preferred to cast his lot where he owned everything.”

At first, the Richardson family occupied a two-room wooden house near the springs on Whaler’s Cove (at today’s Second and Valley Streets), but about a year later they moved to a new adobe hacienda. “This larger home, befitting the owner’s newly acquired title of Don (a gentleman[LC1]  and estate owner’s title used before the last name),” in Miller’s words, “was situated in a broad valley near the Sausalito anchorage, almost a mile north of Whaler’s Cove and the waterworks. The central portion of the adobe dwelling measured 16 by 20 feet, to which a room was added on either side, making the house about 20 by 40 feet, with a storage loft above. (The site was on the present Pine Street, between

Bonita and Caledonia Streets.) Indian servants of the family had huts nearby.`````” \

Stephen’s sister Mariana was fifteen years old when they moved to the ranch. Many years later she recalled some aspects of her life at their hacienda:

“Our furniture was plan and substantial… The carpets were woven by the Indians… Indian women worked the wool into strips, and the Indians [also] made them into blankets. The women did excellent work with the needle, all the bed clothing being done by hand, all the sheets and pillow slips having Spanish [lace] work, also the table linen, the ends of which were made into fringe. The Indian women dressed plain and neat and made excellent servants. They took good care of children and were fine cooks and very trustworthy.

“Our tables were generally furnished with an abundance of good food, consisting of meat: mutton, steaks, chickens, eggs; also vegetables: corn, beans, peppers and squash… For bread we had tortillas made of [maize] flour and milk… Large ovens were built out in the yard. These ovens were large enough to roast a good-sized sheep. We always had the finest chocolate which came from Mexico.”

Richardson’s home became famous throughout the Bay Area as a scene of lavish hospitality.

ILLUSTRATION FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Richardson’s Rancho Sausalito house, 1847

Besides neighboring ranch families, Richardson and his wife Maria entertained visiting ship captains from all over the world. His acquaintances included mountain man Jedidiah Smith, General Vallejo, and John Sutter, whom he transported up to Sonoma so he could begin the explorations that led him to develop Sutter’s Mill, the site of the 1849 Gold Rush that, ironically, contributed to the collapse of Richardson’s empire.    

 [LC1]

When Maya Angelou Danced in Sausalito

By Nora Sawyer, Sausalito Historical Society

Thick planks stretched across the muddy shoreline, forming a bridge over the “sullen-looking” water of Richardson Bay. In the misty near-dark, lights gleamed out from the windows of a large ferryboat, illuminating a tall, slim woman in a flowered dress – “chic, but not formal” – that she’d borrowed from her mother.

Maya Angelou in the 1957 film Calypso Heat Wave. Sketch by Nora Sawyer

The woman walked up the steps and peered through the glass. Inside, a “short sturdy man” bustled around a long wooden table, lighting candles. She rapped on the door; the man looked up and smiled. It was an overcast Monday night in 1954, and Maya Angelou was joining Jean Varda for dinner.

Though destined for fame as a memoirist and poet, Angelou was at the time an up-and-coming performer, dancing and singing calypso at a San Francisco nightclub, the Purple Onion, where she shared a bill with other “hip” acts including Phyllis Diller and the Kingston Trio.

Angelou had heard of Varda, a larger than life character famous in San Francisco art circles, but they’d never met. She had been surprised when he called and invited her to supper, promising “an ambrosia fit for a princess.” Nonetheless, she agreed to join him for dinner on the ferryboat Vallejo.

Over wine, Varda charmed her with legends from his Greek childhood and tales of his adventures as a young artist in Paris. Soon, she became part of Varda’s “crowd of intimates,” sailing and attending regular parties on the Vallejo, which she described as “a happy child’s dream castle.”

Their friendship’s influence stretched beyond Richardson Bay. “Yanko allowed me to enter a world strange and fanciful,” she later wrote. “I found that some of the magic of his world stayed around my shoulders.”

Angelou’s career took her to New York, and then a European tour as principal dancer in the cast of Porgy and Bess. She returned to the US in 1957. “The year’s popular book was Jack Kerouac’s On the Road,” she wrote, “and its title was an apt description of our national psyche. We were travelling, but no one knew our destination nor our arrival date.”

With her ten-year-old son, Guy, Angelou “joined the beatnik brigade,” moving onto a houseboat at Waldo Point, where she “went barefoot, wore jeans, and both of us wore rough-dried clothes.” The Navy barge, owned by the poet Gerd Stern, was “a commune, back in the fifties before anyone knew about communes,” which they shared with an “ichthyologist, a musician, a wife, and an inventor.”

Angelou noted that even though she and Guy were the commune’s only Black residents, “the houseboat offered me a respite from racial tensions, and gave my son an opportunity to be around whites who did not think of him as too exotic to need correction, nor so common as to be ignored.”

Angelou continued to dance and sing, appearing at a The Purple Onion and a new club called The Hollow Egg. The Sausalito News reported that she preferred simple sheath dresses for her nightclub performances. “I could have had gorgeous costumes, but then I wouldn’t have been sure if people came to see me or the costumes,” she said. “At the Purple Onion, I only wore black or white burlap.”

Stern, who also managed and briefly dated Angelou, described her as “a great talent. . . She was a performer. She could magnetize an audience; wonderful, wonderful onstage personality. . . She was over six foot tall and skinny, and when she moved people just gasped.”

She also participated in Sausalito’s art scene, developing choreography and dancing in a production by composer Harry Partch. She even appeared at the Sausalito Arts Festival “with the Boobam Bamboo Drum ensemble in a series of dances from the West Indies.”

Her stay proved short. After less than a year, she “began to yearn for privacy, wall to wall carpets, and manicures.” She was also concerned for her son, who was “becoming rambunctious and young-animal wild,” and noted that “because my friends treated him like a young adult, he was forgetting his place in the scheme of our mother-son relationship.” So they moved on, first to Los Angeles and then to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writer’s Guild.

Angelou would go on to become an acclaimed author, publishing her first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in 1970. After reading her poem “On the Pulse of the Morning” at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993, her star rose even higher. ”I think my delivery (at the inauguration) had its own impact,” Angelou told Entertainment Weekly. “Before, I could pass 100 people and maybe 10 would recognize me. Now, maybe 40 percent recognize me. If they hear my voice, another 30 percent do too.”

Though writing brought her fame, Angelou still thought of herself as a dancer. “To me, dance and poetry are much the same,” she said in a 1974 interview. “Everything dances.”

Golden Gate Village, a Marin City Landmark

At Marin City’s MLK/Black History Month Celebration in February, I was surprised to learn of the long and storied history of the Golden Gate Village public housing complex. Royce McLemore, president of the Golden Gate Village Resident Council (GGVRC), gave a brief oral history of the 6-building development, which inspired me to dig a little deeper on my own.

The Marin City Public Housing Development officially opened in March 1960, after “Seven years of dreaming and striving,” according to this newspaper. During that period, various designs and concepts were put forth to replace the crumbling wartime residences which had been slapped up to house workers at Sausalito’s Marinship and had suffered years of deferred maintenance. It was when County Supervisor Vera Schultz got involved that things really began to jell.

Shultz, Marin’s first female supervisor, had a reputation as a gadfly when she was elected in 1952. One of her first campaigns was to engage Frank Lloyd Wright to design the Civic Center. She prevailed over fierce opposition, showing the feisty determination that marked her long career in local government.

According to the book  “VeraFirst Lady of Marin” by Evelyn M. Radford, when the war ended the white shipyard workers fled Marin City. “The blacks couldn't flee,” however. “The blacks couldn't go back home because mechanization of agriculture had taken place during the war. Field hands had been replaced by machines. Subrosa community covenants kept the blacks locked in their social and cultural cul de sac.”

Evelyn Radford recounts how Vera and a Marin City committee sought federal funding from Senator Estes Kefauver for whom Vera had campaigned in his 1956 run for the Vice Presidency: “Ushered into his presence, she threw her problem into his lap. ‘I need your help,’ she fumed.

“Kefauver reached for the phone. He made one call and Vera got a lesson in how people in Washington respond to a voice from the Hill. Doors to Housing and Home Finance opened like magic.”

Schultz eventually convinced the County to hire an associate of Wright’s, Aaron G. Green to design the public housing complex. He had seen the Civic Center project through to completion after Wright’s death. Green told Marin Scope, “This is the first link in transforming a rundown relic into one of the finest communities in the world.” His description was validated by the first structures, poured concrete buildings topped with red tile roofs, with sliding floor to ceiling windows and concrete patios overlooking Richardson’s Bay.

According to the website agaarchitects.com, Green and his colleagues believed that a community has a right to expect federal government projects to be be utilitarian without defacing the community. The entire project was never fully built out, but the six high-rises were awarded First Honors in 1964 by the Public Housing Agencies of HUD for design excellence from among 700 entries. The development was regarded as outstanding by jurors who said "This highly original design meets the challenge of the site's topography and dramatic situation. Each floor of the hillside apartment buildings is accessible from grade without ramps or stairs. The buildings on the lower part of the site are intimate in scale, carefully detailed, and show a sensitive selection and use of materials."

The complex remained nameless until the early 90s, when the Marin Housing Authority sponsored a naming contest, which was won by Grace Stover, who still lives there. Grace told me she didn’t receive a prize and didn’t even get her 15 minutes of fame since the local papers don’t seem to have run any articles about her victory. I guess this one will have to do.

In 2017 the property was placed in the National Register of Historic Places and was also listed in the California Register of Historical Resources. According to a notification Reese McLemore received from

the state Office of Historic Preservation, “Placement on the National Register affords a property the honor of inclusion in the nation's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation and provides a degree of protection from adverse effects resulting from federally funded or licensed projects.”

Despite its impressive pedigree, the aging complex has been threatened with demolition by the Marin Housing Authority. The residents have counter-proposed a deep green renovation of their existing homes, no new buildings, and a pathway to home ownership through a limited equity housing coop (LEHC). Learn more about the history — and potential future — of this special place at http://www.ggvrc.org.

Thanks to Royce McLemore, Grace Stover, Felecia Gaston and the Marin City Historical and Preservation Society, plus Carol Aquaviva of the Anne T. Kent California Room of the Marin County Library for their assistance researching this column.

PHOTO BY LARRY CLINTON

Golden Gate Village Buildings show Aaron Green’s distinctive design style



Back to the Pines

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

In last week’s column about the Queen Anne Victorian known as the Pines, we inadvertently ran a photo of another villa from that era, the Bower House. The photo accompanying this column is the correct one.

When Gil Purcell and Roxanne Sheridan undertook an eight-year restoration of the abandoned mansion, they committed to opening their doors to nonprofits for fundraisers. One of the first organizations to enjoy their hospitality was the Sausalito Historical Society, which staged a wine tasting and house tour at the Miller Avenue landmark in November 2012.

Now the Society returns to the Pines on May 14 for a gala to raise money to remodel the inside of the Ice House into a state of the art exhibit experience. The Ice House served as a mini-museum and visitors center at 780 Bridgeway from 1999 until the pandemic shutdown.

When completed, the renovated museum will invite interactive multi-media exploration of the intersection of Sausalito’s land, water and people. The open floor plan will also accommodate after-hours cultural events in Sausalito’s historic downtown. 

For the May 14 Gala, attendees are invited to dress as their favorite Sausalito historical character or in cocktail attire, and enjoy local food, wine, and a silent and live auction.

Ample parking is available at the Spencer Avenue northbound bus pad, with a shuttle bringing attendees to the residential neighborhood of the Pines.

The live auction will invite bids on as stays at Bodega Bay, Donner Lake and Carlsbad plus numerous local temptations.

Visitors will be able to tour portions of the home to enjoy features such as the rebuilt grand staircase with an antique stained-glass skylight from South America, and the basement lined with recycled bricks which were installed in the style of 1888. That basement houses a wine cellar, large fireplace, a stage for musicians and other entertainment, and Radio Sausalito, a fully automated 24/7 jazz station humming along in one cozy nook.

With a keen eye and the patience needed to browse antique stores, flea markets and garage sales, Gil has brought home unique period additions, both functional and decorative, that have been worked into the renovation – doors, windows, fixtures, knobs, trims, skirtings and cornices, as well as stately furnishings.

Historical Society members and non-members are invited to attend the May 13 Gala. For more information, and to purchase tickets, go to https://www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.com and follow the links. Proof of vaccination will be required at entry.

PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Pines was built by Major Orson C. Miller in 1888

The Poobah’s Sure Thing

By Earnest Jackson and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

ILLUSTRATION BY J. C. (PATSY) CARROLL

Adolph Silver playing art director

Recently we carried Earnest Jackson’s reminiscences about Adolph Silver, who was known as the Poobah of the pool halls, or horse race betting parlors, that proliferated here in the 1800s. Here are some additional anecdotes about one of Jackson’s more memorable – if not likable – town characters:

It is said that every day while the races were on, Adolph would walk up to the wicket and receive his ticket. He would thereupon play any old horse, call on the cashier and find that each day his horse had  won $25. A bit fantastic, eh! I am told this took place six days out of every week. It was one of the perquisites of the office of Boss "Poobah.”

As Silver was growing wealthier, he decided to build a fine home. The contract price for the house alone was over $12,000 and Tom O'Connor got the contract. I am told that including decorations, period furniture, etc., etc., this home cost Adolph about $40,000. This sum also included a large bank vault in which to keep his money.

Thinks He Knows Art

Silver was a conceited ass. He thought he knew a lot about art. Actually he knew nothing. He engaged a well known French artist to paint murals in the reception room of his house, and as the story goes, Adolph would ensconce himself in a magnificently upholstered chair at one end of the room, almost as splendid as a throne, while the artist worked at the other end. At one hand Adolph had a whiskey decanter, and at the other several bottles of beer. Choice cigars in abundance were convenient. Thus reinforced Adolph would tell the artist how to do his work ‘‘a little more fawncy.” He would call out: "I do not like those colors they are not bright enough.” A perpetual barrage of directions in Austrian accent to the French artist.

"Try and Get It”

The Frenchman had a dreadful time. Almost they came to blows on many occasions. When finally the work was done, Adolph said, “I will not pay, it is not what I want, I am an attorney: try and get it.” I don’t know whether the artist ever did get it, but I suspect not. Actually, Adolph was not an attorney at all, though he practiced in the Justice Court. Once when he appeared in Judge Lennon’s Court, the Judge asked for his credentials, and when they were not forthcoming, had the Sheriff put him out of the court room. As Adolph was nearing the door, the Judge called out at him, “Don’t you ever try to practice law again in my court, you crook!”

Defies Judge Lennon

Adolph wheeled around and shook his fist at the Judge fairly screaming, “Just you call me that name once more I defy you to call me that name once more!”

Tom O'Connor had a lot of trouble to get his money for Adolph’s house. On one occasion there was a payment due Mr. O’Connor of $l2,OO. Just for crookedness sake Adolph went over to San Francisco and got the entire amount in $1 bills, and then commenced counting them off as he passed them out, all the while trying to count more than he actually passed out.

Locks in Vault

Finally Mr. O’Connor, exasperated beyond endurance, shoved him in the vault and slammed the door. Tom did not know the combination and scared nearly to death for fear Adolph would suffocate finally had to get Adolph's sister to let him out. Adolph was furious and rushed out saying, “I’m going to get my gun.” Mr. O'Connor told me he didn't know what to do. He said he thought if he ran Adolph would shoot him in the back, so he stood his ground. When Adolph returned he was dragging his sister who was hanging on to his gun. About this time some of Mr. O’Connor's workmen entered, including his brother - in-law, who saved the day. He said: "No sense in all this fight Adolph, let's all have a drink.” “I think that’s right,” said Adolph. They all had a drink and the party ended quite happily.

Returns to Obscurity

Adolph’s career was nearly run. It came from nothing. It blazed across Sausalito’s sky for a few years and then it set in darkness. He lost every cent he had and returned to obscurity up in the hills. Some one told me that he appeared in San Rafael in about 1912, and that then he was absolutely down and out.

Misdirected Talent

He was a remarkable man with a superabundance of misdirected talent. As Service puts it, “If he had just gone straight, he might have gone far.” But he couldn’t go straight, he was too crooked. And now I have said all that I am going to for the time being, except to remind you that this story is all a part of my recollections. In spots it is doubtless inaccurate but as for that all history is built largely on recollections.

Major Miller and the Pines

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

The Victorian mansion known as the Pines will be the scene of a Historical Society celebration and fundraiser on May 14.

PHOTOS FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND GIL PURCELL

The Pines back in the day and after its restoration

The Queen Anne style residence was constructed in 1888 for Major Orson C. Miller during a building boom in the Sausalito hills. At that time, most of the homes were being built by British émigrés. As Jack Tracy pointed out in his book, Moments in Time, many English residents of Sausalito were “second sons.” That is, they came from landed wealthy English families and although they usually had sufficient annual stipends, they had no titles. The eldest son stood to inherit the title and property in England, leaving the other sons and daughters to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

Miller, however, was a Yankee army veteran who fought at Gettysburg in the Civil War and later moved to San Francisco where he was employed in the US custom house, eventually serving as secretary of the San Francisco mint.

Tracy recounts how Major Miller and his wife moved to Sausalito in 1885, and he bought a tract of “moribund lands of the Old Saucelito Land & Drydock Company” for $25,000. He immediately began surveying new streets and extending others from Old Town up the hillsides.

According to a Resource Evaluation prepared for the Sausalito Historic Resource Commission, “In 1887, Orson C. Miller purchased the remaining unsold portions of the Old Saucelito town site and incorporated the Sausalito Bay Land Company. Like his predecessors, Miller kept the original

1851 gridiron plan but he made several changes to make the tract more attractive to residential development. To improve access from the rest of town he built several new streets, including Sausalito Boulevard, which provided access to The Hill and Downtown and opened the steeper hillside areas to development.”

In 1888, he and his wife built their astonishingly large house perched on a hill overlooking the town and Richardson’s Bay. At a time when there were no street addresses, the house came to be known as The Pines. Eventually the street it’s located on became Miller Avenue.

At that time the Sausalito News began running a regular column called Our Villa Homes, listing the Pines among more than 30 of “the most beautiful and pleasant villa homes in Sausalito, probably, than generally falls to a place of ten times the size of this one.”

Having served as one of the four town trustees, and instrumental in establishing the first electric company, fire department and schoolhouse, Miller was considered a “city father” of Sausalito.

The Major passed away in 1903 and his family eventually was forced to sell the property.

According to a history compiled by the current owners, Gil Purcell and Roxanne Sheridan, “subsequent owners made major changes to the property. In 1910, as glass conservatory from England was brought around Cape Horn by ship and added to the South side of the house. Another owner divided the original 23 rooms into four apartments which rented out to boarders.

“One owner built a tacky carport down by the road for auto storage. During the 60’s and 70’s, hippies painted curlicues and flowers on the exterior woodwork. The next owner spent several years meticulously restoring the mansion to its original splendor only to have it gutted by a Greek developer who bought the property in the 1990’s. The sweeping oak stairway and redwood banister were demolished, interior molding and woodwork dismantled, brass hinges, rewired gaslight fixtures and original radiators removed.”

But, unlike other Queen Anne Victorians, the Pines avoided demolition, but it was abandoned when Gil and Roxanne bought it and painstakingly restored it to its former glory.

For over 8 years, Gil and Roxanne and Gil’s dad, Gil Sr., hunted down materials and craftsmen to bring the house back to its original condition. Seismic and electrical upgrades were the first order of business, which meant rebuilding the brick foundation. Thousands of bricks were sourced from the 19th century to use for the foundation work as well as chimneys and walkways, and craftsmen skilled in the style of 1888 were secured to mortar the bricks.

Today the historic mansion is a dedicated space for local nonprofits to meet and hold fundraisers to support Sausalito, Marin County and Bay Area charities.

In 2014, Roxanne and Gil received a Certificate of Recognition from the California Heritage Council “In appreciation of the restoration and presentation of the Queen Anne Victorian known as the Pines.”

The May 14 Historical Society evening celebration will feature music, hors d’oeuvres, wines, and fabulous live and silent auction items—as well as a chance to tour portions of the landmark home. You can find more information and a link to purchase tickets at www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.com. Proceeds will go toward the completion of a of a totally reimagined Sausalito Ice House Museum.

The Poobah of Early Sausalito

By Earnest Jackson and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

Historian Earnest Jackson profiled a number of early town characters in the Sausalito News. Here’s part one of a two-part exposé of one of the most notorious ones:

The human side of Sausalito has always been full of interest. There was Adolph Silver who called himself the “Poobah" of Sausalito. I must say something about him. Adolph gave his name to Silver's Island up near Manzanita. I have been told that this island belonged to an old Portuguese whaler who let Adolph squat on the island and occupy a cabin that was there. The first time I had ever heard of Adolph Silver, was under these circumstances. Shad Beasley and I had been hunting ducks at the north end of Richardson Bay. We were sailing down towards Strawberry Point on the opposite side and had just gone about abreast of “Swede’s chicken ranch” at the brick yard site.

Shots Across Bow

We heard some yelling, but paid no attention. Then two shots were fired across our bow. I will never forget the persuasion of those shots. We at once went ashore to find out what it was all about.

When “Old Swede" calmed down enough to talk English, this is what we learned: As our skiff had come from the direction of the island, and looked just about like Silver’s skiff he had mistaken us for Silver. Now this was the cause of the excitement: The night before Silver had called on the Swede, who was in bed, and while Silver sat and talked to him, a great commotion was heard in the chicken house. The Swede wanted to get up, but each time he started to rise Silver pushed him back, and soon after left. Next morning all the Swede's chickens were gone.

Becomes Sausalito Boss

I don’t think any one in Sausalito had ever heard of Silver at this time. He was just an itinerant squatter in an abandoned island shack. Within four or five years, Silver became the wealthy boss of Sausalito, and within a few years more faded from the picture as poverty-stricken as he had entered it. It was about then that the pool rooms arrived in Sausalito [literally, rooms where betting pools were organized to wager on East Coast horse races].

Almost mysteriously and quite suddenly Silver became their guiding politician. He called himself the “Poobah" of the Town. He became Mayor of the Town.

He attended to the machinery of securing votes necessary to keep the gamblers in control of the Board of Town Trustees. He was a very shrewd man.

Foolproof Voting Fraud

Votes had to be bought and paid for. Silver discovered that this paying for votes in advance was not always satisfactory. He found that at times he paid for votes that were not cast for his man. Silver was shrewd and he devised this plan: Let us imagine that it was about election time and that three Board members were to be elected. Assume that John Jones had a vote to sell. He was seen and instructed to vote for Silver’s two candidates and for the third candidate to write on his ballot, his identifying name, “Henry Clay.”

Bill Smith was also seen. He also was instructed to vote for the Boss’ two candidates, but for the third candidate he was to write in the name “Florence Nightingale.” A little book was kept by Mr. Silver and after the name of each bought voter was noted the particular fictitious character whose name written on a ballot proved that the voter had delivered the goods. Enough such votes were secured to carry the election.

Perfectly Legitimate

There was nothing illegal about this. For, while the law provides that no distinguishing marks can be made on any ballot, it provides also that any voter may write in the name of any candidate he may desire.

Each fictitious name was good for $2 or more, to be paid to the faithful after the election. There may be honor among thieves, but Silver was not taking any chances, unless there was a ballot with the name of Martin Van Buren written in John Blank could not get his money. This was a pretty slick plan and that apparently worked to perfection.

The Princess and Con

By Earnest Jackson and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

ILLUSTRATION BY J. C. (PATSY) CARROLL
Con O’Leary’s fatal fall

Last week we presented the first in a series of historic essays by old-time Sausalitan Earnest Jackson. This week we offer his recollections of the beginnings of Sausalito ferry service, and two of the characters who populated our town in the mid-nineteenth century.

The first steam ferry boat to run from Sausalito to San Francisco was the “Princess,” wrote Jackson in 1936. “She landed at a flat little wharf near Gus Peterson’s boat-house. The road that led from the hill down to the Ferry ‘Princess’ was first called ‘Princess Road’ and is now ‘Princess Street’.”

According to Jack Tracy’s book Moments in Time, “the Princess was launched September 14, 1858, destined for a career on the Sacramento River. The Princess was purchased by the Sausalito Land & Ferry Company just days before her inaugural voyage as a ferryboat on May 10, 1868. She made two trips a day from the Princess Street landing to Meigg's Wharf in San Francisco. When the North Pacific Coast Railroad took over ferry operations in 1875, the Princess was sold and five years later was broken up for scrap.”

Jackson continued:

In those old days there were a lot of interesting characters in Sausalito. There was Con O'Leary and Mr. Broderick, and Horse-shoe Billy and Ed Stahl, and Dan Slinkey and many more. Most of these oldtimers came to tragic ends. In fact, in early days Marin County was famous or perhaps infamous for the number of murders committed here. One by one these old-timers, usually still in harness, passed on. Their favorite hang-out was Broderick’s store, until Mr. Broderick, himself, slid out of the back of his cart while making deliveries to some of his hill customers, and broke his neck.

Con Knew It All

Then came Con O’Leary’s time. Con was a very important man in Sausalito. He worked for the Sausalito Land and Ferry Company. Almost he was that company. He knew all about the water pipes of the town. I think the only complete record the company had of these pipes was in Con’s head.

And then too, Con attended to the graveyard and kept tab on where people had been buried, or usually did ... Con was hale and hearty and would have probably lived many years as the most indispensable citizen of Sausalito, if he had only stayed with his proper job. I say indispensable advisedly, for surely there is nothing any more necessary than water to drink or a grave to lie in.

However, quite unmindful of his importance, on one fine day Con, who usually was delving into earth, climbed a tall tree to saw off a large limb. Careless, Con made the fatal mistake of sitting on the wrong side of the saw cut. The limb fell and Con fell and that was the end of Con.

Selling Lots in Hurricane Gulch

By Ernest W. Jackson and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

One of the leading authorities on historical landmarks and buildings in Sausalito, Ernest Jackson, was born in San Francisco in 1878, but lived most of his life in Sausalito. In the 1930s he wrote a series of historical essays for the Sausalito News, which were filled with warm and witty recollections. I’ll be sharing some of these over the next few weeks.

ILLUSTRATION BY J. C. (PATSY) CARROLL

Boys on horseback carried farm produce on their way to school

Introducing the first installment, in October 1936, News editor Frank Anderson noted, “Ernest W. Jackson, former Councilman of twenty years ago and recently a more or less pinch-hitter as a Councilman tor some few months, has written his ‘Recollections’ of Sausalito since the time he was a youngster. Oldtimers will revel in the tales of the earlier days of Sausalito. Newcomers will enjoy studying the background of their village. And of special interest are the sketches drawn by another Marin resident—in the summertime, J. C. (Patsy) Carroll—and staff artist of the Sausalito News.”

In that installment, Jackson recalled an early attempt to sell lots in Old Town. Jackson’s original spelling, punctuation and grammar have been preserved, even when they don’t meet contemporary standards:

WHEN first I remember South Sausalito, there were three or four houses in the valley, and one dirt road which lead as far as the old Pacific Yacht Club. From there on was a trail along what is now South Street and thence to about the site of Alexander Avenue where it entered the military reservation. Along this trail and on horseback the Broderick boys and the Healey boys used to come to school. The pursuit of knowledge was not the only object of these daily trips. They carried with them, tied to their saddles, one to three boxes of butter and some tubs of cheese.

It was only by saddle horse that the ranches just back of the reservation could get their produce to market, because at that time the only wagon road to them, lead out through Tennessee Valley, which meant an all day trip.

Lots and Roads

However, Shelter Cove hillsides were about to be converted into lots and roads. Mr. Henry C. Campbell, and Major O. C. Miller and Mr. Hickman and Judge D. P. Belknap, were planning towards that end. I well remember attending the first auction sale of the Sausalito Bay Land Company’s lots. Perhaps I should not use the word "attending,” that word hardy pictures a kid loitering on the skirts of the crowd just to be on hand for excitement, if any.

The scene of the auction was about where Mrs. Koster’s property now is. Of tables and chairs and maps there were plenty. Then the crowd and the wind arrived. It was a real good old summer wind that blew precisely in those old days as it does now. Many a nickel or dime did the kids get for capturing escaping hats or maps that gaily sailed off toward the bay.

Record the Tides

To put that sale over, something had to be done to offset the wind, as even the Shelter Cove folks today will admit. Now at that time there lived in Sausalito a Mr. Gray. His home was just where the Sausalito Woman’s Club now is, and twice a day he rode a fat little brown mare down as far as the tide gauge and back. It was this tide gauge that gave the name to tide gauge beach. If you swim you know it.

Mr. Gray's job was to measure and record the tides. He has long since been replaced by clock work, though at that time he was quite a prominent man. A sort of Government factotum. He wore gold braid and brass buttons on his blue suit. To offset the summer wind, Mr. Gray was put up on the platform, and in his more or less official capacity, he told that crowd of wind-blown buyers, how long he had lived in Sausalito, etc., and that in all those years he had never before seen such a windy day. King Canute had the laugh on his flatterers when the tide wouldn’t stop. [Canute was a Viking King who supposedly sat on his throne ordering the sea to turn back.] Well, Mr. Tidegauge Gray did much better. He couldn’t any more stop the tide than this wind, but he did a lot of blowing and seemingly the buyers believed his blowing more than the blowing of the wind, for I think about sixty lots were sold on that day.

Next: Jackson recalls Sausalito’s first ferry and the street named after her.

The Re-Selling of Sausalito

PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

William Throckmorton in his heyday

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

It’s an old, sad story: how William Richardson lost his Rancho del Sausalito to William Throckmorton for payment of debts that later proved to be greatly inflated. But financial karma came back to haunt Throckmorton three decades later.

Throckmorton had come to San Francisco in 1850 as an agent for an eastern mining business before meeting Richardson. As Jack Tracy chronicled in his book Moments in Time, with control of Richardson’s land, Throckmorton began wooing investors, and eventually sold 1,164 acres to a consortium of San Francisco businessmen on April 22, 1868. They formed the Sausalito Land & Ferry Co. to develop and sell residential lots. To attract potential buyers, they initiated ferry service from San Francisco and encouraged the building of small hotels near the ferry landing, “so that potential customers might have a leisurely look at the properties and experience the sublime climate and serenity of Sausalito.” The company was incorporated in 1869, but it struggled into the 1870s, because “people were not flocking to the new utopia as had been hoped,” in Tracy’s words. “They were competing with cheap land in many new towns around the Bay Area… Every new town around San Francisco Bay was promising prosperity, healthful climates, rapid growth, and boundless opportunity.”

Throckmorton tried several times to foreclose on the Sausalito Land & Ferry Co., but the partners outmaneuvered him and he suffered devastating financial problems before his death in 1887.

An historic essay in the Mill Valley Record notes: “As Throckmorton was unable to repay his $100,000 loan from [The San Francisco Savings & Union Bank], he was forced to abandon his long cherished dream of English style estates, and his vast holdings as well.”

The bank took over the property and organized the Tamalpais Land & Water Company (TL&WC ) in 1889 for the purpose of dividing this great area into smaller ranches of from 300 to 500 acres, and setting apart a townsite for the future Mill Valley. The President of the bank’s Board of Directors was Joseph Eastland, who had been president of the North Pacific Coast Railroad in 1877, had founded power companies all around the Bay area, was on the board of several banks, and had control of several commercial companies.

In 1849, he had arrived in San Francisco from Tennessee with his father, a veteran of the Mexican war. Two years later 19-year-old Joseph got a job as clerk/bookkeeper for Peter and James Donahue’s foundry. The business evolved into the San Francisco Gas Co., now PG&E. His working career advanced rapidly, making him quite wealthy. According to the Mill Valley Historical Society, Eastland was the prime mover and financial backer in founding the town of Mill Valley.

Under Eastland’s inspiration, the Mt. Tamalpais Scenic Railway opened in 1896 and ran from the town center (present day Lytton Square) all the way to the summit. In 1907, the railroad added a branch line into "Redwood Canyon," and in 1908, that canyon became Muir Woods, a national monument. The Mt. Tamalpais & Muir Woods Scenic Railway, "The Crookedest Railroad in the World" and its unique gravity cars brought thousands of tourists to the Tavern of Tamalpais on the mountain summit.

Eventually both Sausalito and Mill Valley incorporated (in 1893 and 1900, respectively), and TL&WC faded into obscurity.

Point Bonita Light

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

The recent announcement of the reopening of Point Bonita Lighthouse after a two-year closure

came as welcome news to fans of the 157-year-old landmark.

But it turns out the lighthouse was a flashpoint of controversy soon after it opened. In November of 1855, San Francisco’s Daily Alta California newspaper carried a letter to the editor stating: “The light on Point Bonita was entirely out last night, from five minutes past two o'clock, until twenty minutes past two. The fact that the light did not shine was also observed by the passengers, as well as the officers of the Laura Beven.” The letter was signed by Fred'k Morton Master of the schooner Laura Bevan.

The next day lighthouse keeper Howard Colson submitted an impassioned, sometimes snarkey, response:

Mr. Editor: I noticed, with some surprise, a card in your paper of this morning, complaining that on Friday night last there was no light exhibited in the lantern of this light house for the space of fifteen minutes. If the Captain of the Laura Bevan had understood the nature of the light of the point, he would not, without some other than a fair motive in view, have made this charge against me.

The light is a Fresnel of the second order --- lens light --- three separate wicks in one burner, covered with a glass chimney. The heat arising from these wicks is so great, that if the light is extinguished instantly, the glass chimney, by the sudden reaction of the cold air, would break in a thousand pieces. The light has been established about six months, and already over 100 of these glasses have been destroyed from this cause. To save this expenditure of glass, as well as time in trimming, we have to reduce the light gradually to allow the glass to cool off, but to trim the wicks of them the light has of course to be extinguished. How they can be trimmed, however, and at the same time the extinguished light shows as steady a flame as usual during the process, perhaps the very smart Captain of the Laura Bevan and his four passengers can tell better than myself. But to say that there was no light in the lantern for the space of fifteen minutes on the night in question, or any other night, supposes that I can see in the dark, for I actually do trim the wicks and adjust the machinery once in four hours at least, every night, which I possibly could not do, if I had not the benefit at the time of a very good light to show me how to do it.

For the benefit of the Captain of the Laura Bevan and his four passengers, as well as for the information of other matters of vessels generally (from whom I am happy to say I have as yet heard no whimper of complaint) I would say, that the operation of trimming occupies from 10 to 15 minutes; that the operation cannot be performed without some light in the lantern; that the work of trimming is done as quickly as any man alive can do it. and I assert that there is no light on this or any other coast that has more strict attention paid to it in every particular than the one I have the keeping of on Point Bonita. If the captain of the Laura Bevan imagines that the keeper of the light on Point Bonita has an easy and lucrative situation, and has a relative or friend he wishes to occupy that position, he is informed that if he will apply to Collector Latham to that effect, the undersigned will not stand for one moment in his way ; and if he should succeed in his object, the recipient of his favor will find to his satisfaction, before one month expires, that as to ease and emolument he never had less of both for the same amount of labor expended in any other position he ever occupied in his life.

Point Bonita was the last lighthouse in California to become automated, in 1981, according to the U.S. Lighthouse Society. The lighthouse was transferred to the National Park Service in 1984 and is operated by the U.S. Coast Guard.

COURTESY PHOTO

Point Bonita Lighthouse in 2018

John Libberton, Man of Steel

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

Sausalito sculptor John Libberton, who passed away last summer shortly after celebrating his 96th birthday, led a long and productive life. Born in New Jersey, John grew up in Chicago and studied art there. A February 1984 article in this paper noted: “The fragrance of oil and turpentine was familiar in the Libberton household. John’s mother was a designer and continued to paint most of her life.” John developed a variety of talents, including graphic design, painting, photography, jewelry-making, sculptural constructions as well as sculpture.

The Marinscope article continues: “This pursuit is in addition to, and at times an extension of, an active 30-plus year career as art director/television film producer for a major international advertising agency. Libberton participated in Chicago area sculpture shows from 1967-1978 and served as Chairman of the All-Illinois Sculpture Show.” John told the Historical Society’s Lauri Flynn that his artistic pursuits were put on hold during World War II when he enlisted (after lying about his age, according to rumor), and served as an airplane mechanic.

His advertising career brought him to California, and he moved to Sausalito in 1978. Upon retirement he took up sculpting and became an active member of the Marin Society of Artists. As Marinscope reported, “Though he works in stone, wood and bronze his preference is marble. His forms are abstract and a synthesis of the geometric and organic. Many are centered on the human figure or retain an inherent association with it. All are in attempt to draw the observer to a special appreciation of form, line and surface.”

In 1993, Sausalito’s Centennial year, the Sausalito Foundation and Friends of the Art Festival commissioned a special public art project that combined the talents of John and ceramicist Edith Heath. His stainless-steel sculpture Bolinar is mounted on a base and set with ceramic tile work from Heath. The 14-foot high, six-ton piece stands today on the triangle island at the intersection of Bridgeway, Napa and Caledonia streets — a point where the residential, business and waterfront areas of the town meet. It’s made up of three sail-like triangles that sit in a row, each a different height.

"It is an uplifting, positive statement,” Libberton told Marinscope City Editor Tina Bournazos, who noted he “was careful not to interpret the design further, opting instead to let the public find its own meaning in the piece.”

Bournazos added, “Harkening to the town's reputation as a boating center and to the longtime influence of the Portuguese, the piece’s title, Bolinar, is a Portuguese nautical term meaning ‘close to the wind.’

Even with a name and design fitting to Sausalito, the sculpture needed the Centennial to become a reality. The idea for the project was conceived some six years ago during a conversation between Libberton and Friends of the Festival founder Paul Anderson.”

The Sausalito Foundation funded the sculpture's base and the improvements and landscaping of the triangular island where the sculpture will sit. The Foundation also pledged to maintain the site in perpetuity. “I think of the site as a key entrance to the downtown area and have always wanted to see it enhanced.” said Foundation president Bea Seidler. "The design has a sense of moving forward to it, of moving into the next century,” she observed.

"I am flattered that my work will be included among the few public art works in Sausalito,” said Libberton, who showed his work in every single Sausalito Art Festival since moving here. Heath worked with Libberton and Sausalito Foundation Board Member Don Olsen on the site design. A local architect, Olsen contributed his counsel and expertise to the site planning and landscaping of the project. The Friends of the Festival funded the cost of fabricating the sculpture. The Friends of the Festival and the Sausalito Foundation conducted individual fund-raising campaigns to finance their portions of the project.

Libberton supported the local arts scene in a variety of ways. In the 80s, he created a bronze statuette for the Mill Valley Arts Commission’s Milley awards, recognizing lifetime achievements for artists with roots in Mill Valley.

In 2004, he was in charge of re-installing Al Sybrian’s sea lion statue in the bay off Bridgeway, after it had been toppled and damaged in a New Year's Day storm. His productivity was clear in his license plate: UPNATUM.

He was also part of the group that met at Fred's in the morning for years and called themselves Stammtisch (German for “the regulars”).

Many Sausalitans have left their mark here, but few, if any, are as imposing as John Libberton’s.

COURTESY PHOTO

John Libberton with Bolinar

Dino Valenti, Waterfront Influencer

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

PHOTO FROM WIKIPEDIA

Dino Valenti album cover

Singer-songwriter Dino Valenti, though little known today, was an early mover and shaker in Sausalito’s houseboat community.

Born on the East Coast in 1937, Valenti (real name: Chester William Powers, Jr.) began performing in Greenwich Village and North Beach coffeehouses, occasionally with Karen Dalton, Bob Dylan, Lou Gossett, Josh White, Len Chandler, Paul Stookey, David Crosby and others. In the early sixties, he discovered Sausalito’s waterfront scene.

Joe Tate, musician and waterfront pioneer, recalls that he and Valenti were among the first anchor-outs, along with another houseboat legend, Bob Kalloch.

According to a Rolling Stone profile, at 17 young Powers changed his name and started performing. “He’d just cut loose from his parents’ chosen rat race, the runways and tents of the carnival circuit, and he told people that he was a composer, a guitar-picker, a folk singer.”

The Rolling Stone piece continues: “At the Human Be-in at Golden Gate Park in early 1967, he pranced around the polo field like the minstrel clown he’d been raised to be, singing, joking, blowing his flute and a few hundred minds.

“And even more than that, he likes to drift around San Francisco, Mill Valley, and Sausalito (where he keeps a newly-bought houseboat) with his two Great Danes, his buddies from the Quicksilver Messenger Service, and/or any of a vast stable of chicks.”

Valenti became a regular at the Ark, a coffee house aboard the beached ferryboat Charles Van Damme at Gate 6. In her novel “One Sausalito Summer,” Colleen Rae writes: “Local musicians the likes of Dino Valenti, David Crosby, and John Cipollina dropped by to sing for free and often would jam all night.” One of her main characters, a singer-songwriter named Jesse, is – à la Valenti -- the child of circus performers.

In 1967 Shel Silverstein and his photographer colleague Larry Moyer came out to San Francisco on assignment for Playboy Magazine and headed directly to the Haight-Ashbury. Legend has it that Valenti was one of the folks who steered them to the Sausalito houseboats, where they decided to drop anchor. Moyer, who lived on the docks until he died at 92, told the Historical Society’s Steefenie Wicks that they went to the Becky Thatcher ark (now up on pilings, and Joe Tate’s home) “where he was handed a big joint. As he turned to look out the window, he could see naked people dancing to rock and roll music; he said he sat down took a hit, decided that this is where he wanted to spend the rest of his life, and he did.” The converted WWII balloon barge that Silverstein and then Moyer lived on, is moored on Liberty Dock in Waldo Point Harbor.

Other regulars at the Ark included Joe Tate, leader of the Redlegs, and Bob Kalloch, who sometimes served as bouncer. Kalloch became a key figure in the political struggles that led to the houseboat wars of the mid-70s, while Tate was a front-line combatant, as depicted in the docudrama Last Free Ride.

Valenti and Cipollina formed the Quicksilver Messenger Service, which was a major influence in psychedelic rock. Valenti wrote and sang their two best-known songs, "Fresh Air" and "What About Me?" The blogspot rockprosopography101 states that in April 1968 Quicksilver joined Ace of Cups, Gail Garnett and Gentle Reign, plus many other local groups for a benefit on the pier where the Ark was berthed. Cipollina eventually left the band, but Valenti continued to tour with various iterations through 1979. His career was interrupted when he was busted for drug possession and served a stretch at Folsom State Prison. According to Wikipedia, “To raise money for his defense, he sold the publishing rights for ‘Get Together’ to Frank Werber, the manager of The Kingston Trio.” Werber also owned the Trident at the time.

Powers/Valenti underwent surgery for a cerebral arteriovenous malformation (CAVM) in the late 1980s. In spite of suffering from short-term memory loss and the effects of anti-convulsive medications, he continued to write songs and play with fellow Marin County musicians.

His last major performance was a benefit at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. He died suddenly at his home in Santa Rosa, in November 1994.