We made our annual pilgrimage to "Jammy and Granpa's" House up here in Stockton, CA, and we decided to finish all our Stockton landmarks today on New Year's Eve. We began our morning by visiting one of many "934s." California Historical Landmark #934 is designated for all the sites associated with Japanese internment from World War II. This one is the Stockton Assembly Center (CHL #934).
images from bookmice.net
This assembly center was only temporary. Japanese-Americans were gathered in assembly areas (this one happens to be the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds) while more permanent housing could be established. Japanese-Americans (approximately two-thirds of whom were American citizens) were relocated as far away as Arkansas.
From the state of California: "Here, within the confines of San Joaquin County Fairgrounds, enclosed by barbed wire and housed in temporary barracks, 4,217 San Joaquin County residents of Japanese ancestry, predominately American citizens, were interned from May 10 to October 17, 1942 under Executive Order 9066. May such usurpation of civil, social, and economic rights, without specific charges or trial, never again occur."
Our next stop was Weber Point (CHL #165). This is the site of a two-story adobe-and-redwood house built in 1850 by Charles M. Weber, founder and pioneer developer of Stockton. It remained Captain Weber's home until his death in 1881.
Charles Weber arrived in California in 1841, eight years ahead of the California Gold Rush. Little did he know at the time how important Stockton would be as a gateway city connecting the waterways that traveled out to San Francisco to the west and the gold mine towns to the east. Weber named the town after one of the American conquerers of California, Commodore Robert F. Stockton.
image from Stockton.gov
Our next stop was Lindsay Point: Site of the First Building in Stockton (CHL #178). The first building in what is present-day Stockton was actually a tule hut built in 1844. The resident of the hut was murdered by Native Americans, and to rub salt in the wound his home was later torn down for the building that would become Stockton City Hall.
Incidentally, this building was nearly repossessed by Wells Fargo Bank in 2012 during Stockton's financial crisis. On April 1, 2013, Stockton became the nation's largest city to declare bankruptcy.
Next on our list was California's first insane asylum, later called the Stockton Developmental Center (CHL #1016).
From the state: "California's Legislature was convinced that the turbulence of the Gold Rush had caused many to suffer from mental problems, and that the existing hospitals were inadequate to cope with large numbers of people with mental and emotional conditions. Consequently it authorized the establishment of the Stockton Hospital, the first public hospital in California to serve the mentally ill. California's mental hospital is one of the oldest in the west, and early on was recognized for its progressive forms of treatment."
image from Wikimedia
Today the 100 acres of land that comprised the mental hospital is the Stockton Center of California State University, Stanislaus.
The most beautiful building on the grounds is the old Superintendent's Residence. Now called "Magnolia Mansion," it is home to a number of private events.
There are also a number of beautiful old Victorian homes right across the street from Magnolia Mansion. It turns out that these were reserved for the doctors who worked at the hospital.
Next up on our travels is the Temple Israel Cemetery (CHL #765). Donated by Captain Charles M. Weber in 1851 for use as a cemetery by the Jewish community of Stockton, this is the oldest Jewish cemetery in continuous use in California and west of the Rocky Mountains.
This was the first time we had ever seen a marble military headstone for a Holocaust survivor.
We weren't actually able to enter the grounds of that last cemetery, but we were able to enter the Stockton Rural Cemetery. This is the site of the Reuel Colt Gridley Monument (CHL #801).
I love this story from bluegrass.net, so here is Gridley's tale: "Missouri native Reuel C. Gridley had served in the Mexican War before journeying in 1852 to California, where he worked as a miner, newspaperman, banker, and auctioneer, among other occupations. In April 1864, he was part owner of a general store in the little silver-mining town of Austin, NV. To pay off a bet he had lost on a local election, Gridley carried a 50 pound sack of flour through town accompanied by a brass band full of boisterous miners.
While celebrating afterward in the local tavern, Gridley conceived the idea of auctioning off the sack of flour for the benefit of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a private relief agency for sick and wounded Union soldiers. His great inspiration was that each successful bidder would return the same sack of flour, enabling it to be auctioned off again and again. In essence, bidders were simply competing for the privilege of donating money to the cause.
By the end of the day, Gridley had raised $3,500 from the local miners. Buoyed by his success, Gridley took his sack of flour to silver towns throughout western Nevada, raising more than $20,000 before moving on to California. Gridley traveled around auctioning the same sack for five months; at the end of that time he had raised around $150,000. His success gained him recognition all over the country, and the Sanitary Commission urged him to come east. Carrying his sack of flour, Gridley arrived in New York City in January 1865 and crisscrossed the North until the end of the war. The sack of flour was sold for the last time at the Sanitary Fair at St. Louis, MO, in April 1865. In total, Gridley raised nearly $275,000 for Civil War soldiers. This would be the equivalent of $3.98 million in today's dollars!
The year of traveling around the country had ruined Gridley's health, and when he returned to Austin, he found the mine played out and his store close to bankruptcy. Two years later Gridley and his wife and four children were living in poverty in Stockton, CA. Upon learning of Gridley's plight, newspaper editors in California and Nevada raised $1,400 to buy him a house and small farm, but Gridley's health continued to decline. He died in 1870 at the age of 41.
Mark Twain later wrote about Gridley's exploits in his 1872 book Roughing It. In 1876, Stockton veterans sold thousands of miniature sacks of flour to raise money for a monument to Gridley. This is the monument we discovered today.
Our next stop was the town of Lockeford (CHL #365). From the state: "It was on this hill that Dr. Dean Jewett Locke and his brother Elmer H. Locke built the first cabin on this section in 1851. Disturbed by grizzly bears, they spent their first nights in the oak trees. Dr. Locke, physician for the Boston and Newton Joint Stock Company, left Boston on April 16, 1849 to cross the plains and arrive at Sacramento on September 16, 1849. Because he built and maintained a ford across the Mokelumne River, his wife, Delia Hammond Locke, in 1859 named the town he laid out on his ranch Lockeford."
We have encountered a number of old mill sites along our travels, and here is another: Lone Star Mill (CHL #155). Like many of the other old mills of California, this was an important gathering point for those needing to grind their flour.
The mill was originally built by interesting California figure David S. Terry. He was the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court from 1857 to 1859.
Terry lost his re-election (California Supreme Court justices are appointed by the governor, but to this day are still subject to retention election by the voters of California) in 1859. Terry was a pro-slavery Democrat and his friend, US Senator David C. Broderick, was a free-soil Democrat. Terry blamed Broderick for his defeat, some harsh words were exchanged, and Terry killed his "friend" Broderick in a duel in San Mateo County (this site is also a CHL, and we will visit it sometime in the future).
image from Wikimedia
Fast forward 30 years. David Terry was about to become the attorney for a Miss Sarah Althea Hill.
image from Wikimedia
Miss Hill claimed she had been married to a wealthy silver baron, but he denied it (he did not deny having a passionate affair with her). She produced a document that was allegedly a declaration of marriage that he signed. He claimed it was a forgery. She was able to secure a divorce ruling in a local court for $2,500 a month. That's almost $60,000 in today's dollars. The silver baron was not about to be swindled like that, and won an appeal against the alimony ruling. Sarah Althea Hill had fallen out of love with the the silver baron, but had fallen in love with her attorney, David Terry. Together, Sarah and David took their appeal all the way to the US Tenth Circuit Court. Riding the circuit in 1888 was bearded and bald-headed Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field.
image from Wikimedia
Field insisted upon no weapons in his courtroom, while Sarah was accustomed to always carrying a revolver in her handbag. She and her now-husband David Terry raised such a commotion in the middle of Justice Field's courtroom about how her honor had been besmirched that Field found both Mr. and Mrs. Terry in contempt, and threw them in jail. He later would go on to rule against them, once and for all, in the divorce case. David and Sarah Terry, now furious and vowing revenge for the ruling, made numerous threats against Justice Field's life while they were in jail. In the summer of 1889, Judge Field returned from Washington, DC, to again ride the California circuit, this time with a bodyguard appointed by the US Marshal Service. While riding the train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Justice Field got off the train to have breakfast at Lathrop Station (just south of Stockton). It was there that David Terry approached Justice Field from behind and slapped him twice in the face. Fearing that Terry was about to draw either a gun or knife from his coat, Justice Field's bodyguard, David Neagle, drew a pistol and shot David Terry dead (it turned out he was unarmed). Sarah Terry returned from the train (she went back to get her purse when she learned that Justice Field was in the station having breakfast) to find her husband's lifeless body on the floor, but before she could draw the gun from her handbag (she was packing a firearm), she was taken into custody. Grief stricken, Sarah Althea Hill Terry was declared legally insane, and spent the next 45 years in the California State Insane Asylum . . . right here in Stockton.
Our travels are almost done for the day, but we have two more stops. The next is the Trail of the John C. Frémont 1844 Expedition (CHL #995). Frémont's historic second overland expedition of 1843-44 was the first in which he reached California. He and his companions entered California in the dead of winter, camped across the snowbound Sierra, spent a month at Sutter's Fort in the Sacramento Valley, and then continued south through the San Joaquin Valley. Frémont's report added to the growing American interest in the Far West and California, making this 1844 expedition one of the most influential events in American westward expansion. Frémont camped at this site on March 26, 1844."
No plaque here to commemorate the event, but ironically in the place where one of California's most prominent figures camped . . . yeah, there's no camping allowed.
OK! Last stop of the day, the Burial Place of John Brown, a.k.a. Juan Flaco (CHL #513). "In 1846, during American conquest of California, John Brown--nicknamed Juan Flaco--rode from Los Angeles to San Francisco in four days to warn Commodore Stockton of the siege of Los Angeles, and troops were sent to secure the city. This 'Paul Revere of California,' who lived in Stockton from 1851 to 1859, is buried in the former Citizen's Cemetery near this site."
It's a shame this marker is tagged (Libi is intentionally giving the graffiti a thumbs-down in the photo below). The story of Juan Flaco is quite remarkable, and beautifully told by the Long Riders Guild, HERE.
Well, we made it our mission to try and see a minimum of 100 historical sites in California by the end of 2013 (we started in October). As of today, the last day of 2013, we have seen 115! Not bad, and that means in three months we have already visited over 10% of our sites! Way to go, Ippolito family! Here's to more family fun in 2014!
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