During the Depression, make-work programs put many artists and writers to work on projects like the Federal Theater Project (Orsen Wells, amongst others). A look at any one of the many WPA murals in Post Offices across the country gives an appreciation for the kind of strong, socially conscious talent that was put to such productive use.
Published: May, 2001
During the Depression, make-work programs put many artists and writers to work on projects like the Federal Theater Project (Orsen Wells, amongst others). A look at any one of the many WPA murals in Post Offices across the country gives an appreciation for the kind of strong, socially conscious talent that was put to such productive use.
One such project (State Emergency Relief Administration No. 3-F2-85) was an official history of the Port of Oakland. Edited by DeWitt Jones (assisted by four Associate Editors and ten contributors), this sprawling tale of Dickensian proportions is not your father’s government report. With far more in the way of talent and time at his disposal than ever could be made available today for preparing such a history, Jones produced a fascinating, often hilarious and thoroughly entertaining narrative, complete with dialogue and freewheeling editorial comment. Though written in 1934 it as relevant today as ever. Bay Crossings will serialize the entire 300-page document, starting this month with Chapter One.
An evil-smelling strip of muddy tide lands with an occasional strip of sandy beach; on one side a flotsam-filled creek and on another a vast bay of salt water; on the shore a few scattered shacks and dusty rutted roads.
Nothing to conjure visions of wealth and splendor; no suggestion of commercial activity; nothing to call up dreams of ships wet from the seaways. carrying cargoes of perfumes and spices. guano and pig iron, rocking chairs, rifles and the myriad accoutrements of a vigorous civilization.
No grating roar of winches. no staccato spat of wharf tractors, no hooded acres of echoing warehouses. This was the Oakland waterfront in 1850.
Three young men tied their fortunes to this, in the days when Alameda County was a cattle range. Three young men, two of them educated in law, and the other schooled in the trading posts of the early west. A trio who had rounded the Horn under canvas. seeking fame and fortune in a new land, answering the world- resounding cry of California gold.
There was Andrew J. Moon, a lawyer but also a man of action and commonly referred to as "Old Andrew" to distinguish him from his nephew, though he must have been a young Ulan in the fifties.
There was Edson F. Adams, calling himself a trader—a Connecticut Yankee born, canny, and with a sixth sense in matters of land values and investments. He was twenty-six, the same age as the third member of the group, and proved to be an able lieutenant to Horace W. Carpentier.
Young Carpentier hailed from New York. He was a graduate of Columbia with the class of 1848 and two years later appeared in California. He had made the law his profession, or rather his business, and it was his shrewd legal mind which brought forth many an ambitious plan the trio were to execute later.
It is known that Adams and Carpentier had been fellow passengers for five days on a sloop that carried miners and supplies between San Francisco and Sacramento, five days on a journey that today requires but twenty minutes by air. This time may have been well spent in cementing a friendship which possibly had its beginning on the long voyage around Cape Horn.
The world went very well in those days. but "manana fashion," for Don Luis Maria Peralta owned it. Don Luis considered the little band of squatters was beneath his notice. They were the hated gringos with no background save the oaks that stood behind their tents and cabins; foolish Druid-like people who believed that trees were of more use to them than the favor of kings.
But the Peraltas were passing. A new order was emerging from the economic chaos of the early 1840’s. Gold had been discovered. San Francisco across the bay. was growing. There was need for lumber. The gringos had come to stay.
The Peraltas had never fouled their fingers with commerce. Fighting was more to their liking. As became the haughty scion of a noble race, the Don chose to ignore the squatters on the mud flats. They were not as much bother as the coyotes, nor so amiable as his cattle. To the grandee the three young men and their confederates were of much less importance than his dogs.
However, there is no evidence that the first settlers along the estuary were greatly concerned over Senor Peralta’s disdain. They were no more interested in Don Luis Maria Peralta than he was in them. They had made the woods their chief interest. not because they loved the woods but because the lumber from the redwoods and oaks could be traded for gold and they proposed to get their gold with the axe and saw instead of pick and pan.
Soon after the beginning of the gold rush, men disappointed in their search for the precious metal drifted back to San Francisco, usually exhausted physically and financially, unable to engage in business in the growing metropolis. Many moved to more remote areas where food and shelter could be obtained by labor and for the most part without money.
A few crossed the bay in whaleboats and settled in what is now Oakland. Others arrived at the same destination by driving around by the way of San Jose.
Among the first was Moses Chase, a sea captain who squatted near what is now Thirteenth Avenue. He gained his livings by fishing in San Antonio Creek (the estuary) and hunting in the Contra Costa hills. He was about to return to San Francisco when the three Patten brothers, Robert, William and Edward of sturdy Maine stock. landed their rowboat where Twelfth Street now borders on Lake Merritt.
They found Chase ill in his cabin and eloquent in his pleadings to be taken back to San Francisco. The Pattens, after reconnoitering the surrounding country, decided to stay and invited Chase to do likewise. This he agreed to do. They leased a large area from Peralta and commenced extensive lumbering operations.
Soon after the arrival of the Patten brothers came Adams, Moon and Carpentier, but it was not their purpose to engage in the arduous labor of felling trees or runninig whipsaws. Adams had been to the gold fields and had met with some success. The other two were also provided with capital, and it was their plan to add to their fortune by acquiring and developing real estate.
Carpentier, the leader but perhaps not the richest of the three, had made the acquaintance of Senator David C. Broderick, early San Francisco capitalist and politician. Their friendship grew and through Broderick’s influence, Carpentier was appointed enrolling clerk in the State Legislature at Benicia.
The appointment proved advantageous for the group. It put them in close contact with the political and financial leaders of the day, smoothing the way for the asking and receiving of favors from the law makers.
The Patten brothers were not the first to see the possibilities of lumbering in this district that is now Oakland. That honor seems to go to a man whose name has been lost in the musty annals of time and is now known only as "The Frenchman".
The Frenchman and his crew, however contented themselves with hand tools, cutting the logs into planks with a whipsaw and drawing shingles with a hand knife. The Patten’s installed power saws and established the first lumber manufacturing company here on anything like a modern industrial basis. They were followed by others and by 1850, there were six saw mills operating in the timber nearby. This lumber was hauled to the old Peralta embarcadero in the Brooklyn basin.
Evidently no one had thought of establishing a town on the west side of the bay until Adams, Moon and Carpentier arrived. It is hard to believe they visualized a great metropolis rising as the results of their activities regardless of what they may have told those to whom they wished to sell real estate; but the fact remains that they were the first to see the advantages of organizing a community on a permanent basis. They had also the political and physical ability to develop business and commerce in an orderly manner.
Their first move in this direction was simple and direct. They each filed claim to a section of waterfront land, (land that was claimed by Peralta). Adams occupied the 160 acres lying on both sides of what is now Broadway, and his partners claimed l60 acres on either side of him.
This will seem audacious when it is remembered that Don Luis Peralta acquired title to the land in question by about the same procedure. A Spanish mariner had seen it and had claimed it for the King of Spain. The King had handed it to the Don and none had given any consideration to the Indians who had inhabited it originally and thought it belonged to them.
However, Don Luis Peralta proved less tractable than the Indians. While the gringos were contented to remain squatters they were beneath his notice, but when they began claiming his acres, Sacre Dios! That was quite another matter. And to make it even worse they proceeded in a way which was particularly irksome to the open-handed Spaniard.
When the Peraltas received their grant from the King they were content with generalities. The boundaries of their holdings were described as beginning from the mouth of the creek, running easterly to some prominent mountain peak. thence along the ridge to some other natural monument and back to the sea again.
The appropriation of land by Adams, Moon and Carpentier on the other hand. was so careful and exact that it must have seemed picayunish to the Spaniard. They proceeded to survey their claims and measured them foot-by-foot. They set up stakes and stone monuments, which in effect said to Senor Peralta that he might claim the rest of the world if he wished. but at these new lines his rights ceased.
This move and others which soon followed have caused real estate holders and the city to spend many years and many dollars straightening out property titles, sometimes as the result of Don Luis Peralta’s indifference to accurate description and sometimes because of the Yankee love for detail, while not infrequently the cause of the trouble has been a curious combination of the two.
Nor were the differences always cured in the decorous atmosphere of the court room. There is a tale about how the fiery Don Luis gathered several score of vaqueros about him. All were heavily armed and in the mood for fighting. With the Alcalde at their head, they rode to the little settlement on the mud flats where they were met by Edson Adams, apparently alone.
Adams carried a rifle in the hollow of his arm but showed no disposition to use it. His peaceful attitude was explained somewhat when he informed the visitors that the other residents of the camp had gone to San Francisco. It seemed. Adams was in a difficult position and a great deal of earnest talking was necessary to avert trouble. He talked long and pleadingly as became a man in his predicament. Finally the Alcalde wheeled on his horse and the cavalcade departed, not satisfied. perhaps. but in peace.
The decision was a wise one but the Spaniards did not realize how deep was their wisdom until some time later. For in time they learned that while Adams was doing his best pleading each vaquero was covered by a rifle down which the eye of a squatter or logger squinted, ready to defend the rights of the gringos as they saw them.
On another occasion Moon and some two hundred residents of the little town rode up to the Peralta hacienda near what is now the Fruitvale district and informed the Alcalde that they had come to "reason" with him. Don Luis and his vaqueros seemed to have the stronger "argument" this time however and the visitors returned to their homes to await a more propitious occasion.
But. as previously suggested. the day of the Dons was passing. A change was taking place. It was one of those changes which perhaps cannot be justified by any of the ordinary rules of equity but which is periodically inevitable and eventually is adjudged fair in the light of results.
The United States government was not more than mildly interested in Don Peralta’s troubles. The three original homesteaders were tenacious in advancing their claims and skilled in prosecuting them.
Perhaps it was due as much to sheer weariness as to the actual legal defeat but whatever the real reason, the Peralta opposition gradually became less potent and the three young men, Adams, Moon and Carpentier, emerged from the fight as the owners of three-quarters of a section of land on which a city was to be built.
Next month: The Town of Oakland is born
