Alameda County CA Archives History - Books .....1866-1878 The Handsome Town 1941
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Book Title: Berkeley The First Seventy-Five Years

1866-1878


II The Handsome Town

LIKE THE STORY of the inspiration at Founders' Rock, that of the selection of
the Berkeley site for the College of California is clouded in legend. One
popular version—favorite among students of the first university classes and
perpetuated by William Carey Jones in his Illustrated History of the University
of California—credited the selection to another dramatic flash of inspiration by
Professor Henry Durant, a founder of the College of California and second
president of the university. This version was recounted by John B. Felton, a
university regent, in an address at memorial exercises shortly after Durant's
death.

  "One morning in spring" Felton said, "when the air, purified by the rains of
winter, brought out in clear relief the lines of ocean, valley, hill and
mountain, when the trees were budding and the turf was green, and a vague, dark
spot in the sunlight—the Farallon Islands—showed itself through the Golden Gate,
he [Dr. Durant] passed through fields unbroken by roads, untrodden by man and
came to the present site of Berkeley.

  " 'Eureka!' he exclaimed, 'Eureka! I have found it. I have found it.' "

  This story appeared with minor variations in many early articles and books
about Durant and the university. Doubtless it had been embellished to fit the
requirements of Felton's address—especially the triumphant exclamation—but it
has some basis in fact. It is quite probable that Durant first spotted the site.
He was a friend of Orrin Simmons, who settled there in 1855, and probably
visited him at his new home. The site actually was selected, however, only after
a survey lasting three years, and by decision of the entire college board of
trustees.

  In 1896, speaking at the dedication of a memorial plaque on Founders' Rock,
Dr. Samuel H. Willey, only surviving member of that first college board,
reviewed the circumstances leading up to the selection. The Oakland campus "was
never thought to be a suitable place for its [the college's] permanent
location." he explained. "More land was wanted, situated on higher ground, with
plenty of running water.

  "Captain Orrin Simmons with his family then lived near here, on the south side
of Strawberry Creek . . . They were friends of Mr. Durant who was then teaching
the preparatory school in Oakland, and from him they naturally became acquainted
with the opinion of the Trustees of the College respecting the kind of location
suitable to be chosen as the final home of the Institution.

  "It occurred to them from their experience in living here that this might be
the very place they were looking for, and Mr. Durant himself was quite inclined
to that opinion.

  "He called the attention of other Trustees to the locality, and some of us
came and visited it repeatedly and studied it carefully."

  The trustees were greatly attracted by the "grand old oaks" on the grounds,
the "unsurpassed landscape" the "calm and temperate breezes.” But they were
doubtful about the water supply, and since there was no urgency about deciding
on a permanent location, no action was taken at this time.

  In 1856 the board members enlisted the help of Dr. Horace Bushnell, a New
England minister who had come West for his health, in surveying and recommending
possible locations. The energetic reverend spent a busy six months during the
summer and fall, prospecting within a 50-mile radius of San Francisco, and found
many desirable sites. Shown the Berkeley site, he dismissed it as having
insufficient water. In letters to friends in the East (published in his Life,
and Letters) he gave a round-by-round account of his search. Bushnell was
impressed with the beauty of Martinez, and spent several days there, "examining,
trying climate, riding over the whole region adjacent, etc."; the Petaluma and
Sonoma Valleys attracted him, but deals for the property proved impossible to
make; Sunol Valley was temporarily his "College paradise," but lacked water and
transportation; San Pablo was "as beautiful as any," but its summer wind "I
think is too cold and too continual"; Clinton (east of Lake Merritt in Oakland)
was tentatively selected, despite its one major fault: "that the city is too
near, too easily reached by the ferryboats continually plying" but failed for
lack of water rights; San Mateo, Santa Clara, San Jose, Mission San Jose, New
Almaden, and Benicia all came under his roving, critical eye; his final choice
was a site in the Napa Valley, "imposing beyond all others" and he left
California in January, 1857, with the belief that this one had been accepted by
the board of trustees

  Despite Bushnell's recommendations, the board withheld action. Its members
were still attracted by the Berkeley site, and finally hired engineers to locate
the one thing it seemed to lack—an adequate supply of water. Upon receiving a
favorable report, the board met in San Francisco on March 1, 1858, and voted
unanimously for the Berkeley site.

  A strong influence on this decision was the receptive attitude of owners of
property on and near the proposed site. Donations of land for the college were
offered by several persons, although official records reveal that only two such
gifts in the original 160-acre tract were actually made—fifteen acres from F. A.
L. Pioche of San Francisco, and ten acres from George M. Blake. On November 21,
1857, two of the trustees—Ira P. Rankin and E. B. Goddard—had purchased sixty
acres, including Founders' Rock and most of the north half of the present
campus, for $1,200, and these became the nucleus of the tract.

  During the next two years the board entered into negotiations with other land
owners, including William Hillegass, from whom seventeen acres were obtained
after long bargaining. (Hillegass has been credited with donating this land to
the college, principally because his deed contained a clause specifying that the
tract would revert to him or to his heirs if the college were not established
there, but official county records show that on September 4, 1860, he was paid
$2,000 for 17.31 acres—better than the average prevailing price of about $100
per acre.)

  Finally, in i860, "it was necessary to take possession of this property,
enclose it, and begin improvements upon it" Dr. Willey explained, in his
Founders' Rock address. "Before doing this it was deemed fitting by the Trustees
that the site should be formally and publicly set apart, and in a suitable way
consecrated to the purposes of education forever."

    A meeting of the board was called on the site on April 16, 1860. Nine
members attended—The Reverend Dr. W C. Anderson, President; the Reverend S. H.
Willey, Secretary; the Reverend D. B. Cheney; the Reverend E. S. Lacy; the
Reverend Henry Durant; Frederick Billings; E. B. Goddard; Edward McLean; and Ira
P. Rankin.

  The party drove from Oakland in carriages supplied by the Shattuck and
Hillegass livery stable, Dr. Willey related. "Driving out Telegraph road to what
was called the four-mile-house, we turned to the left, following the County road
till we came to Strawberry Creek and there under the trees we hitched our teams.  

"It was a clear beautiful spring day, and our ride was delightful.

  "Then we wandered about, viewing the grounds.

  "We saw at a glance how the two main ravines with their bordering shrubbery
and trees could be utilized in the construction of driveways, sylvan walks and
shaded glens , . .

  "On the whole.” he continued, "we were all entirely satisfied with the choice
of these grounds as the permanent site of the College.

  "Then we looked about for some permanent landmark around which we could gather
for some simple ceremonies of dedication.

  "This rock appeared to be the only thing that met the requirement of the
occasion, and so we made our way hither.

  "From this elevated spot the grounds were all before us, covered with a a crop
of growing grain, and bordered with such noble trees as were nowhere else to be
seen.

  "The whole plain, indeed, was a grainfield from the Bay back to the hills, and
not a house that could properly be called a dwelling was in sight."

  Here, around the rock, the board was called to order, a formal resolulution
was passed designating the grounds as the future college site, and a prayer was
said, asking that the institution "ever remain a seat of Christian learning, a
blessing to the youth of this State, and a center of usefulness in all this part
of the world." The meeting then adjourned, and the members returned to their
carriages "more full than ever of hope for the success of the Institution."

  But despite the hopeful tone of this meeting, development of the new property
lagged for several years. The college was slowly building its enrollment on its
Oakland property, and not until 1864 was serious thought given to the new
campus. In the fall of that year trustees and supporters of the school formed
the College Homestead Association to bolster the institution's finances through
sale of property adjoining the campus site. Orrin Simmons' entire ranch,
including the present locations of the Greek Theatre and Memorial Stadium, was
purchased for $35,000; 40-acre sections south of the campus were purchased from
Francis K. Shattuck, George M. Blake, and James Leonard for $8,000 each, and
from William Hillegass for $9,000. The new tract was surveyed and platted, and
lots of about one acre were placed on the market at $500 each, to be paid for in
twenty installments.

  Selection of a name for the new town troubled the promoters. "It was a place
too choice for any common name" Dr. Willey wrote to President Daniel Coit Oilman
of the university in 1873, adding that "young parents never pondered so long
over the name of their first baby." Dozens of suggestions were made, including
"whole pages" from Frederick Law Olmsted, a New York landscape architect who had
been commissioned to lay out the new campus. Bushnellwood, Billingsley, Leawood,
Shelterwood, Blythhaven, Villa-hermosa, and La Vistora were a few of the exotic
combinations proffered by Olmsted, who added that it would be "natural and
proper" to name the town Peralta, for the former Spanish owners of the property.
"Peralta" was recommended by a committee of trustees appointed to review the
problem, but the report was tabled and no decision reached until Billings'
inspiration on the spring morning in May, 1866.

  Thenceforth, plans for the new town moved more rapidly. "We learn," wrote J.
Ross Browne in the Oakland Daily Transcript, "that there is a movement on foot
to survey and lay out a handsome town at Berkeley, embracing within its limits
some two thousand five hundred acres of land around the University site.

  "It is proposed to have it laid out with broad streets, avenues, and
railroads; to have the present fences set back at once, along the lines of the
avenues, and that each property-owner shall immediately plant rows of ornamental
trees along the proposed sidewalks, so as to present an attractive appearance by
the time the new town has made some progress.

  "The owners of the greater portion of these lands enter heartily into the
project, and will no doubt co-operate as soon as they can be consulted.

  "A concerted movement will then be made by gentlemen of influence and capital
to make Berkeley the fashion; to invest it with the attractive features of a
University city, like that of Cambridge and Oxford. Several gentlemen of means
contemplate building there during the coming season, and they hope to influence
wealthy San Franciscans to follow their example. It will be a delightful summer
retreat. It is worthy of remark, that of late years it has become . . . the
fashion with such of the San Franciscans as can afford it, to send their
families out of town during the summer .  .  .

  "Berkeley would furnish a charming resort for these out-of-town families, and,
at the same time, would be convenient of access from the city. Direct
communication with San Francisco would give a great impetus to the new town, and
soon establish there a society famed for its culture and refinement."

The Town's First Promoters

THE "HANDSOME TOWN" about which Browne wrote so hopefully was still little more
than a name and an idea in the heads of a few college-minded theologians and
business-men in 1866. They had a plan, on paper, with streets laid out, to show
prospective buyers. But aside from the formers who had taken possession of
neighboring tracts in earlier years, the town counted only one residence—that of
Dr. Samuel H. Willey, acting President of the College of California and
initiator of the College Homestead Association. Dr. Willey, on whom fell the
greatest burden of promotional work for the college and the homestead
subdivision, had built a house there and moved from Oakland with his family in
the fall of 1865.

  Many years later Dr. Willey's daughter, Mrs. Maria Willey Gray, described
those early days in a letter to Dr. H.I. Priestley of the university's history
department: "We occupied the old cottage at 2709 Dwight Way as children and
recall when ours was the only home with the exception of the farm houses within
miles of the campus . . . No streets were made or used in our time not even
Dwight Way. The only roads being those traversed by the farmers in going to and
fro to Oakland. And even that only had sandy lanes . . . Personally, I used to
run around with my sunbonnet on and tell the people where the streets were to be
. . ."

  Little Maria in her sunbonnet must have been a persuasive salesgirl, but sales
resistance was high, and not until after Dr. Willey had handed his burden of
college management over to the State and moved away in 1869 were any of the
streets opened.

  This laggardliness in the town's growth was not due to any lack of enterprise
on the part of the promoters. They planned their "handsome town" carefully, and
worked hard to attract people of refinement. Even the street names were given an
intellectual twist. Streets running north arid south were named for American
scientists: Audubon, Bowditch, Choate, Dana, Ellsworth, Fulton, Guyot, Henry,
Inman, John Jay, Kent, Lieber, Mitchell; ways, running east and west, honored
men of literature: Allston, Bancroft, Channing, Dwight, Everett, Felton,
Goodrich, Hawthorne, Irving, Jarvis, Knapp, Lowell, Motley. Weight of learning
did not becloud the practicality of the trustees' naming committee: a wandering
visitor would always be able to find his way back to the campus by marching
clown the alphabet of achievement.

  Many of these street names still remain, although their sequence was long ago
broken by community planning problems which the city fathers could not foresee.
Audubon and Choate were replaced in 1890 by College and Telegraph, respectively,
to agree with Oakland's names for the southward extensions of those
thoroughfares; Guyot succumbed to a name having far greater local prominence
than did that of the Swiss naturalist and geographer—Shattuck, for the pioneer
settler, county official, and legislator. Few of the names intended for streets
beyond C and ways beyond D actually were applied: the Homestead Tract did not
extend far enough to include them.

  One early hindrance to settlement in the new tract was lack of water. This was
met by formation of the College Water Company, which made surveys of the
available sources of water and planned construction of a small reservoir, to be
supplied by Strawberry Creek, high up on the hillside. A picnic party was held
on August 24, 1867, to celebrate completion of the project. It was a good
business stunt, attracting much attention and a few additional investors.

  "It was a beautiful day," Dr. Willey wrote fifteen years later. "Many people
came. The newspapers had their reporters there; speeches were made, and songs
were sung. The fountains did their part well, playing their jets and throwing
their spray high in the air, in places where there was nothing around at that
time to lead me to expect to see a fountain."

  The water problem was further solved by acquisition of rights to bring more
water from Wild Cat Creek, and plans were drawn to construct a larger reservoir,
lower in Strawberry Canyon, whenever needed. The promoters were now able to
proceed with further improvement plans by starting a nursery to raise trees from
seeds obtained from the East and by planting and cultivating many of the tract's
lots.

  But despite all these efforts success came hard, and slowly, to the new town,
because of the relatively high price of the property, poor transportation
facilities, and depressed financial conditions. Warring Wilkinson, first
president of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind Asylum, listed these as the only homes
on and near the Homestead Tract in 1868-9, when the asylum was being built: the
Willey place, the old ranch house of James Leonard, the homes of Julian Haste
and Judge Ferris, all along Dwight Way; a cabin "occupied by Heimboldt"; Orrin
Simmons' place, just east of the Homestead Tract; the Shattuck farmhouse; and
the homes of the Goddard and Byrne families to the north. The last four whose
homes were listed were old-timers whose arrivals antedated opening of the
Homestead Tract.

  The chief drawback to settlement of the new tract was uncertainty over the
future of the college itself. Loss of six of the original trustees through death
or departure from the State had sapped its strength, and contributions to its
support had never been as large as expected. Easterners, who had been counted on
for aid, had usually refused on the grounds that California had plenty of gold
to finance its own institutions. In 1867 the trustees, with misgivings,
approached State officials with an offer to turn over their holdings to a State
University. The offer was accepted by the State on March 23, 1868, and the
merger completed in 1869.

  The effect on Berkeley was immediate. Sales of lots increased. In 1870, with
State officials preparing to lay the cornerstone of the first building on the
new campus, it was reported that "already ex-Governor Stanford, Mr. Mayor
Felton, Mr. ex-Mayor Dwindle, and other well-known gentlemen, have purchased and
are now improving, or about to improve villa sites in the neighborhood."

Forerunners of the University

THE UNIVERSITY was already a going institution when it came to Berkeley, with
alumni, an experienced faculty, and a history dating from 1849.

  The lives and work of two Congregational ministers from New England—Dr. Samuel
Hopkins Willey and Dr. Henry Durant—are closely interwoven with its inception.

  Dr. Willey, a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Union Theological
Seminary, was acting pastor of a New Bedford, Massachusetts, Congregational
church when, on November 14, 1848, he received a commission from the American
Home Missionary Society for work in California. He left New York via the Panama
route soon after, arriving in Monterey, where the society had assigned him to
work, on February 23, 1849.

  When Dr. Willey had sailed from New York the discovery of gold was still
unconfirmed. The contagious news reached his ship at New Orleans, and when he
arrived in Monterey the town was in an uproar. Most of the men had left, or were
preparing to leave, for the mines; he learned that San Francisco was likewise a
deserted city. His mission seemed hopeless. He was unable to find a population
stable enough to listen to his sermons. With a touch of despair he wrote in his
diary: "Men seem to forget their souls in their interest for gold."

  En route to California, and soon after his arrival, Willey met several other
men who were interested in things other than gold and commerce: the making of
homes and the building of a State. One of the first subjects discussed by these
men was a plan for public education. Their plan included a college, even though
all realized it would be years before anything above common schools would be
needed.

  Although he was unable to enlist enough support to build a church, Dr. Willey
found other work to do. He taught school to a group of children in Colton Hall
for six months, and became chaplain to the military post at Monterey. Convening
of the Constitutional Convention in Colton Hall in September, 1849, brought him
a step nearer his goal of founding a college: he was made one of the chaplains,
and was present to hear the convention approve an instrument making it the duty
of the forthcoming-Legislature to "encourage, by all suitable means, the
promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral and agricultural improvement." He
later wrote of this convention: "Education found plenty of friends in that body,
and the provision they made for common schools in the constitution was ample.
The college plan also found friends among the members and some substantial
encouragement."

  With this encouraging action, Dr. Willey and his friends began acquiring
financial support for a college, They went to San Jose, where the first
Legislature convened in December, 1849, to Press for passage of an act
authorizing incorporation of colleges. This act was adopted on April 20, 1850,
and three months later the Willey group made application for their charter.

  A provision of the college incorporation measure required that applicants have
at least $20,000 in property. Dr. Willey and his friends had received pledges
for more than this amount from pioneer California landholders, but titles to the
land had not been adjudicated, and in December, 1850, the State Supreme Court
rejected the application on grounds that the evidence of ownership was not
sufficient to meet requirements of the law.

  Meanwhile the interest of legislators and politicians in fostering higher
education became increasingly evident, and for a time it seemed that a college
might be established at their hands rather than at those of the educators.
Thomas J. Green, a Senator from Sacramento, early in 1850 planned to introduce a
bill creating a "Collegio de Mineria"—a school of mines patterned after one in
Mexico—but desisted when General Mariano Vallejo announced his lavish offer to
donate sites and money for a capitol, a university, and other institutions at
Vallejo. The General's offer was enthusiastically accepted and Senator Green was
one of three men appointed to plat the land. "University Hill" was the name of
the eminence on which the school was to be placed; nearby was the somewhat
higher "Capitol Hill."

  When the 1852 session opened, opposition to the location of the capitol at
Vallejo had crystallized, and it was argued that General Vallejo had not kept
his part of the agreement—that the temporary structures were not as good as had
been promised. During the ensuing contest for the capitol, the General's means
became so depleted that he was unable to continue his offer of land and money;
and when the capitol was finally located in Sacramento, no provision for a
university was made.

  Meanwhile private plans continued. Meetings were held, preliminary measures
discussed. Letters, seeking help and advice, were written by Wil-ley's group to
Eastern friends, and answers full of encouragement and counsel came from members
of the faculties of Harvard and Yale. Easterners began to think of building a
university in California.
  In the spring of 1853 there arrived in San Francisco by way of Panama a
Massachusetts minister—Dr. Henry Durant—"with college on the brain" (his own
description). He soon met Willey. Here was a cultivated scholar, already a
successful teacher, with the strength and enthusiasm—despite his 50 years—to
carry out plans that had been four years in the making. He was ready to begin at
once, and presented himself to a joint session of the Congregational Association
of California and the Presbytery of San Francisco (New School) in Nevada City.
This session, from the ninth to the eleventh of May, 1853, adopted a plan to
establish an institution of learning and referred the plan to a
committee—composed of the Reverends Willey, S. B. Bell, J. A. Benton, and T D.
Hunt—empowered to cooperate with Durant in determining the expediency of
establishing a college, and to organize and incorporate a board of trustees to
which they would automatically belong.

  Durant made a splendid impression. His presence alone seemed to proclaim his
capabilities. As Dr. Willey has recounted, the consensus of opinion was "let him
begin right off!" The immediate result was the investigation of Oakland as a
possible school site, and the founding there of the Contra Costa Academy.

  "Oakland was then a sprawling hamlet, with a few hundred people, with no well
defined streets except Broadway, but having a great natural wealth of sand and
fleas," a contemporary writer described it. Dr. Willey accompanied Durant on the
first visit to Oakland. "A wheezy little steamer had got into the habit of
crossing the bay two or three times a day to carry passengers" he related. "It
was pretty regular except that it was liable to get stuck on the bar now and
then. In this case it took us safely over. Oakland we found to be indeed a land
of oaks, having one street, Broadway, extending from the landing toward the
hills, with a few buildings here and there on either side, and a few houses
scattered about among the trees."

  It was "a speculator's town" and only one building was found vacant— the
Washington Pavilion, which had been a fandango house, at what is now the corner
of Fifth and Broadway. Rent for the "spacious and comfortable house was $150 a
month, payable in advance in gold coin."

  On Monday, June 6, a month after he landed in California, Durant opened his
"family high school for boys." with three pupils. The course of instruction
comprised, according to an announcement in The Pacific, "besides those
[subjects] usually taught in high schools, the Latin, Greek, and, if desired,
the French, German, and Spanish languages . . . The price for board, washing,
domestic care, and School Instruction will be $12.50 per week, payable monthly,
in advance: for Tuition alone $10.00 per month. Each boarder will provide his
own chamber furniture." Durant wrote to ministers and others interested in the
school, asking them to send pupils, who he promised would be considered a part
of his family and always be in his care. He hired a Mr. and Mrs. Quinn as
housekeepers for $150 a month and began operations.

  The enterprise was expected to pay for itself and for Durant's living, but at
the end of two and a half months the Quinns had received only a part of their
wages. One day at noon Durant came into the dining room and found the place
turned into a saloon. "Quinn had squatted on the lower part of the house, and
put out his shingle: 'Lodgers and boarders wanted here. Drinks for sale at the
bar,' " Durant related afterwards. "He had got up a bar-room with his bottles in
it." Quinn told him that "whatever did not succeed in two months and a half in
California never would succeed." Durant sent to a restaurant for lunch for
himself and the boys, and immediately went to see a lawyer to have a complaint
entered against the preemptor. Without waiting for a trial Durant went back to
Quinn's quarters "to clear out his fixings." Quinn tried to make him stop;
Durant said he would not stop until he "had made an end of it." Quinn became
enraged and started pushing Durant out of the place, "when suddenly he became
pale as a cloth, lifted up his hands over his head, and began to pray . . . He
regarded me as a priest." Durant explained, and he thought that he was
committing an unpardonable sin by shoving a consecrated person around. "He told
me I need not trouble myself to move the things, he would do it." Quinn was
summoned before an extemporaneous police court, found guilty of getting up a
nuisance, ordered to desist, and fined $5. Durant forgave him, however, and the
Quinns continued to keep house at the school.

  The Washington Pavilion quarters were considered only makeshift. Though the
enrollment these first few months was never enough to use all the available
space, or to sustain the school financially, Durant and the friends of the
college plan had grand visions. Hundreds of emigrants were streaming into
California by wagon train and sailing vessel. The number of students was
growing; soon there would be many young men of college level, and greater
facilities must be provided. Durant was no sooner set up up in the school at
Fifth and Broadway than he started looking for a spot on which to build a more
pretentious college plant.

  It was his habit to stroll through the large groves of live oaks west of the
Laguna (Lake Merritt), examining the land, weaving his dreams. One day at the
end of Broadway he came across a mass meeting of squatters, two or three hundred
"have nots" assembled there "discussing, haranguing, and working themselves up
to the point of taking possession of all the unoccupied lands in Oakland . . .
and dividing them off by drawing lots, giving each one something." The
schoolteacher walked boldly among them, waved his hat in the air to get their
attention, and told them briefly of his college plans. The squatters voted three
cheers for the college, and upon hearing that Durant had his eye on a particular
stretch of ground, bounded by what are now Twelfth, Fourteenth, Franklin, and
Harrison Streets, they appointed a committee from their own ranks "to take
charge of these four blocks, to keep them safe from interference from any
quarter, and to hold them sacred to the use for which they had been voted."

  Durant made a trip to San Francisco, where he secured $1,100 in gold coin for
a fence to enclose the property and protect it against other squatters. In
September, 1853, it was reported that the fence was in progress. Professor
Durant's first five months in California had, indeed, been active!

  The indefatigable teacher also was able to raise enough money to start
construction on the new site. But while the first building was being completed
the funds gave out. The contractors, taking advantage of the situation, began
negotiating to raise six or seven hundred dollars to finish the building, so
that they could get a lien on it and obtain the property. In order to avoid such
a development Durant consulted a lawyer, who told him to take possession
immediately.

  That night Durant and another man cautiously entered the house, putting a
table, some chairs, and other furnishings in a room upstairs, where they went to
sleep. They had nothing with which to defend themselves except an axe which
Durant placed under his bed. Early the next morning the contractor entered the
house. Coming to Durant's room and looking in, he asked, "What is here?"

  Durant, rising, informed the contractor that he "didn't mean any hurt to him"
but that he was a little anxious to get into his new home. He then invited the
contractor inside, giving the man to understand that he, Durant, was the
proprietor.

  The contractor left, but returned in a short while with two burly fellows.
Durant's companion had departed, leaving him alone. The men entered the room and
took seats. After a brief conversation they apparently decided to eject Durant
physically. The contractor got up from his chair. Said Durant later:

  "I rose, too, then—about two feet taller than usual; I felt as if I was
monarch of all I surveyed. I told him that if I understood him, he intended to
move into the room. Said I, 'You will not only commit a trespass upon my
property, but you will do violence upon my body. I don't intend to leave this
room in a sound condition. If you undertake to do that, you will commit a crime
as well as a trespass." That seemed to stagger them, and finally they left me in
possession."

  This incident seemed to mark a turning point in the academy's fortunes. With
such a determined and resourceful proprietor it hardly could fail. As Dr. Willey
said, "Dr. Durant proved himself to have not only the courage to begin a great
enterprise, but the pluck and perseverance to stick by it." Additional financial
help came from outside friends, the first buildings were completed, and the new
premises occupied in September, 1854.

  By the following spring the school had fifty pupils. It was considered time to
make another attempt at chartering a college. As the necessary property had been
obtained and other legal requirements met, a charter for the College of
California was signed by Governor John Bigler on April 13, 1855- The following
were trustees: Frederick Billings, Sherman Day, Dr. Willey, T. Dwight Hunt, Mark
Brummagin, Edward B. Walsworth, Joseph A. Benton, Edward McLean, Henry Durant,
Francis W. Page, Robert Simson, A. H. Wilder, and Samuel B. Bell.

  The trustees took over all the academy property, and the institution became
known as the College School. The principal effect on its operation was the
addition of courses intended specifically to prepare students for work of
college grade.

  "The school was popular, well conducted, and self-supporting;' Dr. Willey said
of it at this period. Trustees and supporters went at their work of building up
the school "with renewed energy."

  Little immediate effort was made to establish the college itself, as the
trustees did not want to be charged with "anticipating the wants of the state.”
In 1856 the search for a permanent location was started, resulting in the
selection of the Berkeley site two years later, but not until 1859 was serious
attention given to inception of college classes. By then the preparatory school
had brought seven students to the point of college freshman standing, and the
trustees felt that "we must advance, or lose what has been done."

  A primary reason for the delay in organizing college instruction, besides the
reluctance to "anticipate the wants of the stated was lack of endowments. The
College School was self-supporting, but the college could hope for no such
independence. Letters and personal solicitations in the East brought negligible
help, the usual response being that, since California was ribbed with gold, it
should be able to support its own institutions. (Dr. Willey later estimated that
less than $10,000 came from the East during the entire history of the college.)
But despite its bonanza reputation, California was populated far more with men
of anticipations than with men of wealth, and the college's meager support came
more from the former than from the latter class.

  The college opened the doors of its own little building on the Oakland campus
to a freshman class of eight, in the fall of 1860. It had six instructors:
Professor Durant in the chair of "the Greek Language and Literature"; Professor
Martin Kellogg, a graduate of Yale in 1850, in "the Latin Language and
Literature"; Professor Isaac H. Brayton in "Rhetoric, Belles-Lettres, and the
English Language"; William K. Rowell, Teacher in Mathematics; Charles L. Des
Rochers, Teacher in French; and Jose Manuel Y'Banez (who was also enrolled as a
student), Teacher in Spanish.

  During its first year the college had no administrative head, but in the
second year, with a new freshman class of ten added to its student body and the
realization that administrative problems would multiply as each new class
entered, Dr. Willey was prevailed on to become temporary executive head, with
the title of vice-president. Several attempts were made to obtain a president
from among Eastern educators, but the nominees all refused, and Dr. Willey
remained head of the college until its disincorporation in 1869.

  Lack of funds hampered plans for developing the new campus, but in 1864—when
the first class was graduated amid gala commencement exercises—the trustees
formed the College Homestead Association, to help support the school by sale of
residential property adjoining the campus site. Frederick Law Olmsted, of a New
York firm of landscape architects, was commissioned to lay out the grounds, and
the "open grain fields" achieved the dignity of a name. However, the trustees
had to contend with not only a public apathy, but a post-war depression. Their
prospects for raising money to construct buildings on the new compus [sic]
seemed slight. When, at the 1867 commencement exercises, Governor Low dropped
the suggestion that the college combine its assets with the State's resources,
the idea—first received with "regret and apprehension"—was discussed by the
trustees and finally adopted as the best course.

  Prospects for a State-owned college, stalled for years by political
discussion, had revived in 1862 with passage of the Morrill Act by Congress,
offering liberal grants of land to States for use in building publicly-owned
universities. In 1866 the Legislature passed a bill providing for establishment
of an Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College. The Byrne ranch in
Berkeley, north of the College of California site, was selected as the location
of the new school, largely through the influence of Professor Durant, who felt
that the two institutions would be mutually beneficial to each other.

  With this action as evidence of the States' serious intentions, the college
trustees voted on October 9, 1867, to donate their Berkeley site to the State
for a university, and thereafter to disincorporate when the State institution
was established. This decision was made on condition that the State should
include the former College of California in its university as a College of
Letters, a department of instruction which had not been contemplated in the
previous legislative act. In compliance, the Legislature passed a new act
chartering a university which became effective on March 23, 1868, with the
signature of Governor Henry H. Haight. The charter organized the school into the
practical College of Arts, the College of Letters, and the Professional
Colleges, including Medicine and Law. The governing bodies were the Board of
Regents, the legal entity and holder of university property; the Academic
Senate, for control of internal affairs; and Faculties, to govern the different
colleges.

  The trustees of the College of California had expected to close their school
at the conclusion of the spring term in 1868. However, at the request of the
Board of Regents of the new university they extended their operations another
year, so that it was not until September 23, 1869, that the State registered its
first university students in the Oakland college building. The first group
included 42 registrants, distributed through the four classes and the five
colleges comprising the university. On July 20, 1870, the first commencement
took place, with "imposing demonstrations" and three graduates.

  The university was finally launched, but not on smooth waters. It was rocked
and buffeted by controversies during its first years under State sponsorship.
Dr. Willey and the trustees had expected that "the views and feelings of those
who made the offer would certainly not be disregarded"; but newly elected
Governor Haight, hostile to the college trustees, had taken office in time to
sign the university charter, and he slighted the old board in appointing his
regents. There was still opposition to inclusion of a College of Letters in the
new institution; a storm of protest swept the State over selection of General
George B. McClellan by the regents as president (an offer which he declined), on
the grounds that it was a partisan action; an attempt was made to abandon the
Berkeley site in favor of San Francisco; and when finally the first two
buildings had been constructed and occupied in Berkeley, accusations of graft
and excessive profits in the construction of North Hall brought a legislative
investigation. But despite these travails the university gave indication of
being healthy and vigorous from the start. Its second-year registration was
almost double its first, increasing to 78 students, and in its third year the
enrollment nearly doubled again, jumping to 147.

  It was in an atmosphere of celebration that graduation exercises for the first
all-university class were held in unfinished North Hall on July 16, 1873. For
Berkeley and the university they were in the nature of a hard-won triumph after
a long and uneasy ordeal.

Prelude to Incorporation

THE TOWN was ill prepared for the arrival of the university. "From a physical
point of view things were pretty well disorganized," said Fabian Franklin,
biographer of President Daniel Coit Gilman. "The only communication with Oakland
was by horse cars, and with San Francisco via Oakland. There were not sufficient
accommodations at Berkeley for the students in the way of boarding-places and no
residences for the professors, all of whom continued for a while to live in
Oakland."

  In a lecture on "Berkeley: the Bishop and the Site of the University" given in
Oakland in January, 1873, President Gilman expressed a wish to see a "commodious
hotel" in the college town, with a family restaurant attached. As if in answer,
when the new campus buildings opened to students the following fall, what its
management described as a "magnificent hotel" with "grates and marble basins in
every room" was ready to serve the public at the corner of Bancroft Way and
Choate (now Telegraph) Avenue. Less biased observers saw it as a plain rooming
house, accommodating about twenty people, and found little more encouragement in
the rival University Hotel, which opened the following year.

  But if sleeping in the new town was a problem to first-year students, eating
there was a worse one. An Oakland paper predicted that the proprietor of a
French restaurant near the campus would be apt to "bankrupt every hungry
collegian on the premises" if he maintained his early price level. Some relief
apparently came in 1874 from a grocery store, which advertised "all goods at
Oakland prices," and the pressure of competition from other business arrivals
soon provided students with a moderate choice of patronage at prices reasonably
near the metropolitan level.

  Commensurate with the difficulties of living in Berkeley at this time was the
inconvenience of getting there. Principal means of transportation was a
horse-drawn streetcar, which carried passengers from Oakland to Berkeley, with a
change in Temescal, in about an hour. Connections could be made with trains and
ferries to San Francisco, the entire journey costing fifty cents a round trip.
When the new line opened in 1872, the Oakland Daily Transcript had boasted that
"for excursions and pleasure parties there is no other route in the State equal
to this in scenery and comfort." Students and other regular patrons, however,
generally found the ride boringly slow. (On occasion, monotony was relieved by
the boisterous pastime of rocking the car off the track, whereupon everyone
would have to dismount and lift it back on again.) The car company proclaimed
that its rolling stock was "of late pattern" but few claims were made for the
livestock that provided locomotion. Francis Sheldon, an undergraduate of this
period, later recalled that "it was a tradition among the students, that the Car
Company had only one horse. It did not seem probable that there could be another
one that was so thin and so slow, and had so many raw places on him at once. But
one day the brake broke on the down grade to Temescal, and . . . the horse was
run over and permanently disabled. It was feared the Company would have to stop
business, but when the track was cleared, traffic was resumed with a new horse,
so sorrel, so thin, so slow, and so raw, such an exact counterfeit of his
martyred predecessor, that the student mind refused to accept him as a separate
identity, and named him 'Phoenix' on the spot."

  In 1876 Phoenix was replaced by a steam "dummy" car, which took over the
Temescal-Berkeley run. What became of him is not recorded, but probably he was
transferred to the Oakland-Temescal line, because Oakland authorities refused to
permit substitution of the new service within their city limits.

  Proximity to the campus made Choate Avenue the first business center in Upper,
or "East" Berkeley. Its development was steady, a notable accession in 1876
being a drugstore, operated by Dr. Sidney Smith Merrill, which became Berkeley's
first postoffice station the next year. However, selection of Shattuck Avenue by
the Central Pacific Railroad for the route of its ferry trains in 1876 gave that
thoroughfare a sudden advantage as a business location and boomed real estate
values in that section of town.

  A greater rival, however, was the community which had already been established
near the water's edge to the west—Ocean View, now more commonly called West
Berkeley. While its progress had been far from spectacular, West Berkeley had
been growing independently of the college district, with its own stage service
to Oakland on San Pablo Avenue and with direct water connections to San Francisco.

  Plans for ferry service between San Francisco and Jacob's Landing had been
considered in 1871 and again in 1873, but not until 1874 was the service
consummated. The initial boat churned out from the Green Street slip on October
1, 1874, to the strains of Alpers' Band, and 45 minutes later discharged its
merry group of celebrants onto the hospitable shores of Berkeley, where,
reported the Alta California, "the exercise produced by a walk along the
thirteen hundred feet of planking, after debarking, added to the sniffs of the
sea breeze caught straight from the Golden Gate, sharpened the appetite and made
the party ready for the sumptuous banquet spread in a cozy little grove, at the
entrance to which stood Mr. Hiram T. Graves, President of the Ferry Company,
inviting the guests to eat, drink and be merry." Following the banquet the first
trippers were left to the persuasions of auctioneers who had real estate lots to
offer the farsighted. To complete the service a stage ran from the ferry landing
to the university.

  Aided by such astute promotion as this, West Berkeley had a real estate boom,
the Alta California reporting in its October 18 issue that over 200 lots had
been sold there, at prices ranging from $175 to $465. Its favorable situation
also attracted manufacturers, and during the next three years four factories
were added to its expanding business roster: the West Berkeley Planing Mills,
opened in 1874 by J. H. Everding, local starchmaker and property-owner, but
taken over in 1876 by the firm of Schuster and Neihaus; the California Watch
Company, successor to San Francisco's Cornell Watch Company, which moved to
Berkeley in 1876, then vacated its building to the Wentworth Boot and Shoe
Company two years later and returned across the Bay; the Standard Soap Company,
which erected a four-story building in 1877; and the Glove Factory and Tannery
Company, which arrived the same year.

  Construction of the main line Central Pacific Railroad into West Berkeley in
1877, the year after ferry trains began operating on Shattuck Avenue, gave that
district another great boost and bolstered the conviction of its residents that
it would easily outdistance its college-bred rival. West Berkeley obtained its
own postoffice station that year, and on March 10 the weekly Advocate rolled off
its first edition in a West Berkeley printing shop. Superior requirements of its
industries also brought gas mains to this section of town in 1877, four years
before service was provided to upper Berkeley. The district's boasts of business
leadership seemed well justified.

  In intellectual guidance, however, the balance was still with the college
community. The next step for which the indefatigable professors pressed in the
building of their town was incorporation. On January 20, 1874, Berkeley
property-owners met in the home of County Supervisor F. K. Shattuck with Dr.
Henry Durant, mayor of Oakland and former president of the university,
presiding, to discuss incorporation. These included Shattuck, Judge John W
Dwinelle, Professor Rising, A. B. Dixon, Charles Dwinelle, John Kelsey, J. D.
Colby, Peter Mathews, E. D. Harmon, John Kearney, James Edgar, H. E. Carlton,
Arthur Edgar, Horace W Carpentier, Captain Jacobs, James McGee, Peter McGee, J.
T Fowler, Messrs. Ashby, Townsend, Morse, Boleta, and Higgins. The meeting
developed a three-way split among those who wanted to incorporate with Oakland,
those who wanted to "keep out of the jaws of Oakland" and those who wanted to
continue the easy tenor of their ways. The latter won out and the motion for
incorporation was defeated.

  But the professors, not easily discouraged, planned another meeting. This one
was held in Union Hall on December 1, 1877, under the chairmanship of Professor
Martin Kellogg of the university. Better groundwork had been laid this time: a
committee, clothed with dignity and prepossessing authority, brought in a report
capitalizing on the recent land boom and industrial development of the town in
support of the conclusion that incorporation was a prerequisite to the town's
future glory. The need for public schools, sewers, street-grading, and paving
was pointed out. A. C. R. Shaw, a farmer, gave a minority report for the
die-hards, but the professors had neatly timed the upswing in the hamlet's civic
pride and had their way. A petition for a charter was presented to the
Legislature in February, 1878, with President LeConte of the university heading
the list of several hundred names. As the petition stated it: "The necessities
and interests of the growing community will be subserved by the establishment of
a local government which will encourage good order, good schools, and preserve
the health of the community." Even the Oakland Tribune saw the point and in its
February 16, 1878, edition agreed that, although "it will always be a University
town, and will, of course, be distinguished for the intelligence and good taste
of its inhabitants ... a marshall and a lock-up will be indispensable."

  In the same week the Oakland Times reported a fast move on foot to annex
Berkeley to Oakland, which would have brought $10,000,000 of taxable property
into the city, but swift action was engineered at Sacramento. The Assembly
passed the chartering bill without a dissenting vote. The Senate, after giving
the scholars a scare, finally approved it with a vote of 16 to 12. For some
reason six of the eight senators from San Francisco did not want an incorporated
university town across the Bay. Of the two Alameda County senators, one was for
and one against. The governor signed the act of incorporation on April 1, 1878.
The local Berkeley Advocate called it a measure "which clothes the village of
Berkeley with municipal honors and ... a dignity commensurate with its importance."

  The entire Bay area awaited with curiosity, and the politically minded with
some degree of concern, the evening of May 13, 1878, to see how the new town
would initiate its political course. Two tickets were on the ballot—the
Citizen's Ticket and the Workingmen's Ticket. The former was backed by the
farmers and merchants of the community while the latter appealed to the workmen
who were knocking together the new town, believers in the ideas of Dennis
Kearney's Workingmen's Party as expounded currently in the sandlots of San
Francisco. Significantly enough, many of the professors belonged to the latter
party. By midafternoon of election day it appeared that the Citizens' Ticket was
winning. The workers, who were already beginning to take their politics hard,
mounted horses and charged through the community and surrounding hills to get
out the vote —with the final result that their ticket won.

  Berkeley's first trustees were Abel Whitton, James McGee, Charles Schnelle,
Charles Davis, and Alphonso H. Broad. The school directors were M. Kellogg, W.
B. Rising, Henry Bruns, Martin Dale, William M. Johnson, and W B. Starr. The
town clerk was Edward L. Wright; treasurer, Louis Gottshall; assessor, Captain
J. H. Jacobs; marshall, M. M. Gilman; constable, John F. Teague; and justices of
the peace, James S. Carnall and Charles G. Beadell.

  President Whitton of the Board of Trustees sounded a high note of civic
endeavor when, upon the opening of the first meeting, he laid down a course of
community development by stating that while the board should ''encourage every
legitimate enterprise tending to advance the interests and develop the resources
of the town, we cannot on the other hand be too guarded in granting special
privileges which will advance the interests of private parties with no
compensating advantages to the community at large. In no way can any emolument
accrue to the benefit of any member of this board."

  Possibly in line with this program an ordinance was passed in June fixing
salaries at $25 per month for the treasurer, $35 for the assessor, $40 for the
clerk, $ 100 for the marshall, and $ 100 for the town engineer. The little town
stretched its new corporate legs and walked into the future.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

BERKELEY
THE FIRST SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS

COMPILED BY WORKERS OF THE WRITERS' PROGRAM OF THE WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA 

CO-SPONSORS: 
CITY OF BERKELEY  
BERKELEY FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION 

PUBLISHED BY THE GILLICK PRESS -BERKELEY- CALIFORNIA MCMXLI



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