Walter Parrish (1876-1918): Husband at Center of Courtroom Brawl Over Divorce

 

San Francisco Call rendering of courtroom brawl

Walter Noble Parrish lived a conventional civic life for his era, serving in key government roles and moving through the city without attracting much historical attention. His name survives not because of any great achievement or notorious failing, but because a single day in 1899 thrust him and his family into one of the most chaotic divorce hearings the city had seen. It was one of the few moments in his life that history bothered to record in any detail.

Walter married Maud Shafer with expectations of a quiet domestic life. Maud had hoped for something more. She longed for travel and adventure, believing her husband’s family connections in South America might open opportunities to see the world. Instead, she found herself confined to a routine existence in San Francisco, a marriage marked—according to her later testimony—by neglect, drinking, and disappointment. What Walter regarded as ordinary married life, she experienced as a suffocating restraint.

Their marriage unraveled in Judge Hebbard’s courtroom, where Maud sought a divorce and Walter resisted the accusations. What should have been a contained proceeding erupted almost instantly into mayhem. Maud’s mother, Mrs. D. M. Shafer, arrived already strained by months of marital discord and, upon hearing heated arguments about who had struck whom earlier in the day, suddenly lunged at her son-in-law. Striking Walter in the face, she ignited a chain reaction that sent the room into complete disorder.

The elderly Parrish father tried to intervene and was himself pulled into the commotion. Women screamed and fainted. Witnesses shoved one another. Clerks, litigants, and reporters found themselves scrambling out of the way as the chaos spilled into the hallway. Walter, his family members, Maud’s supporters, and even uninvolved citizens in the corridor were swept into a tangle of pushing, shouting, and blows before police and the bailiff could begin pulling people apart.

The violence continued outside the courtroom. Parrish’s father was hurled against a railing. Mrs. Shafer hurled insults and threats at Walter, going so far as to shout, “You coward! You are afraid of me—and right you are, for I will be revenged!” More women fainted as the commotion grew. Judge Hebbard emerged briefly from his chambers, saw the disorder, and retreated again until the officers restored some degree of control.

When the testimony resumed, Maud accused her husband of drunkenness, neglect, and cruelty. Walter denied it all. The judge ultimately refused to grant the divorce, determining that Maud had failed to meet the legal threshold required for dissolution. But the ruling did not seal the fate of the marriage in practice. Maud had already had enough.

Maud's 1921 passport photo and 1941 Brazilian travel visa

Not long after the court denied her petition, she left her husband, her parents, and San Francisco behind. Without telling a soul, she boarded a ship for Nome, Alaska, carrying little more than a banjo and the determination to reclaim her life. What had been denied her in marriage—movement, independence, possibility—she seized for herself with startling resolve.

In the Yukon, she supported herself by performing in mining towns with her banjo, and from there she began to travel the world. In 1939 she published her memoir, "Nine Pounds of Luggage," recounting her extraordinary path from a failed San Francisco marriage to a life defined by curiosity and adventure. In the book, she tells of working as a saloon girl in the Klondike, running gambling dens in China, and exploring places like South America, India, and Nazi Germany, all while carrying minimal belongings. She claimed to have circled the globe sixteen times and lived to the age of 98. Maud never remarried and is buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.

Oakland Tribune picture of Walter Parrish and Gravesite

Walter Parrish ended up working as the Deputy County Clerk in San Joaquin County, as a deputy in the San Joaquin County courts and by 1911 he was Secretary of the California State Senate. He rests today at Mountain View Cemetery. 

Sources: San Francisco Call, January 31, 1899; Wikipedia: Maud Parrish; Kirkus Reviews on Nine Pounds of Luggage: Brazilian Embassy; US Passport Agency; Wikipedia; Find a Grave; Oakland Tribune, January 25, 1911

Wilson De La Roi (1918-1946): Double Murderer Who Escaped Gas Chamber 11 Times!

Wilson De La Roi mugshot and Last Words

Plot 54 Grave 356

Wilson Melvin De La Roi’s short, violent life became one of California’s most extraordinary examples of a condemned man repeatedly pulled back from the brink. 

Born in 1918, he entered the state prison system as a teenager after being convicted in 1939 of murdering Randolph “Randy” Wertz, an elderly prospector near Redding. The killing was frenzied—Wertz was struck more than thirty times with a five-cell flashlight—and De La Roi compounded the brutality of the crime by bolting for the courtroom door the moment the jury returned its verdict. In a burst of panic, he sprinted down a stairway and into a hallway that, to his astonishment, led him straight into the county jail. Deputies caught him before he could double back. His youth spared him then; the jury recommended life imprisonment, and at just twenty-one years old he entered San Quentin a lifer.

Within two years he was transferred to Folsom, where long-term inmates and repeat offenders were typically assigned. On July 15, 1942, violence again erupted—this time inside the prison laundry. William Deal, a fellow inmate, staggered out bleeding from stab wounds inflicted with a handmade knife. Witnesses identified De La Roi as the assailant, and investigators recovered a bundle he had discarded moments after the attack. Deal died quickly, and the incident set in motion one of the most protracted and dramatic series of death-row reprieves in California history.

The state sought the death penalty for Deal’s murder, and a Sacramento County jury agreed. Yet from the moment he was sentenced, De La Roi’s path to execution became a revolving door. Between 1942 and 1946 he moved on and off San Quentin’s death row eleven times, each reprieve or stay extending his life by days, weeks or months. Some came from state courts reviewing petitions and writs of habeas corpus; others were temporary reprieves from Governor Earl Warren, who examined the case repeatedly and ultimately concluded that it did not qualify for executive clemency. By mid-1946 even hardened prison officials remarked that De La Roi, still in his twenties, had now “bettered the cat’s proverbial nine lives.”

Much of the legal maneuvering centered on a habeas corpus petition asserting that key witnesses at the Folsom murder trial had committed perjury at the behest of a prison official. The California Supreme Court took the unusual step of appointing a referee to hear testimony. Months of interrogations and hearings followed, with inmates James Allen and Stanley Robinson alternately recanting and reaffirming their trial statements. The court ultimately rejected De La Roi’s claim, finding that the trial testimony was credible and the recantations were inconsistent, fear-driven, and unsupported by the wider evidence. With that ruling, his last legal lifeline snapped.

In October 1946 the twelfth scheduled execution date was set, and this time no court intervened. Governor Warren declined to act, state and federal courts refused new appeals, and the warden began the final preparations. Reporters noted that De La Roi remained oddly buoyant. He spent the evening before his execution in his death-row cell playing popular tunes on his guitar and listening to records with a Salvation Army chaplain. One of the songs he chose was “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal, You,” a darkly comic selection given the events to come.

On the morning of October 25, 1946, he ate a breakfast of ham and eggs and was visited by his two sisters. Witnesses described him as calm and even cheerful. A few minutes before 10:02 a.m., he walked into San Quentin’s gas chamber, grinned, and asked for antacid tablets. “You see,” he quipped, “I think I’m going to get gas on my stomach.” They were among the most memorable final words recorded in the prison’s history.

Eight minutes after the cyanide pellets dropped, Wilson De La Roi was pronounced dead at age twenty-one. His life had spanned two murders, eleven reprieves, years of frantic legal battles, and a final moment of gallows humor that fixed him in the public imagination. He was buried quietly, far from the front-page headlines that had chronicled his long dance with death.

Unmarked grave of Wilson De La Roi (photo Michael Colbruno)

He is buried in an unmarked grave between the Main Mausoleum and cemetery main office. 

Sources: San Mateo Times; Bakersfield Californian; Berkeley Daily Gazette; Idaho Falls Post-Register; Associated Press reporting; California Supreme Court, In re De La Roi (1945); Find a Grave

Samuel Bugbee (1811-1877): Gilded Age Architect of "Big 4" Mansions on Nob Hill

Bugbee Family Plot & Crocker and Colton homes

Lot 12  Plot 80

 Samuel Charles Bugbee’s life traced the arc of a 19th-century builder who helped invent the architectural character of San Francisco before fading quietly from public memory, leaving only fragments of documentation and the ghostly afterlives of the mansions and civic buildings he designed. 

Born on January 20, 1811, in New Brunswick, Canada, Bugbee grew up in a region where British colonial forms still shaped the built environment. Although little is recorded about his early training, he emerged as an architect in Boston, a city whose blend of Federal, Greek Revival, and emerging Victorian styles offered a broad laboratory for a young designer. The architectural culture of that period emphasized apprenticeships and hands-on craft, and Bugbee’s later work reflects the solid, slightly conservative tendencies of someone who had matured amid Boston’s restrained but skillful building traditions.

Sometime around 1862, in his early fifties, Bugbee followed the magnetic pull of opportunity west to San Francisco. The city was booming from Gold Rush wealth, railroad expansion, and the rise of a mercantile elite hungry to express its status through architecture. Bugbee arrived at a moment when San Francisco needed trained East Coast architects who could bring sophistication to a city still shedding the makeshift character of the 1850s. He quickly established himself and opened an office in the famed Montgomery Block, a building that housed artists, writers, politicians, and lawyers—a kind of civic brain trust. For an architect, having an office there was both practical and symbolic, placing him at the center of the city’s cultural and political energies.

Bugbee’s integration into public life extended beyond architecture. He served on San Francisco’s Board of Education, a role that reflected the city’s mid-century push to establish stable civic institutions. His civic engagement deepened when he represented San Francisco in the California Legislature from 1866 to 1867. His legislative service coincided with California’s growing pains as it transitioned from frontier tumult to organized statehood, and Bugbee’s engagement signaled a belief that building a city required investment both in its physical structures and its civic foundations.

During these same years, he expanded his architectural practice by bringing his son, Charles, into the business. The firm of S. C. Bugbee and Son became known for its breadth, taking on residential, commercial, and civic projects. Their portfolio included plans for the city Almshouse and contributions to the House of Correction—serious public projects typically entrusted to responsible, steady architects. But it was Bugbee’s residential work for the city’s wealthy elite that ultimately shaped his reputation.

Crocker Mansion atop SF's Nob Hill

In this period, the United States was entering what later historians called the Gilded Age—roughly the 1870s to early 1900s—a time characterized by rapid industrialization, enormous fortunes, opulent displays of wealth, and profound inequality beneath the glittering surface. In San Francisco, the Gilded Age found its most dramatic expression on Nob Hill, where railroad magnates, bankers, and prominent families sought to build mansions that rivaled the grand homes of New York and Boston. Bugbee became one of the architects tapped to design these palatial residences for figures associated with two of the Big 4, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker. These homes were architectural proclamations—assertions of power and permanence perched atop the city’s most commanding vantage point.

Yet, as later chroniclers have noted, the fate of these mansions turned them into something more than architectural symbols of prosperity. Many were destroyed or damaged in the 1906 earthquake and fire; others succumbed to changing tastes, financial reversals, or redevelopment. The Crocker estate, once an emblem of railroad-era wealth, ultimately became the site of Grace Cathedral, while the Stanford mansion gave way to what is now the Stanford Court Hotel—each transformation underscoring how the landscape of Nob Hill was rebuilt atop the ashes of its former grandeur. 

SF's Wade's Opera House (later Grand Opera House)

Bugbee’s architectural legacy extended beyond Nob Hill. He designed the California Theatre and Wade’s Opera House, two major cultural institutions that once defined the artistic landscape of San Francisco. Though neither survives, contemporary descriptions portray them as ornate and lively spaces, reflecting the city’s hunger for public entertainment and civic identity. Bugbee belonged to the generation that helped transform San Francisco into a major American metropolis, blending New England craftsmanship with the exuberant eclecticism of the rapidly growing West.

Despite the scale of his professional contributions, Bugbee’s personal life remains thinly documented. He appears to have been a steady, hardworking figure who continued designing well into his sixties. Later in life he relocated to Oakland, likely drawn by the growth of the East Bay and possibly by family ties or business opportunities. Oakland at the time was becoming a desirable residential alternative to the bustle of San Francisco, attracting many professionals and business leaders.

His death came suddenly on September 2, 1877, while he was traveling aboard a ferry crossing San Francisco Bay. Reports indicate he suffered a heart attack during the trip. The Sacramento Daily-Union mourned the “sudden death of a prominent architect.” 

The buildings he crafted have largely vanished, but his imprint persists in the city’s historical anecdotes attached to the grand Nob Hill mansions that once made San Francisco famous. He is buried at Mountain View Cemetery near many of the people associated with the Big 4 railroad magnates, including Charles Crocker, David Colton, Jefferson Shannon, Horace Seaton and their nemesis James Bassett. 

Sources: PCAD entry on Samuel Charles Bugbee; historical accounts of Nob Hill’s Gilded Age mansions; Ancestry.com; KQED; Find a Grave

Eugene Robert “Bob” Wallach (1934–2022): Brilliant Bay Area Lawyer Embroiled in Reagan Administration Scandal

Bob Wallach and gravemarker

Plot 76

E. Robert “Bob” Wallach was one of California’s most accomplished and enigmatic trial lawyers, a courtroom virtuoso whose career intersected with national politics, personal upheaval, and a dramatic public fall followed by exoneration. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he developed an early love of argumentation through competitive debate at the University of Southern California. At Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, he excelled academically and formed a lifelong friendship with fellow law student Edwin Meese III, later U.S. Attorney General under Ronald Reagan. 

Their moot-court partnership would eventually draw Wallach—reluctantly, and at significant personal cost—into the political orbit of the Reagan administration and Attorney General Ed Meese. [In an Oakland connection of note, members of the Meese family are interred at Mountain View Cemetery. Learn more HERE. As of the date of this post, Edwin Meese III is still alive.]

Wallach began his legal career at the respected San Francisco litigation firm Walkup Downing. His talent was immediately recognized: in one of his earliest cases, a railroad-crossing wrongful-death trial, he defeated two of California’s leading trial lawyers. The win helped establish his reputation as a brilliant young litigator whose poise, preparation, and instinctive connection with juries set him apart. He rose quickly to become a name partner. But in the early 1970s, because of significant domestic challenges—his wife’s serious physical and mental-health struggles—he left the firm and restarted his career as a sole practitioner working from his Piedmont home. The shift was dramatic, but it reinforced his independence and his ability to thrive under pressure.

Across five decades, Wallach accumulated a trial record that bordered on mythic: 222 cases tried to verdict, with only 12 losses. Colleagues described him as elegant, perceptive, analytical, and deeply attuned to human behavior—qualities that juries responded to. He served as a mentor to generations of lawyers and co-founded the Hastings College of the Law Center for Trial and Appellate Advocacy, serving as its dean and chairman. His dedication to professional standards made him a model of courtroom decorum in an increasingly mediated legal culture.

His high-profile clients reflected his wide-ranging practice and intellectual curiosity. Wallach represented the Fang family during their controversial purchase of the San Francisco Examiner and served for fourteen years as advisor and counsel to The Sharper Image, whose founder had been one of his students. He preferred complex, high-stakes personal-injury litigation but was equally known for his willingness to advise on unusual or sensitive matters.

Sunday, NY Times feature on Meese and Wallach

The turning point in Wallach’s public life came during the 1980s, after his friend Ed Meese called on him to join the Reagan administration. Wallach, a lifelong Democrat, accepted a presidential appointment to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy and performed informal advisory roles for the administration. The decision cost him socially and professionally—he later said that both Democrats and Republicans distrusted him—but he believed he was answering a civic calling.

This move, however, placed him squarely in the pathway of the Wedtech scandal. In 1987 he was indicted on racketeering, fraud, and conspiracy charges for allegedly helping the Wedtech Corporation secure federal contracts through his Washington contacts, including Meese. After a lengthy trial, he was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to six years in prison, fines, and forfeitures. But the case quickly unraveled when key prosecution witnesses admitted giving false testimony. In 1991, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the conviction. A retrial in 1993 ended with a hung jury, and the government dropped all remaining charges. Wallach, in the eyes of the law, was fully exonerated.

The ordeal devastated him financially and professionally. He later said the case removed him from his practice for four years, and his seven-year odyssey through trials, appeals, and waiting periods left him economically “starting over from scratch.” Yet he returned to San Francisco determined to rebuild. His resilience—what he called the “Icarus fallen” arc of American public life—became an essential part of his personal narrative. Having spent decades representing catastrophically injured clients, he often noted that nothing he endured compared with the adversity he had witnessed in their lives.

In the years after the scandal, Wallach slowly reconstituted a thriving practice. Referrals from other attorneys—who trusted his judgment even when the political world had turned against him—remained his lifeline. He continued to try cases, mentor younger lawyers, and speak publicly about the realities of litigation. His philosophy emphasized both humility and rigor: that trial lawyers should not romanticize the profession, that courtroom experience is irreplaceable, and that civility is a professional obligation. His personal style, from his sartorial formality to his insistence on dining with a tablecloth, became part of his lore.

Wallach died at his home in Alameda on May 15, 2022, at age 88. His life embodied the contradictions of American legal and political experience—meteoric success, public humiliation, vindication, and renewal. 

Sources: New York Times obituary (May 29, 2022); Sunday, NY Times, June 19, 1988; Plaintiff Magazine profile (June 2010); National Registry of Exonerations; Mountain View Cemetery historical materials (Meese family); Lives of the Dead; Yuma Daily Sun

Frank Epperson (1894-1983): Inventor of the Popsicle®

A young Frank Epperson and Vintage Popsicle® Ad

Frank Epperson’s life changed on a frigid Oakland night in 1905, when the temperature dropped to record lows and the eleven-year-old accidentally created one of America’s most enduring treats. He had mixed powdered soda with water in a glass and left it on the porch with a wooden stir stick still inside. By morning, the mixture had frozen solid. Curious, he tugged on the stick, pulled the flavored ice free, and tasted it. Delighted, he dubbed it the “Epsicle,” combining his last name with the word “icicle.” He began making homemade versions for neighborhood children, unaware that this childhood accident would become a cultural icon.

As a young man, Epperson continued experimenting with molds and materials, ultimately determining that glass produced the best results. In 1923, he decided to sell the treats commercially and began offering his Epsicles at Alameda’s Neptune Beach, a sprawling waterfront amusement park at Crab Cove where Bay Area residents flocked to picnic, dance, barbecue, or ride the Ferris wheel and roller coaster. The treats were an immediate hit. Encouraged by the success, he applied for a patent in 1924 for what he described as a “frozen confection of attractive appearance” designed to be eaten easily “without contamination by contact with the hand.” His patent illustration even specified the ideal woods for the stick—basswood, birch, or poplar.

Portion of Patent Application

Epperson’s children urged him to rename the Epsicle to what they and their friends were already calling it: “Pop’s ’Sicle.” The new name—Popsicle®—stuck. By 1928, he was earning royalties as Popsicles grew in popularity, with some accounts noting he earned more than $60,000 in royalties before the Great Depression forced him to sell the rights to the Joe Lowe Company. He later said the decision haunted him: “I was flat and had to liquidate all my assets. I haven’t been the same since.” Lowe turned the Popsicle® into a national brand, launching the famous two-stick version during the Depression so two children could share one treat for a nickel.

As demand soared, Popsicle® and Good Humor battled over what constituted ice cream versus sherbet, with the court ultimately assigning Popsicle® the territory of water-based frozen treats. Despite the legal wrangling, the product thrived for decades. In later years, companies introduced entire families of Popsicle®-brand products, including Fudgsicle, Creamsicle, and Dreamsicle varieties. By the mid-20th century, the Popsicle® was firmly established as an American classic. The Chicago Heights Star reported in 1998 that more than 30 variations existed, and families routinely stocked freezers with multi-packs that emerged in the 1950s. In 1989, Unilever purchased the Popsicle® brand and eventually also acquired Good Humor, ending the historic feud and expanding Popsicle® production worldwide. Today, more than 2 billion Popsicles are sold each year, with orange long remaining one of the most popular flavors.

Vintage Popsicle® Ad

Although Epperson never became wealthy from the invention that brought joy to millions, he did live to see the Popsicle’s golden anniversary celebrated in his honor. Newspaper accounts over the years show him enjoying Popsicles with his grandchildren and receiving a plaque to commemorate his original patent.  

Children's Book about Epperson's invention

His story has since circulated widely in popular histories, corporate lore, and even children’s books. Locally, Epperson is celebrated as part of Oakland’s culinary legacy; he is buried at Mountain View Cemetery, where his inventive spirit is often highlighted alongside fellow Bay Area food pioneers such as Domingo Ghirardelli, the Folger Coffee family, "Yukon Jack" McQuesten, Victor “Trader Vic” Bergeron, and Freda Ehmann who is considered "the mother of the California olive industry." There is an annual "Food Tour" at the cemetery. Check the website for dates. 

Sources: Greenville Record-Argus, Oct. 14, 1986; Marysville Appeal-Democrat, Mar. 16, 1973; Nampa Idaho Free Press, Mar. 21, 1973; Chicago Heights Star, Sept. 3, 1998; CBS Sunday Morning; US Patent Office; Amazon.com; Wikipedia

Virginia "Jenny" Prentiss (1832-1922): Beloved Nanny of Author Jack London

Jenny Prentiss (center)

Born around 1832 in slavery on a plantation in Tennessee, Virginia Prentiss—often called “Jennie” or “Jenny”—was separated from her parents in a sale; their names and ultimate fates remain unknown. She was purchased by a plantation owner named John Parker near Nashville and assigned as servant and companion to his youngest daughter. As she grew older, she learned to read and write alongside Parker’s daughter and acquired domestic skills that would shape her later life.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, the Parker plantation was destroyed. Prentiss and Mrs. Parker fled to St. Louis. Eventually she returned to Tennessee, and later married a man named Alonzo Prentiss. By the mid-1870s, the couple had migrated to San Francisco; Alonzo worked as a carpenter, and they had two children.

In early 1876, after a difficult birth and a stillborn baby of her own, Jenny was asked to serve as wet-nurse and nanny to a baby named John — later known as Jack London. What was to have been a short-term arrangement evolved into something much more profound. Jack spent large parts of his infancy and childhood living with the Prentiss family. It was Jenny who first called him “Jack,” because the baby leaped on her like a “jumping-jack.”

As the London family struggled financially, Jenny provided stability and love. She lent the 15-year-old Jack $300 so he could buy his first boat — a felucca named Razzle Dazzle — which he used to work as an oyster pirate on San Francisco Bay. She also encouraged his early writing — urging him to enter contests and persist even amid hardship.

Throughout his life, Jack London regarded Jenny Prentiss as the primary source of love and affection in his childhood.  His daughter recalled that “the only love and affection he knew as a child came from Aunt Jennie.” 

Book on Jack London and Racial Views

Yet their relationship was complicated. London often referred to her as “Mammy Jenny” — a deeply stereotyped appellation tied to racist tropes — even though Jenny repeatedly asked him not to use it. In doing so, he reflected the conflicted racial attitudes of his era: though he loved Jenny, and she profoundly shaped him, he did not fully transcend the prejudices embedded in his society. Scholars suggest that despite Jenny’s rejection of white supremacy — believing Black people to be “more Christian,” and rejecting notions of white superiority — London nonetheless retained some of the era’s racial blindspots.

As London's fame grew, his bond with Jenny remained. After she was widowed and left with limited means, he ensured she was cared for: in 1906 he purchased a home for her in Oakland. Jenny even helped care for his own daughters.

Despite dementia in her later years, Jenny’s final years were provisioned through London’s will: he guaranteed her a pension and paid for her funeral. She died on November 27, 1922, at a psychiatric hospital in Napa at about ninety-one years old, and was buried in an unmarked grave at Mountain View Cemetery. [There have been several efforts to mark her grave, but none have yet come to fruition.]

1915 meeting of California State Federation of Colored Women

In life, she served as a nanny, nurse, midwife, and community volunteer — and became a respected figure in Oakland’s African-American community, including as a leader of the Federated Negro Woman's Club.

When Jenny Prentiss died, she left behind a legacy interwoven with that of Jack London — and a life story far richer, tragic, and dignified than the “Mammy” caricatures that later portrayals often reduced her to.

George Prance (1827-1885): Medal of Honor Recipient, U.S. Navy; Committed Suicide

George Prance Old and New Gravestone (2025)

Grand Army of the Republic, Plot 12

 

George Prance’s life spanned continents, oceans, and ultimately the defining conflict of his adopted country. Born in France around 1827, he immigrated to the United States as a young man and volunteered for the Union Navy during the Civil War. His enlistment was credited to Massachusetts, which suggests he entered the service shortly after arrival. Assigned to the sloop-of-war USS Ticonderoga, Prance served as Captain of the Main Top, a senior deck rating responsible for supervising sailors aloft and commanding one of the ship’s heavy guns in battle.

Prance distinguished himself during the attacks on Fort Fisher, the last major coastal fortress protecting the Confederacy’s crucial port at Wilmington, North Carolina. In two separate assaults—December 24–25, 1864, and January 13–15, 1865—the Ticonderoga was heavily engaged, bombarding the fortifications to clear the way for the combined Army-Navy storming party led by Adm. David Dixon Porter and Gen. Alfred Terry. With Confederate artillery returning fierce bombardment, an onboard disaster struck: one of the ship’s 100-pounder Parrott rifles exploded, killing eight crew members and wounding twelve more. Amid the carnage, Prance remained at his station and continued directing fire with “skill and courage,” helping silence the massive land batteries whose guns were killing and wounding Union troops on the beach.

USS Ticonderoga (1862)

For this steadfastness under fire, the United States awarded him the Medal of Honor, formalized in War Department General Orders No. 59 (June 22, 1865). His citation highlights both his leadership and the Ticonderoga’s critical role in enabling the Union assault that finally captured the fort—an action that sealed the Confederacy’s last Atlantic supply line and hastened the end of the war.

After the conflict, Prance migrated west and found work on dredging crews in the Oakland harbor, a physically grueling profession. He became active in the George H. Thomas Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, the leading veterans’ organization for Union soldiers and sailors. Friends and comrades regarded him as a respected, if quiet, presence in their ranks.

Prance’s final years were marked by hardship. He lost an eye in an accident while working for the California Harbor Commissioners, and a bill before the Legislature to compensate him failed to pass. Discouraged and drinking heavily, he died by suicide on April 3, 1885, at the Park House in Oakland’s Temescal district. The coroner’s verdict recorded him as single, a native of France, and 60 years old.

Navy Medal of Honor

Eligibility for a New Headstone

George Prance qualifies for a government-issued headstone because Medal of Honor recipients are automatically entitled to federal grave markers, regardless of the age of the burial, the condition of the grave, or whether a private marker is present. Under Veterans Affairs regulations (38 U.S.C. § 2306 and 38 C.F.R. § 38.630), the Medal of Honor is among the highest categories of service warranting permanent commemoration. Any descendant, researcher, cemetery official, or veterans’ organization may request such a marker on his behalf.

Billy Simpson (1872-1911): Gunfire, Divorce Drama & Funeral Spectacle: Alameda’s City Attorney Drowns in a Sea of Scandal!

Images from Oakland Tribune pictures

Plot 43 Lot 108

Milton William “Billy” Simpson was one of Alameda’s most prominent early civic figures—a gifted attorney, state legislator, California National Guardsman, and well-known local personality whose life blended public service with private turmoil. His dramatic drowning, the chaotic scenes at his funeral, and the bitter litigation over his estate made him one of the most talked-about men in the East Bay during the spring of 1911.

Born in California in 1870, Simpson displayed an early aptitude for civic affairs and the law. He first entered statewide politics as a member of the California State Assembly, representing Alameda with a reputation for intelligence, vigor, and meticulous preparation. His political ascent continued in 1904 when he won a special election to the California State Senate, filling the seat vacated by Senator William Knowland, who had resigned after being appointed Clerk of the California Supreme Court—a prestigious statewide post conferred by the governor. Simpson served the remainder of Knowland’s unexpired term and established himself as a steady, independent voice in Sacramento. 

Following his legislative years, Simpson became City Attorney of Alameda, a position he held for nearly a decade. He also maintained a long affiliation with the California National Guard, rising to the rank of major in the First Battalion, Fifth Regiment. To many in Alameda, he embodied the mix of civic duty and personal ambition characteristic of early 20th-century California public life.

Simpson’s promising career took a sharp and very public turn in early 1911 with the emergence of Isabella (or Isabelle) Davis, a young Alameda stenographer who accused him of seducing her under promise of marriage. Davis pursued him relentlessly through official channels, demanding recognition, marriage, or legal redress. Accompanied by her mother, she confronted Simpson repeatedly at the City Attorney’s office, insisting he had a duty—moral and financial—to her and to the child she said was his. 

Oakland Tribune, May 2, 1911

Her anger soon escalated into one of the most sensational incidents in local memory. On May 31, 1911, Davis entered Simpson’s office with a revolver and fired a shot at him at close range. “My only regret is that I missed him,” she told the press afterward. Simpson reacted instantly, seizing her wrist and forcing the gun downward so the bullet buried itself harmlessly in the floor. She was arrested, though the scandal only deepened. Under intense pressure, Simpson married her soon after—widely seen as an attempt to prevent prosecution rather than a declaration of love. The marriage quickly disintegrated, and the pair divorced, with Davis receiving temporary alimony and support for their infant son. This episode clung to Simpson’s reputation like a shadow, and newspapers covered every detail as if it were a serialized drama.

On April 30, 1911, Simpson joined his closest friend, Judge Robert B. Tappan, for an afternoon sail aboard the sloop Carrie L. near the Alameda Yacht Club. Both men were familiar with the vessel and the waters, and the outing was expected to be routine. But as the boat came about in a strong gust, the boom swung violently and struck Simpson, knocking him overboard. Simpson, an excellent swimmer, appeared either stunned by the blow or caught in the rigging. Judge Tappan desperately tried to pull him back aboard, but he was physically incapable. Years earlier, Tappan had lost his left arm in a railroad accident, a disability that now rendered him unable to rescue his friend. “I could not save him,” he told reporters through tears. “My God, I had only one arm.” Simpson drowned before help could arrive. His body washed ashore later that day, and Alameda was plunged into shock and mourning.

Oakland Tribune, May 3, 1911

Simpson’s funeral at the Masonic Temple drew hundreds of mourners—National Guard officers, City Hall officials, fellow legislators, and longtime friends. But the most explosive scene occurred outside. Isabella Davis, styling herself “Mrs. Simpson,” arrived in a state of agitation, demanding entrance and thrusting her toddler son forward for all to see. Police barred her from entering the main hall, but her shouting and accusations could be heard inside as the service proceeded. Judge Tappan, shaken by the circumstances of Simpson’s death, delivered an emotional statement insisting that Simpson had been the victim of unfounded persecution. Even more remarkable was the address of Judge John Ellsworth, who spoke later in his courtroom. Ellsworth declared openly that he believed Simpson had been unjustly maligned and that the accusations against him were not substantiated. It was an extraordinary act—an official defense of a man whose private life had become public spectacle—and newspapers across the state printed Ellsworth’s words in full.

Simpson’s will, executed in December 1910, stunned much of Alameda. He left $25 to his young son with Davis; nearly all remaining assets, including insurance totaling about $7,900, to his sister Edna Simpson; and appointed Judge Tappan executor. Davis immediately announced she would contest the will, claiming Simpson had promised to provide far more for their child. The dispute played out in the press with characteristic volatility. Although she fought vigorously, there is no surviving record that the will was overturned; Simpson’s estate appears to have remained with his family.

Milton William “Billy” Simpson’s life encompassed the best and worst of public life in the Progressive Era: political ambition, civic duty, scandal, violence, tragic accident, public mourning, and contested memory. His dramatic demise and the chaotic aftermath left an enduring imprint on Alameda’s civic history. Today he's remembered for both his accomplishments and the extraordinary turmoil that surrounded his final year.

Sources: Oakland Tribune (May 1–4, 1911); Sacramento Union (1911); Associated Press dispatches (1910–1911); Find a Grave Memorial 284571468; California State Archives legislative records.

Prince Lasha (1929–2008): Pioneering Jazz Musician

Prince Lasha in Rolling Stone magazine

Prince Lasha—born William B. Lawsha on September 10, 1929, in Fort Worth, Texas—was one of jazz’s great sonic explorers, a restless genius of the alto saxophone, flute, and clarinet whose work bridged Texas blues, bebop, free jazz, and the avant-garde revolutions of the 1960s. His musical lineage ran deep: his grandfather played clarinet and his uncle performed with Count Basie’s orchestra. 

Lasha bought his first saxophone as a teenager with his friend Ornette Coleman—both boys working as waiters at the Texas Hotel, saving their paychecks until they could afford the instruments that would change the course of their lives. At Terrell High School he studied under the influential band director William A. Fowler and performed in the school orchestra. He also co-founded a student combo, the Tympani Five, with classmates Coleman and Charles Moffett, a group that foreshadowed the free-jazz movement they would later help shape.

Early on, Lasha’s talent was unmistakable. He became a versatile multi-instrumentalist, jamming around Fort Worth with a young David “Fathead” Newman, James Clay, and Leroy Cooper. He gave saxophone lessons to a teenage King Curtis and absorbed advanced harmonic ideas as an understudy to the legendary Buster Smith. After touring the South, he headed to New York in the mid-1950s, performing in clubs and sitting in with major jazz figures. A brief return to Texas was followed by a move to California, where he met the brilliant and equally fiery saxophonist Sonny Simmons. Their first album, The Cry! (1962), announced them as bold new voices in jazz.

Lasha soon entered the orbit of jazz royalty. In 1963 he played on Elvin Jones’s Illumination! and contributed to Eric Dolphy’s celebrated recording Iron Man, all while leading his own group at Birdland. His circle widened to include McCoy Tyner, with whom he collaborated during his fertile New York years. Lasha’s sound—light, airy, rhythmically elastic—made him one of the distinctive flute voices of the era, and his alto work had the sharp, angular phrasing associated with Coleman, though unmistakably his own.

In the mid-1960s Lasha moved to London, setting up shop in Kensington and recording the avant-garde landmark Firebirds (1967) with Charles Moffett, Bobby Hutcherson, and Simmons. Returning to the U.S., he remained fiercely independent, releasing live recordings from the Monterey and Berkeley jazz festivals on his own Birdseye label in the 1970s. His collaborative spirit continued into the 1980s, when he enlisted Herbie Hancock for the album Inside Story, further cementing his ties with jazz’s modern masters.

By the 1990s, Prince Lasha had settled in Oakland, where he quietly built a successful real-estate business but never strayed far from his musical roots. He performed at select concerts, including an annual tribute to Eric Dolphy at Yoshi’s, and in 2005 recorded The Mystery of Prince Lasha with the Odean Pope Trio. He died in Oakland on December 12, 2008 and is buried in a city that had embraced his creativity and where he left his last artistic mark.

Prince Lasha’s career defies easy categorization. He stood at the crossroads of multiple jazz revolutions, played alongside some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, and insisted on artistic independence long before it became common. 

Sources: Texas State Historical Association; princelawsha.com; Iron Man and Illumination! album documentation; interviews and public discographies; Wikipedia; Rolling Stone magazine; Oakland Tribune

Pauline Powell Burns (1877–1912): First Black Woman Artist to Exhibit in California

Pauline Powell Burns

Plot 45, Grave 844

Pauline Powell Burns occupies a landmark place in California cultural history as the first known African American woman to exhibit artwork in the state, emerging as both a gifted painter and a professional pianist at a time when opportunities for Black artists—especially women—were profoundly limited.

Born in Oakland in 1872, Burns came from a family whose American story stretches back to Monticello and Thomas Jefferson’s Hemings–Fossett family line. Her great-grandparents Joseph Fossett, a blacksmith, and Edith Fossett, a domestic worker, were emancipated upon Jefferson’s death in 1826. Other family members were not so fortunate: her grandmother Isabella was sold to satisfy Jefferson’s debts, a trauma that fractured generations. Members of the family eventually relocated to Boston, and later branches made their way to California, where Pauline was born into a household grounded in education and self-determination—her mother a schoolteacher and domestic worker, her father a railroad porter.

Burns demonstrated remarkable musical and artistic talent from a young age. By the age of 14, she was performing publicly as a pianist. But it was her visual art that placed her in the historical record: in 1890, she exhibited her paintings at the California State Fair, becoming the first Black woman known to do so. Her surviving works—including still lifes such as Fruits and Flowers—show a sophisticated hand, a command of color, and technical refinement unusual for someone with no access to formal art academies, which largely excluded African Americans at the time.

Violets by Pauline Powell Burns

She married Edward E. Burns in 1893 and continued to perform music locally, though her artistic output diminished as illness—likely tuberculosis—took hold. Burns died in 1912, her promise largely unfulfilled but her achievements quietly trailblazing.

Although Burns remains lesser-known today, she was part of a growing cohort of Black visual artists who challenged the boundaries of the Gilded Age art world. Among her contemporaries and artistic predecessors were major figures of the early African American art tradition, including Edward Mitchell Bannister, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Grafton Tyler Brown, as well as Robert S. Duncanson—whose pioneering landscape work helped shape the generation of Black painters who followed. Together, they formed an early lineage of Black American painters whose work insisted on dignity, beauty, and cultural presence at a time when such visibility was radical.

Her work, though rare, is a reminder that the history of California art is far richer and more diverse than previously acknowledged.

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Sources: Wikipedia; BlackPast.org biography “Pauline Powell Burns (1872–1912)”; California State Fair historical records; articles on Bannister, Duncanson, Tanner, Brown, and 19th-century African American painters.

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Jefferson Shannon (1831-1902): Key Figure in Founding of Fresno; Connected to Big Four Railroad Titans

Grave of Jefferson Shannon and Headshot

Plot 32 

Jefferson Milam Shannon was one of early California’s great straddlers of worlds—a frontier lawman, railroad agent, community builder, and businessman whose life paralleled the state’s rapid transformation. Born in Missouri in 1832, Shannon arrived in California in 1850 amid the Gold Rush, eventually settling in Millerton, the first county seat of Fresno County. In 1855, at the age of only 23, he was elected the first sheriff of Fresno County, a position that placed him at the center of a rough-and-tumble frontier community.

Shannon’s early years also reflect the multicultural complexity of the San Joaquin Valley. During his time in Millerton he entered into a business partnership with Ah Kitt, the pioneering Chinese merchant who would become one of the most important early commercial figures of Fresno County. Their store supplied miners, settlers, and Native communities at a time when cross-racial business partnerships between white officials and Chinese entrepreneurs were extraordinarily rare. Shannon’s partnership with Ah Kitt—who would later help establish Fresno’s Chinatown—highlights his practical approach to frontier life and his willingness to work across cultural lines at a time when anti-Chinese sentiment, including the Chinese Exclusion Act, dominated California politics.

Ah Kitt and 19th century Fresno Chinatown

As California shifted from mining camps to rail lines, Shannon shifted with it. He joined the Southern Pacific Railroad as a right-of-way man and later served in its land department as the rail network swept across the San Joaquin Valley. This work placed him squarely under the shadow of the Big Four—Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins—the railroad magnates who built the Central Pacific, dominated the Southern Pacific system, and controlled the political and economic life of the West. Shannon became one of the men who implemented their empire on the ground, helping survey lands, secure parcels, and establish new communities along the expanding rail lines. He played a key role in the founding of Fresno itself, selling the first lots in what would become downtown Fresno and shaping the layout of the emerging city.

Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland contains several figures tied closely to the Big Four’s world of rail power. David D. Colton, Huntington’s chief lieutenant and later the center of the “Colton Letters” scandal, rests in one of the cemetery’s grandest mausoleums. Stephen Gage, a high-ranking Southern Pacific executive; Horace Seaton, a capitalist involved in cases touching railroad interests; and numerous members of Charles Crocker's family are also interred there.

Shannon spent his later years as the Southern Pacific station agent in Alameda, where he continued working for the railroad until the day he died. He passed away on June 8, 1902, leaving behind his wife Rebecca and four children, including noted auditor Sidney F. Shannon of Miller & Lux, as well as valuable vineyards in Fresno County. His life—stretching from the crude mining towns of the 1850s to the structured corporate world of the Southern Pacific—captures the sweeping story of California’s transition from frontier to powerhouse.

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Sources: Alameda Times-Star (June 9, 1902); Fresno Morning Republican (June 10, 1902); Fresno City & County Historical Society (“Ah Kitt”); Biographical files on Jefferson M. Shannon; Southern Pacific historical records; Find-a-Grave memorials for Shannon, Colton, Gage, Seaton, and Crocker family; Ancestry.com

Isaac Milton Kalloch (1852–1930): Avenger, Attorney, and the Son at the Center of San Francisco’s Most Infamous Feud

Kalloch & de Young front page murder story

Isaac Milton Kalloch was born in 1852 into a family whose name became synonymous with some of the most dramatic political and journalistic battles in 19th-century San Francisco. His father, Rev. Isaac S. Kalloch, was a firebrand Baptist minister whose entry into politics during the tumultuous 1879 mayoral race set off a public war of words with the powerful de Young family, founders of The San Francisco Chronicle.

The feud escalated with stunning speed. During the campaign, Charles de Young, the Chronicle’s young and combative editor, accused Rev. Kalloch of moral improprieties in print. Kalloch retaliated from the pulpit with barbed insults of his own—including remarks aimed at the de Youngs’ late mother. On August 23, 1879, ten days before the election, de Young answered the feud with violence: lying in wait outside Metropolitan Baptist Church, he shot Rev. Kalloch twice at point-blank range as the minister stepped from a carriage. Miraculously, Kalloch survived and went on to win the mayoralty while still recovering.

Charles de Young, arrested and released on bail, eventually left town for several months. Local authorities delayed formal charges, frustrating Kalloch supporters. When he returned to San Francisco, de Young re-ignited the controversy by publishing a 60-page “biography” of Mayor Kalloch—part political attack, part personal smear.

Chronicle building where de Young was shot

When Isaac Milton Kalloch, then 28, obtained an advance copy of the pamphlet, he saw it as the final assault on his father’s character. On April 23, 1880, he armed himself, entered the Chronicle Building at Kearny and Bush Streets, and shot Charles de Young dead in the lobby. The killing stunned California and drew national attention. During his sensational trial, the younger Kalloch claimed self-defense, and in one of the most controversial verdicts in San Francisco history, a jury acquitted him.

After the trial, Kalloch retreated from public life and eventually built a quiet career as an attorney. Conflicting historical accounts arose regarding his later years. A 1910 newspaper reported that he shot himself accidentally while cleaning a revolver in preparation for a hunting trip—an incident that indeed left him seriously wounded. But despite the grave tone of early reports, he survived the mishap.

The definitive record comes from his burial information: Isaac Milton Kalloch died on May 1, 1930, decades after the newspaper feud and murder trial that made his name known throughout California. He rests far from the political storms that once swirled around him, a figure whose life embodies San Francisco’s turbulent Gilded Age—an era when newspapers wielded extraordinary power, public feuds turned deadly, and a son’s loyalty changed the course of the city’s history.

Sources: San Francisco Chronicle Vault; Los Angeles Herald (Sept. 29, 1910); The Silver State (Unionville, NV, Mar. 25, 1881); San Mateo Times (Apr. 23, 1926); NewspaperArchive.com; Find-a-Grave memorial for Isaac Milton Kalloch; Guardians of the City - San Francisco Sheriff's Office; Metropolitan Baptist Church historical accounts; The Wasp, May 8, 1880 Cover

Effie Newcomb (1872-1892): 19th Century Child Actress Who Died Young

 

Effie Newcomb Goldsmith death notice

Plot 19, Grave 2603

Effie Newcomb was a notable child actress in the 1880s, frequently performing under the stage name "Little Effie Newcomb" and sometimes billed as Effie Newcomb Hughes. She came from a family of performers, with sisters Gussie (Augusta) and Blanche Newcomb, and was the daughter of well-known minstrel and songwriter Robert Hughes Newcomb and Mary Blake, an actress and ballet dancer. 

​Effie Newcomb was part of the Newcomb family troupe, which included her sisters and parents, and was active on the American theatrical circuit in the 1880s. The Newcomb family was associated with Bobby Newcomb’s Comedy Alliance and performed productions like "Teddy the Tiger" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin," often hitting major cities and theater circuits.

Newspaper ad featuring Newcomb troupe

Effie was most famous for her role as Little Eva in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a play that traveled extensively and was a staple of 19th-century American theater. Newspaper clippings describe her as "The Wonderful Child Actress" and note her appearances with a specially trained pet pony, Prince, which became one of her stage trademarks. She was often praised in newspaper accounts for her emotional portrayal of Eva, a role requiring both pathos and charm.

Ad for Effie in Uncle Tom's Cabin

While this play was immensely popular in the 19th century and helped spread anti-slavery sentiment, it is controversial today for its use of racial stereotypes, blackface, and its portrayal of African American characters by white actors. Minstrel shows, which the Newcomb family also participated in, are now widely recognized as perpetuating racist caricatures and contributing to harmful stereotypes. 

Effie appears consistently in period programs, advertisements, and news write-ups from 1882 through the mid-1880s, particularly alongside her sisters and under her father's management. 

Her marriage is recorded as Effie Newcomb Hughes marrying Walter John Goldsmith in April 1891, under her full legal name.

Effie died at age 20, but a cause of death is not available in existing records (many San Francisco death records were destroyed in a fire). Her sister Gussie survived her, and various sources note the family's significant role in 19th-century American theater and minstrelsy.

 

Sources: Napa Valley Register, Grand Rapids Telegram-Herald, Cheyenne Daily Leader, San Francisco Chronicle