Samuel Newsom (1848–1908): Architect of Notable City Halls, Churches and Homes

Burial area for Samuel Newsom

Plot 30 Lot 236

Samuel Newsom was one of the most prolific architects of late-nineteenth-century California, a designer whose work defined the look of civic pride and domestic grace across the state. Born in 1848 in Canada, he came to Oakland as a child and remained a Bay Area resident for the rest of his life. Along with his brother J. Cather Newsom, he founded the architectural firm Newsom & Newsom, responsible for hundreds of notable public buildings and ornate residences from San Diego to Eureka. [Cather Newsom is buried in the Main Mausoleum]

Architecture was truly the Newsom family trade. Samuel and his brother J. Cather worked closely for decades before Samuel later partnered with his sons Sidney and Noble, who became the next generation of architects in the firm. J. Cather also served on the California State Board of Architects, extending the family’s influence statewide. Their San Francisco office in the Humboldt Bank Building became a hub for civic commissions, courthouse designs, and high-profile residences. 

Old Oakland City Hall & Old Gilroy City Hall

The firm also designed the Oakland City Hall, which stood from 1879–1913, a striking Second Empire structure crowned with a mansard roof and classical detailing. The design typified the exuberant confidence of post-Gold Rush Oakland.

Their City Hall commissions extended throughout the state:

• Berkeley City Hall (since demolished 1904) 
• Gilroy City Hall (1905), an enduring example of the Newsoms’ mature style 
• Healdsburg City Hall, a distinctive civic landmark still admired today

Together, these buildings symbolized the architectural optimism of turn-of-the-century California, fusing ornamentation with function.

Bradbury Mansion in Los Angeles

Samuel Newsom’s architectural reach extended far beyond government halls. Among his best-known projects were:

• The Hall of Agriculture, a monumental exhibition building that established the firm’s early reputation. 
• The Napa Opera House, an elegant blend of Victorian and Italianate design that remains a cultural icon. 
• The Bradbury Mansion in Los Angeles, a Gilded Age showpiece of carved ornament and towering presence. 
• The Boyd House in Eureka and Vollmer House in San Francisco—both rich examples of Queen Anne craftsmanship. 
• The Magnin House in San Francisco, reflecting the firm’s sophisticated residential design for the city’s elite.

Design for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

The Newsoms were also noted for their ecclesiastical work, including an ambitious Gothic Revival design for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church at Van Ness Avenue and Clay Street in San Francisco—an unbuilt but widely praised concept estimated at $50,000. And in Piedmont, Samuel’s own Newsom Cottage was celebrated in the press as “one of the prettiest homes in that section,” showcasing his talent for domestic design.

Despite his many achievements, Newsom’s life was marked by misfortune. In December 1899, while overseeing a residence in San Rafael, he was thrown from a runaway buggy alongside contractor Thomas O’Connor. The accident left him with multiple broken ribs and serious bruises. Though he recovered, the injuries compounded a lifelong struggle with heart trouble.

Nearly a decade later, on September 1, 1908, Newsom collapsed and died suddenly aboard a Key Route ferry as he returned to his Oakland home after lunching with his son Sidney in San Francisco.  Doctors attributed his death to heart disease, from which he had long suffered.

Today, the name Newsom & Newsom endures as a hallmark of Victorian California architecture. Whether through the grand civic monuments that once anchored city centers or the richly detailed homes that still grace Bay Area hillsides, Samuel Newsom’s designs remain an enduring expression of an era when craftsmanship and ambition defined the California skyline.

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Sources:
San Francisco Call, Jan. 16 1898; San Francisco Call, Dec. 6 1899; San Francisco Call, Sept. 2 1908; Oakland Tribune, Dec. 15 1907; Wikipedia: Samuel Newsom; Find a Grave; Wikipedia; Homestead Museum blog

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Arthur Lee "Floyd" Kranson (1913-1967): Negro Leagues Baseball Player on Championship Teams

Floyd Kranson and Grave Marker

Plot 71 

Arthur Lee “Floyd” Kranson’s life traces a subtle arc of baseball talent, complex heritage, and the everyday realities of mid-20th century America. Born July 24, 1913 in Natchitoches, Louisiana, he would rise to become a pitcher in the Negro Leagues, later moving west to Northern California.

Kranson was born in a small Louisiana parish, the son of a father described in genealogical sources as “white” and a mother recorded as “Negro,” reflecting the layered racial caste of his era. This parentage placed him at a crossroads of identity long before the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and ’60s. Growing up in the Jim Crow South, Kranson’s mixed heritage would have shaped — implicitly or explicitly — the circles he moved in, the opportunities afforded to him, and the social boundaries he encountered.  

Kranson and a 1939 Monarchs team photo

By his early 20s, Kranson had carved out a place in the competitive world of Black baseball. Listed at 6′1″ and about 180 lbs, he batted and threw right-handed. In 1935 he joined one of the premier clubs of the Negro Leagues, the Kansas City Monarchs, and he also spent time with the Chicago American Giants during his career. Kranson played during a golden era of Negro Leagues baseball that featured legends such as Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, and Monte Irvin—an extraordinary generation of athletes whose talent and legacy are only now receiving their full due.

Kranson's playing years fall within a pivotal era: before integration of Major League Baseball (MLB), when Black players competed at a high level but under segregated conditions - long bus trips, unpredictable pay, barnstorming, and less-complete record keeping. 

Across the recorded seasons, Kranson posted a pitching line of 14 wins and 11 losses with a 3.84 ERA in approximately 225 innings pitched.  While many of the game logs and statistics from the era are fragmentary, resources such as the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database and Retrosheet show his name among the roster of the Kansas City Monarchs from 1937-1940, Memphis Red Sox in 1937 and Chicago American Giants in 1937. Kranson was part of the Kansas City Monarchs team that dominated during those years, finishing first in the Negro American League in all four of his seasons and winning the championship in three of those years.

J.L. Wilkerson

The Monarchs were owned by J.L. Wilkerson, a white businessman who pioneered black baseball as the founder and owner of the team. Wilkinson was widely regarded as one of the most fair-minded and progressive owners in Negro Leagues baseball. He was known for his unusual respect toward players during an era when exploitation was common. He paid players on time, honored contracts and even provided meal allowances and lodging when travel segregation made accommodations difficult. Monte Irvin, Buck O’Neil, and other Monarchs alumni later called him “the best owner in Negro League history.” He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.  

Following his playing days, Kranson’s life brought him to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he worked at the Naval Supply Center in Oakland for 25 years. His move to California reflects a pattern: many Negro League players, once their baseball careers ended, settled in northern cities or the West Coast, seeking work outside sporting fields. 

Kranson died in Alameda, California in 1967 at age 54.

Sources: Seamheads Negro Leagues Database; Baseball-Reference; Retrosheet; Wikipedia; Geni.com; Ancestry.com; Find a Grave; MLB.com; J.M. Wilkerson Construction Co. website. 

William Leland “Kelly” Wales (1901-1945): Professional Baseball Player & Petty Criminal

Kelly Wales and Family Gravemarker

Plot 51

William Leland “Kelly” Wales was a gifted baseball player of the 1920s whose promise on the diamond was eclipsed by personal misfortune and legal troubles during the Great Depression.

Born in 1901, Wales first gained attention as a standout athlete at Saint Mary’s College of California, where he patrolled left field and led the team with a .351 batting average during the 1922 season. His speed, determination, and hitting ability earned him a reputation as one of the college’s most reliable players.

Wales launched his professional career as a catcher with the Lincoln Links of the Western League in 1925, appearing in 99 games and recording 82 hits for a .254 average. A steady backstop and dependable contact hitter, he was traded the following year to Wichita in exchange for outfielder Eddie Moore, who would later join the Pittsburgh Pirates. Over the next several seasons, Wales appeared for clubs including the San Francisco Missions of the Pacific Coast League, part of the era’s lively semi-major circuit that produced some of the West Coast’s most colorful athletes.

Battery Mates with the Lincoln Links of Western League

By the mid-1930s, Wales had settled in the Bay Area, maintaining ties to the local baseball community. He was among the many former players and civic leaders who attended the 1935 Lake Merritt Hotel banquet welcoming Oscar “Ossie” Vitt as manager of the Oakland Oaks—a fitting connection, as both men now rest in Mountain View Cemetery along with numerous other notable baseball players. [Read about Ossie Vitt HERE]

Away from the field, however, Wales’s life grew increasingly turbulent. Despite reports that his father had served as a county sheriff, he fell repeatedly into financial and legal trouble. In 1933, he was convicted of grand theft in a Contra Costa County school-fund case, serving five months in jail and a year on probation. Six years later, he faced four counts of passing fictitious checks, totaling $160, in Alameda County taverns. Found guilty after a twenty-eight-minute trial, Wales was sentenced to two years in county jail. He told the court he was supporting his wife and two children and had been living on relief work through the WPA while bartending to make ends meet.

His wife, Marcella Wales, whom he had married in Wichita in 1925, filed for divorce during his incarceration. The decree, granted in April 1940, awarded her custody of their two children, Marilyn and Samuel, and $40 per month in support. The divorce and his convictions drew local newspaper attention, turning Wales’s private decline into public spectacle.

After his release, Wales lived quietly in or near Pleasanton, taking temporary work and renting a room behind a tavern on Main Street. On January 22, 1945, he was found dead in his bed at the age of 42. Authorities suspected a heart attack but made no formal determination.

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Sources:
Baseball-Reference.com (Player Register: William “Kelly” Wales); Oakland Tribune (Feb. 20 1935; Dec. 27 1939; Mar. 24 1940; Jan. 23 1945); Hayward Daily Review (Apr. 26 1940); Lincoln State Journal (Jan. 15 1926); Find a Grave Memorial #116382931.

Emily Browne Powell (1847-1938): Poet & Champion of California Women Writers

Emily Browne Powell & Crypt

Main Mausoleum

Emily Browne Powell was one of early California’s most active literary figures—a poet, essayist, journalist, and tireless advocate for women in the arts. Born Emily Browne in Massachusetts, she moved west with her husband, Henry Powell, eventually settling in Alameda, California. From this base she became a key voice in the state’s late-nineteenth-century literary culture, working at the intersection of journalism, poetry, and women’s rights.

Powell first gained recognition for her poems and reflective essays that appeared in West Coast periodicals, but she also achieved distinction as an author of historical sketches. Among her best-known works was “A Modern Knight: Reminiscences of General M. G. Vallejo,” published in 1890. The essay offered a rare, sympathetic portrait of the Californio general Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, exploring his role in the state’s transformation from Mexican province to American statehood. Writing at a time when Anglo-American narratives often dismissed or caricatured Mexican-Californian figures, Powell’s portrayal of Vallejo was both personal and restorative, blending historical research with moral reflection. Her tone—admiring but unsentimental—demonstrated her sensitivity to the complexities of California’s layered identity.

"Songs Along the Way" by Emily Browne Powell

Powell also published several collections of verse, including “Driftwood,” “Sea Drift and Shore Songs,” and “Poems.” Her poems tended toward lyric meditations on nature, spirituality, and domestic life, often tinged with a sense of loss and perseverance. While she never achieved the national fame of contemporaries like Ina Coolbrith, Powell’s poetry circulated widely in California newspapers and magazines, earning her a reputation as one of the region’s most consistent literary contributors.

Yet her literary career was not without controversy. In 1891, Powell was at the center of a small but telling scandal that exposed the vulnerability of women writers in the era’s publishing world. According to a widely reported account, she had submitted an article titled “Hints to Art Students” to the Ladies’ Home Journal. The editors rejected it but returned the manuscript with detailed comments showing they had read it closely. Soon afterward, an article strikingly similar—titled “Useful Hints for Drawing”—appeared in the Home Journal, mirroring Powell’s phrasing and ideas. The San Francisco Morning Call and other papers accused Eastern editors of literary theft, noting that “it looks as if Mrs. Powell’s article had been deliberately copied while in the possession of the editor who rejected it.” Though no formal redress came, the episode underscored a broader injustice faced by women writers whose unpaid submissions were vulnerable to plagiarism and appropriation. Powell’s case became a cautionary tale in West Coast literary circles, highlighting both her professionalism and her principled sense of fairness.

Pacific Coast Women's Press Association menu cover

Her indignation over such treatment dovetailed with her leadership in the women’s press movement. Powell served as president of the Pacific Coast Women’s Press Association (PCWPA), an organization founded in San Francisco in 1890 to support women journalists, authors, and editors. The PCWPA sought to “unite women engaged in literary pursuits” and to promote their professional and financial independence in a male-dominated field. It organized lectures, mutual aid networks, and press syndication efforts to elevate women’s voices in Western journalism. Under Powell’s guidance, the association cultivated a collegial atmosphere that encouraged collaboration over competition—a philosophy she articulated in speeches emphasizing the moral dimension of authorship. The PCWPA’s membership included notable California writers such as Charlotte Perkins Stetson (later Gilman), Nellie Blessing Eyster, and Sarah B. Cooper, and it played a key role in legitimizing women’s professional authorship on the Pacific Coast.

Powell’s advocacy for women in journalism reflected her own lived experience. She understood the economic precarity of freelance writers and often spoke about the need for copyright protections and ethical publishing practices. Her essays championed the idea that women’s literary work was not merely ornamental but civic—that good writing could shape public morals, educate readers, and dignify the emerging California identity.

Throughout her long career, Emily Browne Powell remained devoted to the cause of integrity in authorship and the advancement of women in letters. Though the literary marketplace of her day offered little reward, her influence resonated through the networks she built and the young writers she mentored. She died in 1918, leaving behind a body of verse and prose that captured the intellectual restlessness and reformist energy of her adopted state.

Today, Powell’s story stands as both inspiration and warning—a testament to creative perseverance in the face of plagiarism, gender bias, and editorial gatekeeping. Through her poetry, her historical writing on figures like Vallejo, and her leadership of the Pacific Coast Women’s Press Association, she helped carve out a place for women’s voices in the literary life of the American West.

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Sources:
Wikipedia: “Emily Browne Powell”; San Francisco Morning Call, June 11 1891 p. 3; San Francisco Chronicle archives; Pacific Coast Women’s Press Association records (Bancroft Library); Wisconsin Historical Society; Find a Grave

Maida Castelhun Darnton (1872-1940): Translator, Editor, and Cultural Impresario

Maida Castelhun Darnton

Plot 5, Lot 127, W 1/2

Maida Castelhun Darnton was an American translator, editor, and cultural impresario who moved easily between San Francisco, New York, and Paris in the early 20th century. She was the daughter of Dr. F. C. Castelhun of San Francisco, a physician and lecturer, who published occasional verse and essays. 

She married the critic and Broadway columnist Charles Darnton and eventually settled for stretches in Paris, where her bilingual skill turned into a career translating and shaping European literature for U.S. audiences. Publishing under “Maida C. Darnton” or “M. C. Darnton,” she brought continental books to English readers and worked as an editor on cross-Atlantic literary projects that helped introduce “the new spirit” in European writing to American newspaper and magazine audiences. Contemporary notices in 1932 place her in precisely that world of anthologies, translations, and publishing collaborations, identifying her professionally as an editor and literary translator. 

Cartoon of Maida Darnton

Darnton also turned up in American feature pages in the early 1930s, reflecting the period’s appetite for European letters and for interpreters who could bridge languages and scenes. Those same pages show her credited for editorial and translation work that circulated widely beyond New York—evidence that her name (often as M. C. Darnton) had become familiar to general readers well outside the publishing capitals.

She came from a remarkable California family. Her sister, Ella Castelhun, was among the first women licensed as architects in California, an early professional pioneer at a time when few women held technical credentials. [Read about her HERE] The Castelhun brothers were notable as well. Paul Castelhun drew headlines as a standout football player at the University of California, Berkeley, appearing in the Bay Area sports pages during the program’s ascendant years. And in a grim episode that made national briefs during the First World War era, another brother died in a brewery accident—drowning in a vat of beer—a family tragedy recorded in contemporaneous press accounts. 

Darnton’s cosmopolitan marriage, Paris years, and steady work as a translator gave her a vantage point onto both American mass media and European literary modernism. Reviews of the day single out her translations and editorial hand for making continental literature legible to U.S. readers, and notices across the country show the breadth of her reach.

Unfortunately, she is remembered today only on her memorial page and in scattered newspaper articles.

David B. Neagle (1847–1925): Shooting Led to Landmark Supreme Court Ruling

David Butler Neagle lived a life that mirrored the turbulence of the American frontier—by turns heroic, controversial, and deeply human. A man who once shaped national law through his defense of a Supreme Court Justice would later find himself mired in scandal, feuds, and bitterness. His story embodies the uneasy transition between the Wild West’s code of personal honor and the formal rule of federal authority.

Born in Boston to Irish immigrants, Neagle grew up in a period of restless expansion. He ventured west as a young man, finding work in California’s mining camps and learning the rough-edged self-reliance that would define him. By the 1880s, he had become a deputy U.S. marshal in the District of California, known for his courage and quick temper. That temper—at times a mark of bravery, at others a flaw—would shape both his greatest and darkest moments.

Neagle came to national attention in 1889 when he was assigned to protect Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field, who was then hearing cases on circuit in California. The threat to Field was not imaginary. His former colleague, ex–Chief Justice David S. Terry, had once drawn a Bowie knife in court after Field held his wife, Sarah Althea Hill, in contempt during the sensational Sharon v. Hill proceedings. Terry, who decades earlier had killed Senator David C. Broderick in the infamous 1859 duel near Lake Merced, was an imposing figure of both intellect and violence. [Read about the San Francisco mayor who refused to stop the duel HERE].

By 1889, Terry and his wife openly threatened Field’s life. When Field was scheduled to ride circuit in northern California, Attorney General William H. Miller directed the U.S. Marshals Service to ensure his protection. Neagle—already known for his resolve—was assigned as his bodyguard.

On August 14, 1889, as Field and Neagle stopped for breakfast at the Lathrop railroad station, Terry approached from behind and struck Field across the face. Fearing another attack and believing Terry was reaching for his knife, Neagle drew his revolver and fired two shots, killing Terry instantly. The killing triggered an immediate clash between state and federal authorities. California officials arrested Neagle for murder, but the federal government argued that he had acted in the line of duty. The case, In re Neagle (1890), became a constitutional milestone: the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal officers could not be prosecuted under state law for actions taken in the execution of their federal responsibilities.

Though vindicated in law, Neagle’s later life was anything but peaceful. The notoriety of the Lathrop incident followed him for years, alternately praised as a hero and reviled as a killer. His post-marshal years found him working as a private investigator and security man, often skirting the edge of the law. His reputation for volatility and self-importance drew both admiration and enemies.

By the mid-1890s, newspaper accounts depict Neagle as a man embroiled in quarrels with journalists and rivals. In August 1896, The San Francisco Call reported that he had been arrested for assaulting a reporter who had written critically about him, accusing the journalist of libel and threatening him with violence. Days later, the paper ran further accounts describing Neagle’s legal troubles and his growing sense of persecution, claiming he had become “a man soured by the world” who still carried the swagger of his badge long after losing his post.

Perhaps most startling was his public feud with Wyatt Earp, another lawman of national fame. In 1896, newspapers reported that Earp had threatened to kill Neagle during a dispute in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. The quarrel—apparently sparked by accusations of betrayal and conflicting loyalties within the city’s underworld—revealed the combustible pride of two men accustomed to frontier justice. Neagle, though aging and past his prime, still faced his rivals with defiance, insisting that no man would intimidate him.

These later episodes painted a picture of a complex, aging lawman haunted by his past. Neagle’s sense of honor remained acute, but his ability to navigate a changing world diminished. The swagger that once served him in dusty saloons or tense railroad depots had become self-destructive in the era of modern courts and newspapers.

Neagle's modest death announcment

When Neagle died in Oakland on November 28, 1925, his obituary noted his role in one of the most important constitutional cases in American history but said little of his final decades. His funeral was modest; his name had largely faded from public memory, overshadowed by the mythic reputations of other lawmen like Earp. Yet the decision in In re Neagle endures as a cornerstone of federal supremacy and judicial protection, invoked whenever state law threatens to encroach upon federal duty.

David B. Neagle remains a paradox: a man of immense personal courage and equally formidable flaws, whose single act of duty reshaped American constitutional law but who spent much of his later life at odds with the very civil order he helped defend. His story captures the uneasy frontier between violence and justice, pride and duty, heroism and hubris.

Sources: San Francisco Call, August 5, 8 & 13, 1896; Oakland Tribune, November 30, 1925; Daily Californian, August 11, 1896; HistoryNet; Federal Judicial Center; U.S. Marshals Service; Wikipedia; Find a Grave; The Tombstone Epitaph

 

Henry Clay McPike (1857-1943): Bay Area Attorney Involved in Headline-Grabbing Legal Cases

HC McPike Crypt in Miller Mausoleum & Photo

Miller Family Mausoleum 

Henry Clay (“H. C.”) McPike was a Bay Area trial and appellate lawyer whose long career bridged the San Francisco and Oakland legal communities and touched some of the most storied courtrooms of his time. Born in San Jose on July 25, 1857, McPike read law in California and was admitted to the state bar in 1879. Over the decades that followed he became known for his steady command of complex litigation and for his occasional proximity to cases that captured national headlines.

McPike’s early prominence grew from his participation on the legal team in In re Neagle (1890), the landmark habeas corpus case that arose from the Lathrop-station shooting in which a U.S. marshal defended Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field. The case established enduring precedent for federal-officer immunity, and McPike’s inclusion among counsel positioned him within one of the defining tests of federal authority in the post-Civil-War era. [Read more about David Neagle here].

Lily Langtry biography

By the mid-1890s, McPike’s name surfaced again in a swirl of celebrity and property litigation. He assisted the famed British-born actress Lily Langtry during her California legal efforts to secure a divorce from her estranged husband, Edward Langtry, and to protect her ranch holdings in Lake County. McPike helped assemble depositions and filings to demonstrate desertion and was part of the California legal team working in concert with Langtry’s advisors abroad. His deft handling of that delicate, high-society matter showed a lawyer comfortable at the intersection of publicity and the finer points of property law.

Book about Stanford White Case

McPike also occupied a small but noteworthy seat in what newspapers quickly christened the “Trial of the Century.” When architect Stanford White was shot and killed in 1906 by millionaire Harry K. Thaw, San Francisco attorney Delphin Delmas led Thaw’s defense. McPike was among the colleagues who joined Delmas on the defense bench during the 1907 proceedings in New York. Although Delmas’s eloquent closing arguments drew the national spotlight, McPike contributed to the behind-the-scenes coordination of witnesses and legal briefs—a steady West Coast hand supporting a trial that riveted the nation and blended law, celebrity, and scandal like no case before it.

In 1906 McPike sought to translate his legal reputation into political influence, running as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives from San Francisco. He lost to Republican Victor Metcalf—soon to join Theodore Roosevelt’s cabinet—but the campaign reflected McPike’s continuing engagement with public life and his belief that lawyers could and should shape civic policy.

Cartoon Parody of Henry C McPike

Through the 1910s and 1920s McPike maintained an active Bay Area practice encompassing civil, commercial, and municipal litigation. Appellate records document his involvement in finance and contract disputes argued before the California Supreme Court. By the mid-1930s he had moved his principal offices to Oakland, where court filings identify him as “of Oakland,” signaling his full integration into the East Bay’s growing legal and business scene.

Henry Clay McPike’s career spanned more than half a century of California’s legal history—from the post-Gold Rush assertion of federal authority, through the Gilded Age of theatrical scandals, to the Depression-era courts of an industrializing Bay Area. He embodied a generation of California lawyers whose reputations were built on craft, adaptability, and discretion—attorneys who could argue constitutional law one year and guide a celebrity through personal turmoil the next. McPike died in 1943, remembered in the legal notices of the day as a respected member of the bar and one of the last surviving links to the formative decades of the state’s legal profession.

Sources (one line): Find A Grave memorial; In re Neagle case records (Supreme Court Historical Society); Historical Society of the New York Courts retrospective on the Thaw trial; California Supreme Court decision Central National Bank of Oakland v. Bell (1936); Lake County archival records on Lily Langtry litigation; 1906 Congressional Directory; Oakland Tribune

Charles Henry King (1844–1910): Oakland Lumber Baron and Namesake of King City, California

Oakland Tribune image of Charles H. King

Millionaire's Row

Tucked away along Mountain View Cemetery’s “Millionaires’ Row” lies the King family plot — a peaceful cluster of gravemarkers without the grand family mausoleums that distinguish other prominent families such as the Crockers, Delgers, or Merritts.

Charles Henry King, the namesake of King City, California, was one of those rare 19th-century figures whose ambition spanned lumber camps, wheat fields, and city halls. Born on May 3, 1844, near Hemlock Lake in Ontario County, New York, King grew up in a rural family of modest means. His early life alternated between teaching and farming, but his restless energy soon drew him westward to California, where he became one of Oakland’s most prominent pioneers and later transformed a stretch of the Salinas Valley into what would become King City.

King Family Plot (photo Michael Colbruno)

After a brief sojourn teaching school in the Hawaiian Islands, King returned to California in the 1860s. He initially worked as a schoolmaster before realizing there was more opportunity in lumber. By the 1870s, he had become a formidable figure in the redwood timber industry, establishing mills, shipping operations, and railway connections. Known as one of the state’s earliest lumber dealers, King was among the first to recognize the commercial potential of California’s redwood forests. His holdings—eventually valued in the millions—helped supply the explosive urban growth of the Bay Area and beyond. At the height of his lumber career, he chaired the California Rivers and Harbors League and was a driving force behind Oakland’s waterfront development, promoting projects that would modernize the city’s port and infrastructure.

Charles H. King's modest gravemarker (photo Michael Colbruno)

 King’s wealth and vision found architectural expression in his Oakland mansion, built in 1884 at Sixth Avenue and East 11th Street. What began as a grand but moderate home grew “like Topsy,” as one of his descendants later said, expanding to 38 rooms and dominating the neighborhood. Its ornate façade, pictured in early photographs, symbolized both his success and his era’s exuberant confidence. The mansion became a local landmark, a gathering place for civic leaders and a point of fascination to later generations as it fell into genteel decay.

King home in Oakland (Oakland Tribune)

By the early 1880s, King had set his sights beyond the timber industry. In 1884, he purchased 13,000 acres of Rancho San Lorenzo in southern Monterey County—land that skeptics dismissed as too dry and sandy for farming. King saw potential where others saw barrenness. He planted 6,000 acres of wheat, proving that the soil and climate could sustain large-scale agriculture. His success drew the attention of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which extended a line to his ranch in 1886. Around the new rail stop, a settlement emerged that locals first called “King’s Station” and later King City. The town was officially incorporated in 1911, a year after his death, and its name remains his enduring memorial.

King’s personal life blended triumph with tragedy. He married Kate King, and together they had several children, though not all survived to adulthood. Two died young, and a daughter, Mildred, succumbed to illness in Arizona at just 22. Surviving children included Joseph, Pearl, and Charles Jr., who each carried aspects of their father’s ambition into new fields.

• Joseph H. King became a civic leader and businessman in Oakland, serving as president of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, the California Nile Club, and the Oakland Property Owners’ Association.

  

  Pearl King Tanner

  
  

• Pearl King Tanner, known professionally as Mother Sherwood, achieved national fame as one of radio’s first women personalities on KGO Radio in Oakland. Her broadcasts in the 1920s and ’30s made her a household name across the Pacific Coast.

• The King descendants continued to shape civic, cultural, and media life long after Charles King’s death, sustaining the family’s prominence for decades.

Despite his business success, King retained an educator’s curiosity and a reformer’s civic spirit. He championed Oakland’s urban beautification, promoted harbor improvements, and advocated for building a major hotel to attract visitors to the city. His peers described him as a man of foresight who “never made a mistake in his forecasts.” Even in his seventies, he remained energetic, visiting his offices daily and attending public meetings.

King’s sudden death on August 20, 1910, at his Oakland mansion, shocked the community. The Oakland Tribune reported that “all Oakland mourns,” noting that he had remained vigorous until his final hours despite months of declining health. His estate—built from timber, land, and grain—was estimated to be worth many millions, though he was remembered as much for his civic devotion as for his fortune.

Today, little remains of his once-grand Oakland home, which lingered into the mid-20th century before being demolished. Yet his impact endures tangibly in King City, a thriving agricultural hub that evolved from his early wheat fields, and symbolically in the legacy of public service, entrepreneurship, and cultural achievement carried on by his descendants.

Charles Henry King’s story embodies the restless ambition of 19th-century California: a schoolteacher turned timber baron, an Oakland visionary who carved prosperity from redwood forests and wheat fields, and a patriarch whose family helped shape both the physical and cultural landscape of the Golden State.

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Sources:
Oakland Tribune archives (“Memories Haunt Fading Mansion,” “Charles H. King Dies Suddenly of Apoplexy and All Oakland Mourns,” August 1910); Monterey County Historical Society, King City Historical Overview (mchsmuseum.com); City of King, History of King City; King City Rustler historical retrospectives; Find A Grave

Peter Voiss (1862-1946): Bearded Wanderer Involved in Killing for a Quarter

"Official" Peter Voiss photo with Golden Gate Bridge

Stranger's Plot

Peter Voiss was one of the Bay Area’s most eccentric and tragic wanderers—a bearded old prospector whose life on California’s highways became a strange blend of folklore and infamy. Born near Cologne, Germany, around 1862, Voiss immigrated to the United States as a young man, chasing the same dreams of fortune that lured thousands of Europeans westward. Like many before him, he took to the Sierra Nevadas as a miner and prospector, living for decades on hope and hardpan dust. By his own later reckoning, he spent three-quarters of his life in that solitary pursuit but never struck it rich.

By the 1930s, age and disappointment had turned him into a roadside fixture. His long gray beard, sun-creased face, and pair of small burros—Trixie, Jimmie, and Dock—made him instantly recognizable along the byways between Los Angeles and Seattle. He lived in a two-wheeled covered cart that carried all his possessions, including the camera equipment and props he used to earn what little money he could. Amateur photographers and tourists were fascinated by the sight of the “hermit of the highways,” and Voiss made them pay for the privilege of taking his picture—usually a quarter or fifty cents. It was, he said, his only livelihood.

Bio of Voiss and Newspaper Clipping of Trial

That business arrangement turned deadly in 1936 on a stretch of Monterey Highway outside San Jose. Dr. Jasper Gattucci, a young dentist, stopped to photograph Voiss and his burros but refused to pay. When Gattucci snapped the picture anyway, Voiss raised his shotgun. The doctor fell dead. Newspapers quickly dubbed the killing the “snapshot slaying,” and the gray-bearded drifter became front-page news across California.

At trial, Voiss, then 73, testified tearfully that he “didn’t mean to kill him”—that he only meant to protect himself and his frightened animals. His attorney, J.D. Foley, argued that Gattucci and a friend had conspired to taunt the old man, deliberately driving toward him to scare his burros. “Angered when Gattucci drove in such a manner as to frighten his burros—in effect denying him the free use of the highways—Voiss shot,” Foley told the court. The defense portrayed the act as one of self-defense, not malice.

Reporters described the scene in the San Jose courtroom as both pitiful and riveting: Voiss sobbing uncontrollably, turning his back to the room as he insisted that he “didn’t intend to hurt anyone.” After days of testimony and a dramatic viewing of his battered cart and the bullet-riddled car window, the Santa Clara County jury acquitted him. He was simply too old, too feeble, and too pitiable to be judged a murderer.

Freed from jail, Voiss returned to his wandering life, once again steering his burro cart up and down the state highways. He remained adamant that no one could take his picture without paying him—a rule he continued to enforce through shouting matches and, occasionally, courtroom appearances. He was arrested several times for assaulting people who photographed him without permission, and his cart was once struck by a truck, leaving him injured but unbroken.

As he aged, his travels became more confined, limited mostly to Alameda County. Locals grew used to the sight of the white-bearded hermit trudging beside his burros, a relic from another century. He wrote eccentric “wills” on scraps of paper, bequeathing his three animals to anyone who happened to show him kindness. These informal documents later caused a minor legal tangle: when two different “beneficiaries” came forward with Voiss’s handwritten notes, officials discovered that he had scattered such papers up and down the coast like a wandering Johnny Appleseed. In one version, the will doubled as an advance bill of sale.

"Official" Peter Voiss photos with his beloved mules

By August 1946, Voiss was living out his final days in Oakland. His health failed as he sat in his little wagon, his faithful burros tethered nearby. Authorities found him critically ill in the cart and brought him to Fairmont Hospital, where he died on September 13, 1946, at the age of 84.

When news of his death spread, it sparked a small wave of fascination and melancholy. Newspapers described him as “bewhiskered Peter Voiss, amateur photographers’ model,” the man who once “expressed deeper fear for his burros than for himself.” His only known relative, a nephew named William E. Voiss in Portland, Oregon, was notified to make funeral arrangements. Whether any were ever carried out is unclear—accounts suggest that his body went unclaimed for a time, while his three burros were temporarily sheltered by Oakland’s pound master.

Peter Voiss’s story stands as a strange, sorrowful vignette of California’s frontier afterglow: a man born in Germany who crossed oceans and deserts in pursuit of gold, only to become famous for guarding his right to a fifty-cent photograph. He died as he lived—poor, proud, and fiercely protective of the humble animals that were his only family.

Sources: Oakland Tribune, July 1 1936; The Bakersfield Californian, August 10 1946; San Mateo Times, September 13 1946; Oakland Tribune, September 13 1946; Associated Press wire stories; and Find a Grave

Robert Neelly Bellah (1927 – 2013): Cal Berkeley Sociologist who "Mapped the American Soul"

 

Plot 75

Robert Neelly Bellah was born on February 23, 1927, in Altus, Oklahoma. But the boy from Oklahoma would grow into one of America’s most thoughtful interpreters of the nation’s moral and spiritual life. His family moved soon to Los Angeles, where Bellah attended high school and later entered Harvard. The arc of his life would lead him to deep questions about what holds society together—especially in a country rooted in individualism.

After serving briefly in the U.S. Army, Bellah earned his bachelor’s and doctorate at Harvard. He began his academic career studying Japan, publishing his early work, Tokugawa Religion in 1957, which traced values in pre-industrial Japan. His intellectual curiosity ranged widely: culture, religion, modernity, community. Over time, he settled at the University of California, Berkeley, where for decades he held the Elliott Professorship of Sociology. 

Biography of Robert Bellah

What made Bellah truly distinctive was his insistence that religion—broadly understood—was central to the American story, not just as a set of church activities but as a public, civic force. His 1967 essay “Civil Religion in America” argued that the United States has its own kind of religion of the republic—God and country imagery, national ritual, shared moral commitments—even outside formal churches.
From that point, Bellah’s reputation grew: he turned sociology of religion into a lively conversation about American identity, community, and meaning.

In 1985 he co-authored the best-selling Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. There he explored the tension that many Americans feel—on one hand, a robust individualism; on the other, a longing for connection and belonging. His insight was that a culture encouraged to “go it alone” still needs the ties and commitments that only community can supply. 

Bellah's "Habits of the Heart"

In recognition of his influence, Bellah received the National Humanities Medal from President Bill Clinton in 2000, honored for “his efforts to illuminate the importance of community in American society.” The phrase “mapping the American soul” was used in his obituary in The New York Times, marking how he charted the spiritual contours of the nation. 

Bellah combined serious scholarship with a clear style and a genuine sense of purpose. He looked not just at religious belief, but at meaning, moral life, and what holds people together. He argued that unchecked individualism threatens the very bonds that make democratic society work—yet he didn’t dismiss individuality either. His was a call to balance: freedom paired with responsibility, rights matched by commitments.

In his later years, Bellah wrote Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (2011), a sweeping work that asked how religion evolved in human history and what it means for our shared future.

On July 30, 2013, Bellah died at age 86 in Oakland, California, from complications following heart surgery. Colleagues remembered him not just as a towering intellect, but as someone warm, generous, down-to-earth—someone who bridged the gap between scholarly rigor and moral concern.

Robert Bellah set out to understand how Americans live together—how we imagine ourselves as individuals and yet as part of something larger. His legacy invites us to ask: what kind of community do we want? What holds us together when old certainties fade? And how do we live responsibly in a society that values liberty so highly?

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Sources: Wikipedia; Los Angeles Times obituary; NY Times obituary; UC Berkeley press release; Hartford Seminary brief bio; Encyclopaedia Britannica; UC Academic Senate in memoriam; Find a Grave

Jane Vivian Kelton (Gans): 1878-1912: Notable Stock Company Actress Who Died Following Surgery

Jane Kelton glamour headshot

Plot 45, Grave 715

Jane "Jenny" Kelton was a popular West Coast stage actress of the early 20th century, best known for her leading roles in the repertory circuits of California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. A “stock actress” — meaning a performer who was part of a permanent theater company that presented a rotating schedule of plays — Kelton was celebrated for her versatility and emotional range in major dramatic roles of her era, including Zaza, A Doll’s House, and Sapho.

Jane Kelton Gravestone

Kelton began her theatrical career in California, where she quickly won audiences with her expressive performances and powerful stage presence. She appeared as the leading lady at prominent venues such as Ye Liberty Theatre in Oakland and the Alisky Theatre in Sacramento. In 1905, she performed with distinction in The Light Eternal and appeared in a charity vaudeville production in Berkeley titled The Evolution of an Advertisement, in which she played both a French opera singer and a Geisha girl — showcasing the versatility that would become her hallmark.

Known for her sincerity and grace, Kelton’s portrayals of emotionally demanding characters made her one of the most respected actresses in the West Coast stock circuit. Stock companies, like those she joined, were resident troupes that performed a new play every week or two, relying on a stable of well-rehearsed actors capable of switching rapidly between leading and supporting roles.

Jane Kelton from Lyceum Theater production

In 1909, Kelton made national headlines when she married fellow actor Del Lawrence (Gans), her stage partner and leading man in the Del Lawrence Stock Company. The couple’s romantic partnership had flourished on stage, but their real-life union was overshadowed by legal complications. Just days after their June 13 wedding in Portland, Oregon, it emerged that Kelton’s divorce from her first husband, Arthur Guerin, had not yet received its final decree.

Under California law, a divorce was not final until a specific waiting period had elapsed — meaning that Kelton’s remarriage technically rendered her a bigamist. Newspapers across the Western United States, including The San Francisco Call, covered the scandal in sensational detail, dubbing her a “technical bigamist.” Both Kelton and Lawrence insisted they had relied on mistaken legal advice and acted in good faith. The district attorney declined to prosecute, accepting that the marriage had been entered into “unknowingly and without malice.” Lawrence publicly vowed to remarry Kelton once the decree was official, and the couple continued their theatrical partnership.

Ad for Jane Kelton performance

Following the controversy, the couple continued performing together, moving northward with their company to engagements in Vancouver and other Pacific Coast cities. Kelton’s acting was praised for its emotional depth — especially in French dramas like Sapho, where critics noted her ability to project passion and pathos without artifice.

Tragically, Jane Kelton’s career was cut short when she died in Vancouver, British Columbia, in January 1912. According to reports from the Bakersfield Californian and the Bonners Ferry Herald, she underwent surgery for the removal of a tumor and succumbed to complications a week later. She was remembered as “one of the best known stock actresses on the Pacific Coast.”

Newspaper Death Announcement

Her brother Edward Kelton was also and actor, leading troupe of vaudeville performers. Her mother, Jennie Kelton, often defended her daughter publicly during the press attention surrounding her first marriage. 

Sources: University of Washington - Special Collections; Seattle Star; San Francisco Call; Walla Walla Evening Statesman; Bakersfield Californian; Los Angeles Herald; Salt Lake Telegram; Tacoma Times; Spokane Press; Find a Grave; Ancestry.com