Francisco Gonzales (1937–1964): 1960 Olympian who caused fatal plane crash killing 44 people

Born in Manila in 1937, Francisco Paula Gonzales once carried the promise of an accomplished seaman and even Olympian: he represented the Philippines in the 1960 Summer Olympics’ Dragon sailing event. But by 1964, he had morphed into the perpetrator of one of the most grim chapters in American aviation history.

On May 7, 1964, Gonzales boarded Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 en route from Reno to San Francisco, seated just behind the cockpit. During the flight, he drew a .357 Magnum revolver and shot both the captain and first officer, leaving the aircraft uncontrollable. He then turned the weapon on himself, ending his life midair. On a final cockpit recording, pilot Ernest Clark can be heard saying, "I've been shot! Oh my God, help."

Flight 773 crashed into a rural hillside in southern Contra Costa County, roughly five miles east of what is now the city of San Ramon. 

Headline from the Billings Gazette

The resulting crash claimed the lives of all 44 aboard—passengers and crew alike—making it one of the deadliest acts of mass murder on California soil, and one of the earliest known cases of a passenger executing a cockpit attack in U.S. commercial aviation. 

In the years since, the incident has been held up as a chilling early warning that passenger violence could bring down an airliner, spurring subsequent changes to cockpit security procedures. Civil air regulation amendments became effective on August 6, 1964, that required that doors separating the passenger cabin from the crew compartment on all scheduled air carrier and commercial aircraft must be kept locked in flight. 

Gonzales’s trajectory—from Olympic sailor to mass murderer—is a stark reminder that behind public achievements can lie hidden turmoil: he had reportedly been under severe financial strain, faced marital dissolution, and had in prior days brandished his weapon to acquaintances while intimating an intention to die. His family said that he has making frequent trip to Reno where he had accrued large gambling debts. 

Gonzalez was living in San Francisco and working at a department store warehouse at the time of the incident. 

Sources: Phoenix Daily Gazette, Find a Grave, Wikipedia, Billings Gazette, Civil Aeronautics Board accident report on Pacific Air Lines Flight 773, Humboldt Times, Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives

Horace Seaton (1842-1889): Protégé of a Railroad Baron; Struck Down in His Prime

Seaton Grave and Death Notice

Plot 28, Lot 13

When Horace Seaton died suddenly in Oakland in October 1889 at only forty-six years old, he left behind one of the largest fortunes in the city—an estate valued between $350,000 and $1 million at the time. In 2025 dollars, that is the equivalent of $12–35 million, a staggering sum that marked him as one of Oakland’s wealthiest citizens. His rise from a young clerk in Sacramento to a “capitalist” whose name was synonymous with landed wealth was fueled by a family connection to one of the most powerful men in California history: Collis P. Huntington.

Born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1842, Seaton was still in his early twenties when he came west. He had a powerful ally waiting: his aunt had been the first wife of Collis Potter Huntington, one of the famed “Big Four” who built the Central Pacific Railroad (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker). Huntington was not only a railroad tycoon but also a political deal-maker, and his patronage gave Seaton entrée into circles of power that few young men could have imagined.

House of Huntington, Hopkins Co. in San Francisco and Sacramento

Seaton began his California career with Huntington, Hopkins & Co., the mercantile firm in Sacramento that outfitted miners and settlers. Ambitious and clever, he rose from clerk to partner before cashing out his share and turning to real estate speculation. That pivot proved shrewd: over the next two decades he amassed holdings across California and in West Virginia, with vast tracts of land and a mansion in Oakland that had once belonged to Dr. H. S. Glenn, a wealthy land baron.

Glenn’s house had a curious reputation in Oakland lore. After Glenn’s murder in 1883, neighbors whispered that the mansion was haunted—strange noises and unexplained occurrences reportedly plagued the property. By the time Seaton bought it, the house was already tinged with a sense of foreboding, making his own early death all the more chilling in retrospect. Two other owners also met early demises. 

Seaton married and had three children—Willard, Scott, and Etta May (later Mrs. R. P. Hoe of Cincinnati). He was active in civic life, a Mason, an Odd Fellow, and a Knight Templar. But in the summer of 1889, his health collapsed. A paralytic stroke left him weakened, and within weeks, rheumatic gout carried him off.

His estate was divided between his widow and children, his fortune transformed into trusts and real estate holdings.

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Sources: Oakland Tribune (Oct. 24, 1889); Sacramento Daily Record-Union (Dec. 5, 1885; Oct. 26 & 28, 1889); newspaper obituaries and estate notices; Find a Grave; Grave photo by Michael Colbruno; LocalWiki

 

Lloyd Sampsel (1900-1952): "The Yacht Bandit" Who Topped FBI's "Most Wanted" List

Booking photo with name misspelled

He was once described in society pages as a "charming, debonair yachtsman" — until the headlines darkened, and Lloyd Edison Sampsel became one of America’s most notorious criminals. Known to the press as the “Yacht Bandit,” Sampsel’s crime spree, prison scandals, and final gas-chamber fate made him a legend of infamy on both coasts.

Sampsel’s first foray into crime came in the late 1920s, when he began a series of audacious robberies that quickly distinguished him from ordinary thieves. His exploits gained national attention when he and his gang targeted the floating gambling dens that dotted the California coast. These “gambling ships” lay in international waters off Los Angeles, beyond the reach of state law, and attracted wealthy patrons looking for high-stakes games and free-flowing liquor.

Oakland Tribune

Sampsel and his crew not only robbed the ships but cleverly used a yacht as their base of operations. Newspapers dubbed him the “Yacht Bandit,” and the name stuck, branding him with a mix of glamour and menace that followed him for decades. At a time when America thrilled to stories of gangsters like John Dillinger and “Machine Gun” Kelly, Sampsel carved out his own West Coast legend.

The law eventually caught up with Sampsel, and by the early 1930s he found himself serving time in Folsom Prison. But confinement only added to his notoriety. In 1943, while supposedly serving a life sentence, Sampsel managed to arrange a series of illicit conjugal visits with his wife in San Francisco, aided by bribed guards. When the scandal broke, it triggered a major investigation into corruption at Folsom, further cementing his reputation as both cunning and dangerous.

Prison Photo and New Article

Even prison walls could not contain the myth of the “Yacht Bandit.” He cultivated a debonair image that contrasted sharply with the violence of his crimes, a contradiction that fascinated reporters and the public alike.

Released on parole after years in prison, Sampsel wasted no time in returning to crime. In 1948, during a bank robbery in Chula Vista, near San Diego, he killed a man. The act elevated him from an infamous robber to a convicted murderer, and law enforcement now regarded him as one of the most dangerous men in America.

Headline in Brainerd Daily Dispatch

 By 1949, the FBI placed him on its “Most Wanted” list, calling him “the West’s No. 1 bandit.” The man once described as a charming yachtsman had become a symbol of unrepentant criminality.

Sampsel’s luck finally ran out when he was captured and brought to trial for the Chula Vista killing. The proceedings drew wide attention, with the press relishing every detail of the once-glamorous outlaw brought low. He was convicted and sentenced to death.

 In his book, "The San Quentin Story,"  Warden Clinton Duffy wrote:

At his trial Sampsel dumfounded the prosecutor and his own attorney with an extraordinary monologue in which he recounted all the sordid facets of his life, his various prison terms, and all his crimes. It was a suicidal oration, and the jury had no choice. “It appears to the court,” the trial judge said, “that the defendant, in testifying on his own behalf, was somewhat of an egotist, and in his desire to tell of his past exploits testified to things that would not have been shown against him.” He was convicted and sentenced to death—a penalty he must have wanted for himself. 

On April 25, 1952, Lloyd Edison Sampsel was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison. He was 52 years old. The “Yacht Bandit,” who had spent most of his adult life behind bars or on the run, died as he had lived—surrounded by headlines.

Before his death, Sampsel wrote a 36-page manuscript entitled "Thirty Day to Live," which he mailed to his then 75-year-old father. There is no evidence that it was ever published or made public.

Despite his life of crime, Sampsel’s family remained connected to him to the end. His father, then a retired restaurateur, arranged for funeral services.

Sources: Los Angeles Times (May 3, 1952; Apr. 21, 2002); California Death Records; Washington Birth Index; World War I Draft Registration Card (1918); California Prison and Correctional Records; Find a Grave; Oakland Tribune; Richmond Record Herald; Berkeley Daily Gazette; Brainerd Daily Dispatch; "The San Quentin Story"  by Warden Clinton Duffy

Colonel David L. Smoot (1835-1900): From Confederate Leader to San Francisco District Attorney

Smoot Family Gravestone

Plot 37

David Lowe Smoot was born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1835 and rose to prominence during the Civil War as a Confederate officer. He commanded a regiment in the Virginia artillery and earned the honorific “Colonel,” by which he was known the rest of his life. Like many Southern men of his generation, Smoot’s loyalties during the war would forever mark his public reputation.

One telling episode occurred when Smoot and a companion attempted to run the Union blockade with a cargo of whiskey aboard the sloop Bonita. Intercepted by the U.S. steamer Eureka while making for Maddox Creek, Virginia, they tried to throw their cargo overboard before capture. Both men were arrested and lodged in Washington’s Old Capitol Prison.

Wool Cap made by Smoot while POW

After the war, Smoot resumed his legal career in Virginia, but in July 1876 he and his family left Alexandria for San Francisco. The Alexandria Gazette reported his departure with regret, describing him as “a gentleman of much popularity and legal ability.” Once in California, Smoot quickly integrated into the Bay Area’s legal community. Within three years he had been elected District Attorney of San Francisco (1880–1882), the office responsible for prosecuting criminal cases. While his term produced no landmark trials remembered today, his election underscored the respect he had won in his adopted city despite his Confederate past.

Following his time as DA, Smoot moved across the Bay to Oakland, where he practiced law until the 1890s. He later retired to Hayward, but remained active in fraternal and civic circles, particularly the Masons. He died in February 1900 at the age of 65 at the East Oakland home of his son-in-law Benjamin Harvey. 

Smoot never publicly renounced his Confederate allegiance, at least in the records that survive, and his life presents a striking contrast: a onetime Confederate colonel captured smuggling whiskey through a blockade, later serving as the elected chief prosecutor of San Francisco. Today, he is remembered less for any enduring legal legacy than as an emblem of how former Confederates remade their lives far from the South in the decades after the Civil War.

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Sources: San Francisco Call, Feb. 12–13, 1900; Alexandria Gazette, July 31, 1876; Virginia Chronicle notice re: capture of the sloop Bonita; SeekingMyRoots genealogy files, Oakland Tribune, Find a Grave

Anson Barstow (1831-1906): Oakland Businessman and Mayor

 

Barstow obituary and Family Plot

Plot 35, Lot 34

Anson Barstow was born on November 29, 1831, in Haverhill, New Hampshire, and like many young men of his generation, was lured westward by the California Gold Rush. He made the long journey around Cape Horn in 1849, arriving in San Francisco the following year. Barstow spent his early years mining, and by all accounts, his ventures met with success. After a period back in New Hampshire, where he married Sarah S. Barstow, he returned permanently to California in the 1860s and soon took up a federal appointment as Collector of Customs, later serving as general weigher under General J. L. Abbot.

Drawn by Oakland’s promise, Barstow settled there in 1870 and established both his home and business life. By 1873, he had entered the city’s thriving grain and fuel markets, founding several partnerships over the decades. The firm Sarpy & Barstow, based on 11th Street, dealt in flour, hay, and feed. Later, he co-founded Barstow & Babbitt with Salmon M. Babbitt, operating from the corner of 13th and Franklin Streets, selling hay, grain, coal, and wood. Barstow also worked under the banner of Barstow & Garber before ultimately consolidating his operations into a successful coal and wood yard that supplied a rapidly growing Oakland. He conducted this business for nearly thirty years before transferring it in 1902 to Charles A. Harlow, a longtime associate, marking his retirement from commerce.

Barstow’s reputation as a solid businessman helped propel him into politics. He was first elected to the Oakland City Council in 1893, representing the Fifth Ward, and later won an at-large seat. During his second term he served as president of the council. In 1901, he was elected Mayor of Oakland in a close five-way race, presiding over the city during a period of rapid change. As mayor, he was also Commissioner of Public Works and became known for his attention to infrastructure and fiscal caution. He vetoed a proposed fifty-year telephone franchise in 1902, arguing it would unduly burden Oakland’s streets and tie the city to inflexible terms. His civic prominence also placed him at the forefront of major events, such as welcoming President William McKinley during his visit to Oakland in May 1901.

Personally, Barstow was known as a man of steady habits and deep faith, active in the First Presbyterian Church. On February 5, 1906, after a brief illness complicated by apoplexy, Anson Barstow died at his home at the age of seventy-four. His funeral drew many civic leaders, including Mayor Frank K. Mott and other prominent Oaklanders who served as pallbearers. 

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Sources: Oakland Tribune (March 11, 1899); Oakland Tribune (Nov. 12, 1902); San Francisco Call (Feb. 6, 1906); LocalWiki Oakland – “Anson Barstow”; Wikipedia – “List of Mayors of Oakland, California”, Find a Grave

Orville Caldwell (1896-1967): Actor and Racist Deputy L.A. Mayor

Orville Caldwell and Grave marker

Urn Garden, Grave 30

Orville Robert Caldwell (1896–1967) lived a life that bridged the glamour of silent-era Hollywood and the gritty realities of mid-century Los Angeles politics. Born in Oakland, California, in 1896, Caldwell grew up in the Bay Area before making his way to Hollywood in the 1920s, where he carved out a modest but memorable career as a leading man in silent films.

Caldwell’s Hollywood career spanned from 1923 to 1938, encompassing more than twenty films. He first appeared in titles such as The Scarlet Lily (1923) and The French Doll (1923), which showcased him as a tall, handsome figure well-suited for the romantic and dramatic roles of the era. His most celebrated performance came in King Vidor’s 1928 comedy The Patsy, where he played Tony opposite Marion Davies. He also starred as David Langston in The Harvester (1927), a film adapted from Gene Stratton-Porter’s popular novel. Other projects, like Sackcloth and Scarlet (1925), further added to his résumé, though many of these films are now lost, leaving only reviews and promotional materials to attest to his work. As sound pictures rose to dominance, Caldwell’s opportunities diminished. By the 1930s his screen appearances were largely reduced to uncredited bit parts, such as inspectors, wardens, or political figures—roles that in hindsight foreshadowed his later career outside the screen.

Caldwell Hollywood headshot

When acting no longer offered stability, Caldwell shifted into public service. In 1942, he became Los Angeles’s first Deputy Mayor, a position he held until 1951. His tenure coincided with a period of enormous change in the city, as Los Angeles became a wartime hub and postwar magnet for new residents. Yet Caldwell’s political career was deeply marked by his regressive views on race. He openly opposed the migration of African Americans into California, at one point suggesting a ban on Black migration to the state. He expressed disdain for “Bronzeville,” a name used for predominantly African American neighborhoods, and he toured Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo district during the war years, commenting unfavorably on the African American residents who had moved into the vacated Japanese American community. These remarks reflected not just Caldwell’s personal prejudices but also the broader municipal culture of segregation, restrictive housing policies, and exclusionary practices that shaped Los Angeles politics in the mid-twentieth century.

Caldwell movie poster

After leaving public service, he retired quietly and spent his final years away from the spotlight. He died in Santa Rosa, California, in 1967, leaving behind a fragmented cinematic legacy and a controversial political record that continues to draw the attention of historians.

Sources: Wikipedia; IMDb; Silent Film Festival program notes; LA City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present (Josh Sides, University of California Press, 2003), Find a Grave

Washburne Royal Andrus (1841-1895): Anti-Chinese Oakland Mayor

Andrus Family Plot

Plot 13, Lot 28

Washburne Royal Andrus was a two-term mayor of Oakland during a turbulent period in the city’s history, remembered both for his populist rise to office and his deeply prejudiced views toward Chinese immigrants. Born in Farmington, Connecticut, in 1841, Andrus came west to California in 1873. He became connected with the San Francisco Manufacturing Company, establishing himself in business before moving into politics.

By the late 1870s, Oakland was experiencing rapid population growth, expanding from 10,000 residents to more than 40,000 in a single decade. At the same time, economic pressures and xenophobic sentiment gave rise to the Workingmen’s Party, a populist, labor-oriented movement that found fertile ground in Oakland. Andrus was elected mayor in 1878 on that party’s platform, which was explicitly built on opposition to Chinese immigration. He won reelection, defeating D.W. Standefer, who had backing from both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Workingman's Party poster

As mayor, Andrus was noted for signing an ordinance authorizing lawsuits over Oakland’s waterfront, a measure so controversial that he was reportedly offered $8,000 to veto it—an offer he declined. He also pressed for stronger fiscal restraint, warning that Oakland risked a financial “derangement” if the city council continued to overspend.

Nearly a century after his mayoralty, a handwritten “state of the city” address by Andrus, composed in 1879, was rediscovered in a City Hall cabinet. Spanning 52 pages, the address revealed both the challenges and the prejudices of Oakland leadership at the time. Andrus warned of a looming budget deficit, urged expansion of the police force from 22 to 30 officers, and cautioned against political favoritism in hiring. He also expressed frustration over alleged corruption in school affairs, including the rumored sale of examination questions and questionable contracting practices.

On crime, Andrus portrayed Oakland as unusually safe, noting that most offenses were petty in nature and that the extension of gas lamps into remote parts of the city had virtually eliminated highway robberies. He also sketched the qualities he believed essential for law enforcement officers: temperate habits, tact, shrewd judgment, and a gentlemanly demeanor.

The same rediscovered address also laid bare Andrus’s anti-Chinese stance. Reflecting the platform of the Workingmen’s Party, he railed against “the swarm of Chinese vegetable peddlers who infest the city.” His rhetoric mirrored widespread anti-Chinese agitation in California during the late 19th century, which culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. While Andrus saw the presence of Chinese immigrants as a civic threat, later Oakland leaders would acknowledge both the racial bias of his remarks and the resilience of the Chinese community. In 1975, then-Mayor John H. Reading contrasted Andrus’s words with historical reality, noting that “the passage of years has shown the Chinese to be the most stable of any of our ethnic populations.”

After leaving office, Andrus was appointed secretary of the Board of Railroad Commissioners in 1880, a post he held until 1887. His personal health, however, steadily declined. Around 1889, his eyesight failed, forcing him to retire from business. In December 1894, he suffered a paralytic stroke and became bedridden until his death on June 7, 1895. He was cared for by his wife, whom he had married in 1886.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Oakland Mayor Jean Quan (Atlantic magazine)

In 2010, 132 years after Washburne Royal Andrus first held the office in 1878, Jean Quan was elected mayor of Oakland. Her victory marked a watershed moment, as she became Oakland’s first Asian American mayor, serving at the same time Ed Lee became San Francisco’s first Asian American mayor. Together their service maked a turning point in Bay Area politics toward greater inclusion. That milestone resonates especially in light of the exclusionary sentiments voiced by 19th-century civic figures like Andrus, who publicly railed against Chinese immigrants. 

Beyond her role in political history, Quan is also a serious history buff: she is known to join docent-led tours at Mountain View Cemetery, where she engages with the stories and legacies of Oakland’s past on a personal level. She shares much of this history on her own social media.

Sources: Olathe Daily News, San Francisco Call, Oakland Tribune, Find a Grave, Wikipedia, Atlantic magazine

William Marriott (1893-1969): MLB Infielder for Chicago, Brooklyn & Boston

Bill Marriott and Crypt

Mausoleum, Garden Terrace, Crypt C281, Tier 2

Bill Marriott was an American professional baseball infielder, primarily a third baseman, who had a sporadic but noteworthy major-league career in the 1910s and 1920s.

Marriott was born in Pratt, Kansas. Before rising to the majors, he spent several seasons in minor league ball, playing a variety of infield and outfield roles. 

Marriott made his MLB debut for the Chicago Cubs on September 6, 1917. He played briefly for Chicago in 1917, then returned to the majors in 1920 and 1921 with the Cubs. After a gap, he resurfaced in the big leagues in 1925 with the Boston Braves, and then with the Brooklyn Robins (later the Dodgers) in 1926–1927. His final major league game came on April 28, 1927.

Over six major league seasons, Marriott compiled a batting average of .266, notched 220 hits in 826 at bats, drove in 95 runs, hit 4 home runs, and stole 16 bases. His on-base percentage was .317, with a slugging percentage of .348 (OPS .664). Defensively, he was used mostly at third base, though his minor league record shows occasional stints in other infield and outfield spots.

Canceled check from Cubs

Though he never became a star, Marriott’s persistence in returning to the majors after gaps in his playing time reflects the itinerant journeyman nature of many players in the early 20th century.

Beyond his professional club baseball, Marriott also participated in baseball while in military service. In 1919, he was a member of the United States national baseball team composed of active servicemen that competed at the Inter-Allied Games held in Paris in the wake of World War I. That event aimed to foster goodwill and athletic camaraderie among allied nations in the immediate postwar period.

After his major league days concluded, Marriott continued to play in the minor leagues into the 1930s. He passed away on August 11, 1969, in Berkeley, California, just a week shy of his 76th birthday.

Sources: Baseball Reference, Wikipedia, Find a Grave, MLB.com , Baseball Almanac

Barbara Eastman (1897-1986): Prolific Chronicler of Tuolomne County

Main Mausoleum

Barbara Eastman was a meticulous local historian whose life’s work helped cement the documentary record of Columbia and greater Tuolumne County. Beginning around 1950—sparked by a visit to the newly established Columbia State Historic Park to research one of her husband’s relatives—Eastman forged collaborations with park curators and county archivist Carlo De Ferrari, setting off decades of collecting, indexing, and writing. 

Over more than twenty-five years, Eastman compiled an extraordinary private research trove: thousands of typed notes, transcripts, and subject files on Gold Rush–era people, places, and institutions. A representative portion of this work survives as the “Barbara Eastman collection concerning Columbia and Tuolumne County” at The Bancroft Library (BANC MSS C-R 76), which includes typescript notes and a Columbia Registry of Deaths. Her broader files are dispersed today among regional repositories—including Columbia State Historic Park and the Tuolumne County Historical Society (TCHS), whose catalogs and programs continue to feature the “Barbara Eastman Collection.”

Yearbook photo

Eastman also recorded oral histories and appeared as an interviewee for Columbia College’s Oral History Series, discussing topics such as the “History of Springfield,” the Tuolumne County Water Company, and the “Uniqueness of Columbia.” These recordings and indexes underscore her role as both source and synthesizer of community memory.

Eastman’s careful notes on water systems—especially the Tuolumne County Water Company—continue to inform professional historical studies and environmental reviews; modern reports explicitly credit her Columbia SHP–archived research for detailing the system’s 19th-century development. Her writings reached the public through Chispa, the quarterly of TCHS. Among her contributions is “The Story of the Columbia Schools,” an early example of how she wove fragmentary records into readable local history.  

You can listen to Barbara Eastman HERE talking about some of the history that she compiled. 

Sources: Bancroft Library, Tuolumne County Historical Society, Tuolumne Utility District, Columbia College Library, Find a Grave 

Billy Bloomfield (1886-1966): Rare 30-Game Winner Pitching in California League

From roughly 1905 to 1915, Billy Bloomfield was a professional pitcher who played for a number of clubs in the Pacific Coast League, California League, Northwestern League, and the Trolley League of Northern California. He also pitched for an independent team sponsored by United Railways in San Francisco. In 1909, while pitching for the Oakland Commuters, Bloomfield joined the rare ranks of 30-game winners with a 31-17 record, cementing his reputation as a standout on the mound.

The Oakland Commuters were a minor league baseball team that played in the California League, the California State League and the Pacific Coast League from 1901 to 1915. Largely forgotten today, they were nomads in a time before Oakland had a permanent ballpark for them. The Commuters received their name because they lacked a homefield. For their entire existence, they bounced around ballparks such as Freeman’s Park, Idora Park and Dover Street Park. 

Billy Bloomfield's crypt in the Main Mausoleum

As a pitcher, he compiled a 61-49 career record for a 55.5% winning percentage. He also had 348 career at-bats with a .246 batting average, which included 10 doubles, 11 triples and 2 home runs. 

Sources: Baseball Reference, San Francisco Call, Oakland Tribune, Wikipedia 

Noah Norton (1788–1871): Founder of Nortonville and Black Diamond Mines, Where Wife's Ghost Still Haunts!

Black Diamond Mines and Norton/Webster grave marker

Lot 1, Plot 327

Noah Norton (1788–1871) was one of those remarkable frontier figures whose life spanned wars, migrations, and industrial revolutions. Born at Norton Hill, Greene County, New York, he served as a lieutenant in the War of 1812, where he distinguished himself at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane, earning the notice of General Winfield Scott. Later, during the Mexican-American War, he again served under Scott, this time in secret service. Between these chapters, he helped establish Adrian, Michigan, where he became the first brickmaker and one of its earliest settlers.

Yet it was in California where Norton left his most lasting mark. Like so many veterans and adventurers of his generation, he caught gold fever and journeyed west. By 1855, he had turned his attention from precious metals to coal, founding the town of Nortonville in the rolling hills north of Mount Diablo. In 1861, he confirmed the discovery of a rich coal seam—soon nicknamed “black diamonds.” This discovery would give rise to the Black Diamond Mines, the first and largest coal mining region in California.

Nortonville from EBRPD website

Coal was a critical energy source for a rapidly industrializing state. In the 1850s and 1860s, California needed fuel for steamships that plied the coast, for the expanding railroad network, for factories, and for homes in fast-growing cities like San Francisco and Stockton. The Contra Costa deposits offered exactly what was needed. By the 1860s, companies like the Black Diamond Coal Mining Company consolidated the operations and expanded them into one of California’s most important energy suppliers.

The coal towns of Nortonville, Somersville, Stewartville, West Hartley, and Judsonville sprang up almost overnight. Nortonville, named for its founder, became the hub, while Somersville grew into the largest and most cosmopolitan of the five settlements. Together they thrived for decades, drawing immigrants from Wales, Ireland, Italy, and beyond. At its height, the region produced nearly four million tons of coal, helping to power ships, locomotives, power plants, and furnaces across Northern California.

Life in the mines was grueling and often dangerous. Men and boys, some as young as eight, labored underground in narrow shafts lit only by flickering lamps. Cave-ins, explosions, and respiratory illnesses were constant threats. Families lived in modest company-owned houses, often with little more than coal dust for a garden bed. Yet community life also blossomed—schools, churches, saloons, and theaters gave a sense of stability, and the miners’ resilience built a proud legacy of labor in California’s early industrial history.

Black Diamond Mines from EBRPD website

By the early 1900s, however, coal’s future had dimmed. Rising costs of extraction, along with competition from cheaper and more efficient fuels like petroleum and natural gas, forced the mines to close around 1906. The towns were abandoned, their residents scattering to nearby farming and industrial communities. The landscape slowly reclaimed the once-bustling settlements, leaving only faint traces. Today, the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve protects this legacy, allowing visitors to walk among ruins, restored mine shafts, and the Rose Hill Cemetery, where many of the miners and their families rest.

Sarah Norton and Rose Hill Cemetery gravestone

Noah Norton’s pioneering spirit made Nortonville possible, but the story of the community is also inseparable from his widow, Sarah Norton. Unlike her husband, Sarah was remembered less for founding than for nurturing. Known for her independent nature and her skepticism toward religion, Sarah nonetheless played a vital role in the everyday life of the mining families as a midwife. She was in constant demand, venturing out at all hours of the night, in all manner of weather, to assist women through childbirth. In an era when professional medical care was limited and mortality rates were high, Sarah’s skill and dedication made her indispensable to the coal towns.

Her death in 1879 became one of the region’s enduring legends. On October 5, while on her way to visit a sick woman, Sarah’s horse bolted, throwing her from her buggy and killing her. Her funeral took a dramatic turn. As her body was carried into the church, a fierce storm erupted, scattering the mourners. The next day, a second attempt to hold services was again disrupted by a violent storm. Believing this to be Sarah’s own rejection of religious rites, her friends buried her quietly at Rose Hill Cemetery without ceremony.

From that moment, folklore began to grow around her grave. Locals claimed Sarah’s ghost haunted the hills—sometimes appearing as a glowing lady, sometimes called the “White Witch” or the “Gliding Woman.” Over the years, stories multiplied: a phantom horse-drawn hearse, children dressed in black, and even a glowing cross hovering in the cemetery. Whether rooted in imagination, atmospheric phenomena, or the grief of a close-knit community, the legend of Sarah Norton remains one of the most compelling ghost stories in the East Bay.

Noah and Sarah Norton together embody the dual heritage of Nortonville. Noah, the soldier and founder, brought energy and vision to the rugged hills, helping ignite California’s first coal boom. Sarah, the healer and skeptic, represented the daily endurance of community life, her legend transcending death itself. Though the towns of the Black Diamond Mines have long vanished, their history—and their hauntings—remain preserved in the hills above Contra Costa County, where visitors still walk among the remnants of a vanished age. 

Sources: East Bay Regional Park District, Wikipedia, Find a Grave, "Biographical Sketches Of Early And Prominent Settlers And Representative Men" by J.P. Munro-Fraser (1882), History of Contra Costa County, California Historical Society (mine photo)

Rev. Thomas Fraser (1820–1903): Influential Presbyterian Minister

Rev. Thomas Fraser

Plot 14B, Lot 22

Rev. Thomas Fraser, D.D., was one of the most influential Presbyterian missionaries on the Pacific Coast, a man of tireless energy whose labors spanned more than half a century and left a permanent mark on the church in the American West.

Born in Dalkeith, Scotland, in 1820, Fraser came to the United States in 1825 with his father, the Rev. Thomas Fraser, Sr., a Presbyterian clergyman who became pastor of the first Presbyterian church in Schenectady, New York. Raised in a family steeped in Presbyterian tradition, young Fraser pursued a classical education, graduating from Union College in 1842. He studied theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, completing his course in 1845, and was ordained the following year by the Presbytery of New York.

Fraser’s early ministry took him to the Midwest and South. He served congregations in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Arkansas, where he became pastor of the first Presbyterian church in Little Rock. In 1859, newly married to Julia Beebe, he traveled west to California. Settling first in Santa Rosa, he began preaching wherever he could find a pulpit—often in borrowed Baptist and Methodist churches.

First Presbyterian Church, Santa Rosa

His efforts soon bore fruit. By the early 1860s, Fraser helped organize Presbyterian congregations in Santa Rosa, Two Rock, Bloomfield, and Tomales, extending his reach to Valley Ford and Bodega Corners. In July 1862, at the request of thirteen dedicated men and women, Fraser formally organized the Old School Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa. For years, he supplied pulpits across Sonoma County, often alternating Sundays between Santa Rosa and outlying communities. His father even spent the winter of 1867–68 in Santa Rosa, continuing his son’s ministry while Fraser pursued broader mission work.

Beyond Sonoma, Fraser’s impact was immense. In 1867 he was appointed Synodical Missionary for the Synod of the Pacific, a vast territory stretching from Mexico to British Columbia and from the Rockies to the Pacific. For fifteen years he traveled thousands of miles, founding congregations wherever he went. By his own estimate, he organized no fewer than seventy-five churches, though some later accounts place the number closer to one hundred. Few men did more to plant Presbyterianism in the American West.

Fraser was also active in higher education. In 1887, at the age of sixty-seven, he was appointed Professor of Systematic Theology at the San Francisco Theological Seminary. Though he initially resisted the move of the seminary from San Francisco to San Anselmo, he embraced his duties with vigor and taught for five years. Known as an acute and logical thinker, Fraser combined a deep piety with intellectual clarity, training a new generation of Presbyterian ministers.

He was equally unafraid to voice his convictions on civic matters. During the Civil War, his Santa Rosa sermons were noted for their stirring support of the Union. Later in life he was among the first Western clergy to publicly denounce the “free silver” movement, addressing a gathering of ministers in San Francisco with characteristic candor.

First Presbyterian Church in Oakland

In 1893, Fraser relocated to Oakland, where he spent his final decade. Though officially retired, he continued to preach as an evangelist and to encourage the churches he had founded. His home at 916 Myrtle Street became a place of study, counsel, and quiet reflection.

Rev. Thomas Fraser died on October 25, 1903, at the age of eighty-three, after a brief illness with pneumonia. His passing was mourned across the Pacific Coast, where he was remembered as a pioneer preacher, a builder of churches, and a father of Presbyterianism in the region.

Rev. Thomas Fraser from obituary

He was survived by his daughter, Julia Fraser, herself active in church work, and by a stepson, Charles W. Beebe. His funeral was held at the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, a fitting resting place for a man who had devoted his life to planting and nurturing congregations across the West.

The legacy of Rev. Thomas Fraser endures in the many churches he organized, the students he trained, and the generations of worshippers who benefited from his vision, energy, and steadfast faith. 

Sources: History of the San Francisco Theological Seminary (1907), San Francisco Call, History of Sonoma County (1880), Find a Grave, Harvey Hansen Collection (Santa Rosa church photo)

Isabel Baldwin (1851-1938): California Champion for Women’s Equality

 

Baldwin family grave and San Francisco Call headline

Lot 13

Isabel Amelia Wheaton Baldwin was a tireless advocate for women’s equality and a central figure in California’s suffrage movement. Born in Somerset, Massachusetts, she moved to Oakland with her husband, attorney Lloyd Baldwin, in the 1870s. After his untimely death in 1885, Isabel raised their three surviving children on her own while devoting increasing energy to civic and women’s rights causes.

In the mid-1890s, Baldwin helped found the Alameda County Political Equality Society, an organization dedicated to building support for women’s suffrage through lectures, debates, and personal outreach. As its president, she presided over lively meetings that drew prominent legislators and suffrage leaders. Her steady leadership was noted in the press—she often settled heated parliamentary disputes by appealing to rulings made by national icons like Susan B. Anthony. The society also passed resolutions urging Alameda County’s representatives in Sacramento to support resubmission of a state constitutional amendment granting women the vote.

Baldwin’s influence extended beyond Alameda County. She served as Vice-President of the Vernon Heights Political Equality Club, President and later Vice-President of the Susan B. Anthony Club in San Francisco, and was a frequent delegate to state and national suffrage conventions. She welcomed leading reformers such as Susan B. Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, and Carrie Chapman Catt into her Oakland home, making it a hub for suffrage organizing.

In 1898, Baldwin issued an appeal asking Californians to financially support the National Suffrage Association’s campaigns in South Dakota and Washington. Though some local activists resisted aligning too closely with the national organization, Baldwin believed solidarity was essential, arguing that California’s successes could strengthen movements elsewhere.

Women's Right to Vote Rally (The Repository)

By the early 20th century, Baldwin’s activism became increasingly national in scope. She attended the 1905 National Equal Suffrage Convention in Portland and represented California at the 1910 national convention in Washington, D.C. In 1915, she joined the Congressional Union for Woman’s Suffrage (later the National Woman’s Party), working with Alice Paul’s allies to press for a federal amendment. That same year, Baldwin and other activists boldly attempted to confront members of Congress meeting in San Francisco, demanding they recognize that California’s enfranchised women wanted the ballot extended nationwide.

Even outside suffrage, Baldwin’s civic work was extensive. She was active in the Oakland Ebell Society, the Unitarian Church, and served as California director for the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women.

Isabel Baldwin lived to see women win the right to vote nationally in 1920. She passed away in Oakland in 1938 at the age of 86 and is buried at Mountain View Cemetery. Her lifelong dedication helped lay the groundwork for future generations of women to fully participate in American democracy.

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“Suffragette” vs "Suffagist"

In the U.S., the term “suffragist” was generally preferred by activists themselves, while “suffragette” was a British term often used dismissively in its early years. Today, “suffragist” is considered more historically accurate and respectful for American women like Isabel Baldwin, though “suffragette” is still widely understood.

Sources: Find a Grave, The Repository, San Francisco Call, Oakland Tribune, Chronicling America, Wikipedia

Robert Barton (1839-1891): Wealthy Vintner who Funded Fresno Opera House

Burial place of Robert Barton and Funeral Article

Lux Family Mausoleum

In the late nineteenth century, when Fresno was still an emerging agricultural hub in California’s Central Valley, one of its most ambitious citizens was Robert Barton. Known primarily as a vineyardist, Barton left an enduring legacy not only in the cultivation of grapes but also in the cultural life of the city. His name is most closely associated with the Barton Opera House, a grand theater that opened its doors in 1890 and symbolized Fresno’s aspirations to become a modern city with a flourishing civic identity.

Robert Barton established himself in Fresno as a vintner, one of many who saw opportunity in the fertile lands of the San Joaquin Valley. The region’s vineyards were expanding rapidly, producing grapes for wine, raisins, and table fruit. Barton was part of that early wave of growers who helped transform Fresno into a center of viticulture. Yet he was more than a farmer and businessman. He also envisioned Fresno as a city that should offer the same cultural amenities as larger, more established urban centers in California. For Barton, agriculture provided the economic foundation, but the arts would provide the soul.

Barton Opera House (Photo: San Joaquin Valley Library)

To that end, Barton financed and constructed the Barton Opera House, which officially opened on September 29, 1890. Located at the corner of J and Fresno Streets, the building combined a large auditorium with an “Armory Hall” and was designed to serve as both a theater and a gathering space. At the time of its opening, it was hailed as a state-of-the-art facility, boasting a seating capacity of roughly 1,500. Its scale and modernity reflected Barton’s belief that Fresno’s growing population deserved access to the best in music, theater, and public assembly.

The Opera House quickly became the cultural heart of Fresno, hosting traveling theatrical troupes, musical performances, lectures, and community events. For a city that had only recently risen from the dust of the Central Valley, the Opera House offered an air of sophistication and cosmopolitan life. Barton’s venture showed that Fresno was not only about vineyards and farms; it was also about civic pride and cultural aspiration.

Barton Opera House playbill

Though Barton’s tenure as its patron was brief, the Opera House itself endured for several decades. By the early 1900s it had shifted into the orbit of national theater chains and was later remodeled for vaudeville and moving pictures. It reopened in 1917 as the Hippodrome Theatre and remained in use until it was finally demolished in 1927. On its site rose the State Theatre, part of the next wave of entertainment palaces that dominated the early twentieth century. Even though the building no longer exists, the Barton Opera House is remembered as Fresno’s first major cultural institution.

Barton did not live long to enjoy the fruits of his vision. He died in 1891, scarcely a year after the Opera House opened. Contemporary accounts record that he succumbed to “la grippe,” the influenza epidemic that swept through California at the time. His remains were transported to the Bay Area and interred in the Lux Vault at Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery. His obituary in the Fresno Morning Republican states that a number of his friends from Fresno attended the funeral. His pallbearers included many notable Oaklanders including Isaac Requa and James Treadwell.

Robert Barton appears to have had a significant, though somewhat ambiguous, connection to Charles Lux’s estate. After Lux’s death, Barton is noted for investing a substantial $450,000 in improving the estate, though the exact nature of his involvement—whether as an executor, investor, or business associate—remains unclear. Additionally, a 1879 document labels Barton as a "San Francisco capitalist" and mentions his acquisition of land near the Miller & Lux operations, suggesting a possible expansion of his business interests in the region, potentially linked to the Lux legacy. 

When historians and preservationists look back at the formative years of Fresno, Barton’s contribution stands out and his legacy remains firmly rooted in the Central Valley, despite Oakland being his final resting place and the place of his death.

Sources: Find A Grave, Jim Savage Historical Papers, Cinema Treasures, Univ of CA digital archives, Cal State Univ archives, Fresno Morning Republican

 

Dr. Samuel Hopkins Willey (1821-1914): Co-Founder of the University of California

Dr. Samuel Hopkins Willey

Plot 2, Lot 154

Dr. Samuel Hopkins Willey was a pioneering clergyman, educator, and civic leader whose vision and determination played a decisive role in the establishment of the University of California. A man of faith as well as scholarship, Willey devoted his long life to building institutions that would shape the intellectual and moral character of California. 

Born in Campton, New Hampshire, on April 22, 1821, Willey was raised in a deeply religious family that valued education and public service. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1844 and pursued theological studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Shortly thereafter, he accepted a call that would define the rest of his life: a mission to the distant Pacific Coast.

In 1849, at the height of the California Gold Rush, Willey traveled by ship around Cape Horn to San Francisco. Unlike thousands who came in search of gold, Willey came to serve the spiritual and educational needs of the rapidly growing population. He became one of the earliest settled Protestant ministers in the city, preaching to a frontier community marked by both opportunity and lawlessness.

College of California in Oakland

From the beginning, Willey believed California needed more than churches—it needed institutions of learning that would provide moral guidance and intellectual rigor. He helped organize the College of California in Oakland in the 1850s, a private religiously influenced institution intended to bring New England–style higher education to the West. Willey served as the College’s first president and worked tirelessly to recruit faculty, secure land, and attract students, despite persistent financial challenges.

As the College of California struggled to survive, Willey and his colleagues sought a broader base of support. Their efforts converged with the federal Morrill Act of 1862, which provided land grants to states to establish public universities. Willey, together with his colleague Dr. Henry Durant, played a pivotal role in negotiating the merger of the College of California with the state’s new land-grant institution. This partnership produced the chartering of the University of California in 1868. [Read about Dr. Henry Durant HERE]

Founders' Rock at Hearst Avenue and Gayley Road

The College’s Oakland land became the first site of the new university before it moved to Berkeley. Willey was appointed Acting President of the University in its earliest days, ensuring the institution got off to a stable start. Durant later became the University’s first official president, further cementing their shared legacy as co-founders of California’s premier institution of higher learning.

After his work with the University, Willey continued his ministry and educational pursuits throughout California. He served as pastor of churches in San Francisco, Oakland, and Monterey, and remained active in civic life. Known for his eloquence and moral conviction, he influenced both religious and secular communities for decades.

Willey lived to the remarkable age of 93, passing away in 1914. By then, the University of California had already grown into a respected institution of national significance, a living legacy of his faith in education as a force for social good. 

Sources: Oakland Tribune, Find a Grave, Wikipedia, University of California Berkeley, San Francisco Chronicle

John Nicholl (1822-1914): Founder of Richmond: Mired in Engagement Scandal with Younger Niece

 

John Nicholl and Obituary (SF Call & Oakland Tribune)

Lot 2 

John Nicholl, remembered as the “Father of Richmond” and nicknamed the “Duke of Richmond”, was a pioneer of California whose life stretched from the rural north of Ireland in the early 19th century to the booming Bay Area of the early 20th century. His story blends hard work, fortune, scandal, and civic ambition.

Nicholl was born in 1822 in the north of Ireland, within a mile of the birthplace of President William McKinley’s father. In 1849, amid the great waves of emigration, he sailed to America and joined the rush of newcomers heading west. By 1853 he had arrived in California, where opportunity awaited.

Nicholl’s first years in California were spent farming in San Leandro. His perseverance paid off: in just four years he earned $6,000 raising wheat, a considerable sum for the time. With this he purchased 200 acres in the San Pablo Rancho, land that would become the foundation of his fortune and the nucleus of the modern city of Richmond. Confident in the area’s potential, he soon expanded his holdings by another 367 acres, eventually controlling large swaths of the East Bay shoreline.

Nicholl’s vision and bold predictions for Richmond’s future earned him the moniker “Duke of Richmond.” He was instrumental in laying out and promoting the settlement that became Point Richmond and then the incorporated city of Richmond. For decades, his name was synonymous with the city’s growth and prosperity.

Point Richmond and Nicholl's Well

Nicholl also extended his interests southward, purchasing 1,000 acres from a Spanish land grant in Ventura County. There, he introduced the cultivation of lima beans, launching an industry that transformed Ventura into the bean capital of the state. By the turn of the century, his bean lands were producing $40,000 a year—an immense sum in those days.

Part of Nicholl’s financial success stemmed from his friendships with other powerful men of the age. He was closely associated with Claus Spreckels, the sugar magnate, with whom he engaged in business ventures that boosted his fortune. This connection further cemented Nicholl’s status as one of the region’s wealthiest citizens, with his fortune estimated in the millions.

Coverage of Hodge/Nicholl scandal

Despite his reputation as a shrewd businessman and civic booster, Nicholl was not immune to personal scandal. In the early 1900s, society pages buzzed with news of his broken engagement to Miss Jane Hodge, a woman several decades his junior and, by some accounts, his niece by marriage. Hodge sued Nicholl for breach of promise, seeking $10,000 in damages for her “blighted affections.”

The sensational trial resulted in a jury awarding her $25,000, later reduced in a compromise. Hodge maintained that her case was about honor, not money, and the litigation dragged on for nearly three years before a final settlement. The affair was widely covered in Bay Area newspapers, casting a temporary shadow over Nicholl’s reputation but also underscoring his notoriety as one of Oakland and Richmond’s most talked-about figures.

Nicholl’s wealth and landholdings gave him influence in local affairs. He once offered to donate land for a school site in Richmond, reflecting his role not only as a landowner but also as a community builder. Though the Richmond Board of Education hesitated over conditions tied to his gift, the episode illustrated his ambition to shape the civic landscape.

Nicholl lived into his nineties, an impressive span for his era. He died in 1914 at his Oakland home on Fourth Avenue at the age of 91. His passing was widely noted in Bay Area newspapers, which hailed him as both a pioneer and the founder of Richmond. Obituaries emphasized his energetic character, his foresight in developing Richmond, and his lasting contributions to California agriculture and urban life.

Nicholls Park in the 1960s and now

There is a Nicholl Park in Richmond and part of his land holdings became the Civic Center. Local walking tours reference buildings or sites that Nicholl built or donated land for, including the Municipal Natatorium (“The Plunge”), wells, and other civic infrastructure. 

Though his name may be less known today, Richmond still stands as a living monument to the vision and enterprise of the man once called the “Duke of Richmond.” 

Sources: San Francisco Call, Oakland Tribune, Find a Grave, Ancestry.com, City of Richmond. PointRichmond.com, Richmond Rec & Park