Adam and Joseph Donohoe "J.D." Grant

[Photos by Michael Colbruno]

Adam Grant was a Highland Scotsman who came to California in 1850 and founded the dry goods store Murphy, Grant & Co. in San Francisco. He started by selling goods to the forty-niners who were mining for gold in the Sierra. He owned the store for over 50 years, turning it over to his son upon his death in 1904. Judge John Garber, who was a recent addition to this blog, was one of his pall bearers.

His son J.D. Grant continued the successful operation of Murphy, Grant & Co. and became a successful businessman and philanthropist in his own right. His father made him work his way up through and he worked in most of the store's departments.

After the earthquake and fire destroyed the store in 1906, J.D. reopened the store in Oakland's Tribune Tower with a fresh supply of goods and kept the company operating. In 1907, he opened the Adam Grant Building at Sansome & Grant in San Francisco (see photo). He served on numerous corporate boards and was a lifetime trustee at Stanford University (despite having attended the University of California).

An avid lover of nature, J.D. Grant was the president of the Save-the-Redwoods League for 21 years. The J.D. Grant Grove on the Del Norte coast in named in his honor. The Joseph D. Grant State Park in Santa Clara is built on land bought by his father and where J.D. operated a ranch. After Herbert Hoover lost the Presidency to Franklin D. Roosevelt, he stayed at the Grant Ranch for an entire month. It remains the largest park in the county.

Domenico Ghirardelli - Chocolateer (1817-1894)

Domenico "Domingo" Ghirardelli was born in Rapallo, Italy (near Genoa) in 1817 to an exotic foods importer and his young wife. At a young age, Domenico was introduced to the chocolate and confectionary trade as he apprenticed for a local candy maker. At the age of 20, Ghirardelli married his first wife, and set sail to Uruguay to partake in the South American chocolate trade.

In 1838, attracted by opportunities in Lima, Ghirardelli sails around Cape Horn to Peru. Fatefully, Ghirardelli opens a confectionery store next to a cabinet shop owned by an American, James Lick. Enticed by the stories prosperity in North America, Lick leaves for San Francisco in 1847, taking 600 pounds of neighbor Ghirardelli’s Chocolate with him. Meanwhile, Ghirardelli continues to operate his store in Peru, soon replacing his Italian name with its Spanish equivalent, Domingo.

Following the death of his first wife in 1848 and his remarriage to Carmen Alvarado, Ghirardelli learns of the gold strike at Sutter’s Mill and sails unaccompanied to California. After prospecting in the Jamestown-Sonora area, Ghirardelli once again becomes a merchant, opening a general store in Stockton, California, offering supplies and confections to fellow miners. Located in a tent, it’s one of the first shops in the area.

Several months later, Ghirardelli opens a second store on the corner of Broadway and Battery in San Francisco, which becomes his first establishment in the city. On May 3, 1851 the fifth of a series of great San Francisco fires destroy some 1,500 buildings,including Ghirardelli’s Battery Street location. Three days later a runaway fire levels half of Stockton. In the span of a few days, Ghirardelli’s businesses are burned out of existence. He quickly consolidates his salvaged assets and opens the Cairo Coffee House on San Francisco’s Commercial Street in September of the same year.

After the Cairo Coffee House proves unsuccessful, Ghirardelli stays in San Francisco and forms a new confectionery company called Ghirardely & Girard on the corner of Kearny and Washington streets. This is the establishment of what is to become the modern day Ghirardelli Chocolate Company and over 150 years of traditional chocolate manufacturing.

Over the next few years the company relocated to a number of locations around San Francisco. By 1869 the Ghirardellis moved to Oakland.

In 1879, Ghiradelli became incensed with the Catholic Church when a priest refused to administer last rites to his granddaughter Aurelia. One story says that the priest refused to come to the house because it was raining, while another version says that the priest didn't think that Ghiradelli gave enough money to the Church. Carmen Ghiradelli was devastated and Domenico forbade any member of his family from ever entering a Catholic Church again.

Ghiradelli got his revenge by building the mausoleum pictured above with a giant Masonic emblem above the door. In 1890, Domenico and his sons snuck into St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery and removed the bodies of four family members and moved them to Mountain View.

In 1892, Domenico Ghirardelli retires as head of the company, turning the management over to his three sons. Needing additional space, the company purchases the Pioneer Woolen Mill building, and manufacturing moves to that location, on San Francisco’s northern waterfront. This is the present location of Ghirardelli Square.

On a trip to his home in Rapallo, Italy in 1894, Domingo Ghirardelli dies at the age of 77 on January 17.

John Garber: Eminent Jurist (1833-1908)

John Garber was a renowned attorney and jurist who founded the Garber, Boalt & Thornton law firm. He was born in Virginia in 1833 and moved to San Francisco in 1857 to live with his uncle, Joseph G. Baldwin, a noted author and member of the California Supreme Court. Garber himself would later serve on the Nevada Supreme Court, only to resign in order to make more money in private practice.

Garber moved to Nevada in 1863 where he practiced law and met his wife Julie White, the daughter of an Alabama judge. He returned to California in 1867 only to return to Nevada in 1870. Upon his resignation from the Court he entered into legal partnerships with Colonel Harry I. Thornton, Thomas B. Bishop, Judge John Boalt, Judge Eugene R. Garber, Harry Thornton Creswell, and his son, Joseph Baldwin Garber. One of his most famous cases was his representation of Jane Stanford against the U.S. Justice Department who were going after the $13,000,000 Stanford estate to pay off a $60 million judgment against the Big 4 railroad magnates.

In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him to the Panama Canal Commission, but Garber declined the appointment.

Garber died of typhoid fever at his Berkeley home.

General Ralph Kirkham - War hero, businessman, philanthropist

[Photo of Kirkham gravesite by Michael Colbruno]

Plot 6

General Ralph W. Kirkham (1821-1893) was a hero of the Mexican War, whose journals and letters provided historians with a vivid portrayal of the period. His lineage in America extended back to 1640 and his family was filled with military heroes. His grandfather Henry Kirkham fought in the French and Indian War and his father John Kirkham fought in the American Revolution.

In 1846, while stationed at Ft. Gibson in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, he met Catherine E. Mix and claimed it was love at first sight. He married the New Orleans-raised woman known as Kate six months later. Shortly after being married Kirkham was called away from his marital bliss when he was summoned to serve in the Mexican War. Kirkham dropped off Kate in New Orleans and boarded a boat to Veracruz, Mexico.

During his time in Mexico, Kirkham kept detailed journals of his wartime service, including six battles and accounts of his Infranty's travels throughout Mexico. After the American takeover of Mexico City he continued to write about the American occupation, showing that there was great cooperation between Mexican civilians and U.S. military personnel. A devout Episcopolian (who frequently trashed Catholics in his journals), he often wrote down his prayers and asked for divine protection for his wife.

In 1848, he was reunited with his wife in New Orleans. The next few years saw the young couple move all over the vast young country, from Minnesota to Missouri to the West Coast. In March 1855, they arrived in Ft. Tejon, California and Kirkham was promoted to captain. In 1857, he was reassigned to San Francisco where he served as quartermaster for the remaining thirteen years of his military career. [A quartermaster is responsible for supplying clothing and provisions to troops]. Kirkham purchased a large home in Oakland at 9th & Fallon Street where he raised his four daughters Leila, Julia, May and Kate.

In 1861, when the American Civil War erupted, Kirkham volunteered to return to duty but was ordered to remain in San Francisco as quartermaster. One of his major responsibilities during this time was to send gold to Washington D.C. to purchase armaments.

In 1870, Kirkam retired from the military and became a prominent Oakland businessman. He became one of the founding members of the Union National Gold Bank (later Union Savings Bank) and began buying real estate. Along with Colonel John Coffee Hays (who has a plaque honoring him at Mountain View Cemetery), Kirkham purchased a huge tract of land that later became Oakland. Hays and Kirkham began selling plots of land to hundreds of settlers, while donating land to railroads, gaslight companies, churches, parks, hospitals and the county seat. In 1879, Hays and Kirkham hosted former military colleague and United States President Ulysses S. Grant in Oakland.

Kirkham also left his mark as a great civic leader of the early days of Oakland, He was one of the founders of Mountain View Cemetery and served on its Association for years. He also donated land to St. John's Episcopal Church, donated generously to the Oakland City Hospital and provided and endowment for St. Luke's Hospital. His wife was one of the early supporters of Fabiola Hospital and served as its first president. Fabiola was built to serve the indigent and the poor.

Kirkham died at his Oakland home in 1893. Both San Francisco and Oakland honored him by naming streets after him and his sword is on display at the Presidio Army Museum. Kate died four years later.

Thomas Prather (1855-1913) - Banker; In-Law of Adams Family

[Prather gravesite photo by Michael Colbruno]

Plot 33

Thomas Prather was a prominent Oakland businessman who married into a noted Oakland family.

Prather was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1855 and moved to Oakland with his parents in 1870. In 1885, Prather married Julia Adams, sister of Edson F. Adams and John Charles Adams, a prominent family in early Oakland.

He became business partners with the two men, running the Union National Bank and other financial enterprises. In 1908, Prather and the Adams brothers were involved in a huge scandal where they allegedly misused money from the bank for their personal use. Julia Adam Prather, along with her two brothers, inherited a fortune when her father Edson Adams died.

Prather was involved in a number of other business ventures, including the construction of the Yosemite railway, construction of the San Salvador harbor in South America, part owner of the Oakland Meat and Packing Company and the Yolo Water and Power Company. He also owned cattle ranches.

After his death, Samuel Prather, his brother, engaged in a nasty fight over the estate with the Adams family. Prather appears to have gotten the last laugh from the grave when his outstanding debts appeared to have wiped out any inheritance due to the Adams’ three children.

Coles Bashford - Scandal Plagued Wisconsin Governor; Arizona Territory Politician

[Bashford Gravesite Photo by Michael Colbruno]

Plot 13

Coles Bashford (January 24, 1816 – April 25, 1878) was an American lawyer and politician who became the first Republican governor of Wisconsin. His one term as governor ended in a bribery scandal that forced him to leave the state, but he was later instrumental in the government of the newly-formed Arizona Territory.

Bashford was born near Cold Spring in Putnam County, New York. He attended the Wesleyan Seminary (now Genessee College) in Lima, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1842. He served as the district attorney of Wayne County from 1847 until he resigned in 1850 and moved to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He won a seat in the Wisconsin State Senate in 1853 as a Whig. After the Whigs split on the issue of slavery, Bashford became one of the founding candidates of the Republican Party, winning a seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly on that ticket in 1855.

Bashford ran for governor as a Republican in 1855 and was at first declared the loser to the Democrat incumbent, William A. Barstow, by a mere 157 votes. However, Bashford claimed the result was fraudulent, and it was later discovered that Barstow's win was due to forged election returns coming from nonexistent precincts in the sparsely populated northern part of the state, in addition to other irregularities such as two separate canvassing boards claiming legitimacy in Waupaca County.

With rival militia units converging on the state capital in Madison, Bashford was sworn in quietly in the chambers of the Wisconsin Supreme Court by Chief Justice Whiton on January 7, 1856. On the same day, Barstow was publicly inaugurated with full ceremony. After challenging the court's jurisdiction without success and noting that the tide of public opinion had turned against him, Barstow declined to contest the fraud allegations and sent his resignation to the legislature on March 21, 1856, leaving the lieutenant governor, Arthur MacArthur, as acting governor.

On March 24, the court unanimously awarded the governorship to Bashford by a count of 1,009 votes. The following day, as Madison was crowded with onlookers, Bashford entered the Capitol with the court's judgment in hand, in the company of a sheriff and a throng of followers, and announced to MacArthur that he had come to claim his office. Upon Bashford's threat that force would be used if necessary, MacArthur and his supporters quickly left. Despite initial opposition by the Democrats in the State Assembly, both houses of the Wisconsin State Legislature soon recognized Bashford as the new governor.

As governor, Bashford appointed the first African-American to Wisconsin state office when he made barber and entrepreneur William Noland a notary public in 1857. Bashford declined renomination from the Republican Party, and left office at the end of his term on January 4, 1858. Weeks later, an investigation was launched regarding bribes that he and members of his administration had accepted from the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad Company in exchange for approval of a major land grant. Bashford himself had received the largest payoff in the form of $50,000 in stocks and $15,000 in cash from the railroad company; state legislators and a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice were also involved in payoffs exceeding $400,000 in total.

Nearly every copy of the final investigative report was seized and burned by the implicated politicians, but public outrage spread despite the suppression. Bashford managed to cash in his stock before the railroad company folded as a result of the investigation, and fled the state. He travelled first to Washington, DC in 1862, and then left for the Arizona Territory in 1863 with his brother, Levi, who was to be Surveyor General of the newly-created territory. They made the arduous, cross-continental journey accompanying the "Governor's party"—the appointed territorial officials led by Governor John Noble Goodwin—and arrived in Arizona Territory in December of 1863.

Though moving to the Territory as a private citizen, Bashford was soon appointed its first Attorney General by Governor Goodwin, serving from 1864 until 1866. His position required him to journey throughout the Territory, frequently travelling through land considered "hostile Indian country", but he executed these duties without incident. Bashford was also the first lawyer admitted to practice in the Arizona Territorial Courts, and compiled the session laws of the Territory into one 400-page volume with the assistance of Associate Justice William T. Howell. He was elected President of the first Territorial Council (the Territory's upper legislative body) in 1864, and served from 1867 until 1869 as a territorial delegate to the United States Congress as an independent, rather than with his former party.

The last political office Bashford held was as Secretary of State for the Territory by appointment of President Grant in 1869 and again in 1873. After the Territory's capital moved from Prescott, where Bashford and Levi ran the Bashford Mercantile Store, Bashford resigned in 1876 to stay close to his business interests.

He died in Prescott two years later of heart disease. He and his wife Francis Adams had seven children: Belle (who had died at age 11), Edward, Elizabeth, Helen, Lillian, Margaret, and William Coles. The Bashford Mercantile Store remained operating in Prescott until the 1940s.

[Adapted from Wikipedia entry]

I have been unable to figure out why Bashford is buried in Oakland.

Annie Glud - "Drummer Boy" with General Ulysses S. Grant

[Glud gravesite photo by Michael Colbruno; "Drummer Boy" from Oakland Tribune]

Plot 13

Annie Glud became famous in 1921 when she revealed that she was drummer boy Tom Hundley, who marched with Ulysses S. Grant and the Union forces. Glud enlisted with the Union forces disguised as a boy and only Grant and Glud’s father knew of her secret.

Glud participated in two of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, those at Richmond and Gettysburg. Two of Glud’s brothers fought for the Union forces and her other two brothers fought for the Confederate forces.

Over the years, Glud regularly participated in the annual Armistice Day parades in Oakland and kept the drum until her death.

Glud made news two other times in her life, the first time again performing “the work of a man." In 1897, she joined a group of women for a two week search for gold in Shasta County. A year before the excursion Glud had discovered an old mine on her ranch just north of Redding. According to newspaper accounts, “Mrs. Glud told her friends about it, and she persuaded six of them to go prospecting in the vicinity…Each woman put on bloomers, rough boots, leggings, a man’s working shirt and a black slouch hat. Around their waists they strapped canteens and pans and on their shoulders they carried picks and shovels.”

In 1921, Glud again made news when she donated a historic cinnamon bear to President Warren G. Harding which was carved out of redwood by James Marshall, one of the discoverers of gold in California. According to the Oakland Tribune, “A letter offering the bear to the President was sent some weeks ago and has just been answered by the President, carrying his appreciation of the memento and accepting the gift.”

Frank and Frederick Senram - Oakland Shoe Merchants

Frederick Senram was a noted shoe merchant in Oakland. He was born in Oldendorf, Germany in 1836 and moved to San Francisco, California in 1859, where he lived for four years.

In 1863, he moved to Oakland and opened a shoe repair and retail store named F Senram and Company at 3rd & Broadway, which he eventually moved to 1003 Broadway. He retired from the business in 1904.

Apparently, Senram had one of the nicer stores in Oakland. An article in the October 10 1907 Oakland Tribune commented, “There are no prettier show windows in Oakland or any coast city…An inspection of these show windows will reveal an artistic combination of woods and color effects all made complete with elegant electric lights.”

After his death, his daughter Bertha Sneathen successfully sued to prevent her step-mother Pauline Senram from inheriting any of the estate.

His older brother Frank Senram was a partner in the shoe business. He was a member of the German club Oakland Turn Verein and the Tecumseh Tribe No. 62, Improved Order of Redmen. His widow Wilhelmina died after accidentally drinking poison in the middle of the night, mistaking it for her medication.

Simeon Wenban - Silver Mining Pioneer and Innovator

[Photo of Wenban gravesite by Michael Colbruno; Wenban home at 1920 Van Ness Ave. from SF Public Library photo archives]

Simeon Wenban was the founder of the Cortez Silver Mine in Cortez, Nevada, which at one time was the third largest silver mine in the world. Ironically, Wenban made much of his fortune from the limestone surrounding the silver.

Wenban was born in the English parish of Hawkhurst in 1824, the son of a wheelwright. In 1828, his parents moved the family to Utica, New York and later to Cleveland. In 1854, Wenban moved to California to begin a career, but moved to Nevada in 1862. Before long, he was one of the richest men in the area having become a millionaire many times over.

Much of his success came from finding new and innovative ways to extract the maximum amount of ore from a mine. During a difficult financial time at his mine, he found it difficult to pay his Cornish workers. They became restless and angry with Wenban. He fired them and replaced them with Chinese workers who were far more patient in waiting for their pay.

Unlike many other miners in the area, Wenban befriended the Ute Indians of the area, who often brought him gifts of game and dressed skins.

In 1888, Wenban moved his family to San Francisco and erected a magnificent home at Van Ness Avenue & Jackson Street. In 1892, out of an act of sheer generosity, he decided to build a beautiful new home for the Bohemian Club, but the officers decided that the expense in maintaining it would be to great and they never occupied the building.

Ina Donna Coolbrith - California's First Poet Laureate

[Coolbrith Gravesite Photo by Michael Colbruno]

Plot 11

Ina Coolbrith was born Josephine Donna Smith to Agnes Moulton Coolbrith and Don Carlos Smith, a brother of the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr.. Leaving her polygamous marriage and the Mormon Church, Agnes took her daughter with her and moved to Saint Louis, where she married a newspaperman named William Pickett. They traveled overland to California in 1850 and Ina Coolbrith is said to have been the first white child to enter California, riding on the saddle of Jim Beckworth.

To avoid identification with her former family or with Mormonism, Ina's mother reverted to using her maiden name, Coolbrith. Her daughter followed suit, and shortened her name from Josephine to Ina to further conceal the relationship.

In 1873 Ina became librarian at the Oakland Free Library, and, in 1895, befriended and mentored the young, 12-year-old Jack London. Jack London called her his "literary mother." She also mentored the poet, George Sterling. Late in life, she campaigned for a proper burial in Westminster Abbey for the remains of her favorite poet, Lord Byron.

In 1915, she was named California’s first Poet Laureate by Governor Hiram Johnson, a post she held until her death.

On the day of her funeral the Legislature adjourned in her memory and soon afterward named a 7,900 foot peak near Beckworth Pass "Mount Ina Coolbrith." Her grave site, within sight of Frank Norris' monument at Mountain View Cemetery went unmarked until September 1986 when the Ina Coolbrith Circle placed the headstone pictured above in Plot 11.