Sir Arthur Bliss in Santa Barbara

Vol. XVII, No. 1

SPRING, 1971

COLONEL W. W. HOLLISTER 1818 - 1886

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THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF LOUIS McLANE, USN 1844 -1848 On the occasion of the celebration of the sixth anniversary of the dedication of the Historical Society Museum building on February 28, 1971, the Board of Directors held a reception introducing the Society’s latest pub lication: “The Private Journal of Louis McLane, USN—^1844-1848” from the original manuscript loaned by Mrs. Josephine M. Van Ness, great grand daughter of the author. The limited edition was edited by Dr. Jay Monaghan and illustrated by Russell A. Ruiz. It may be purchased at the museum for SIO.OO plus 50 cents lax per copy.

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SIR ARTHUR BLISS at 80 Now only the eyes and heart are young — Patrick Mahony.

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SIR ARTHUR BLISS IN SANTA BARBARA

By Patrick Mahony It was in the years 1923-1926 that Arthur Bliss was much identified with the active artistic life of those times in Santa Barbara. Since then he has become world famous as a composer and next August he will have attained the important age of 80, when many celebrations are planned to honor him. The sum of his life’s work reveals him as one of the strongest musical personalities of our times. He has received every honor England can give to a composer including his life-time status as Master of the Queen s Music and the coveted K.C.M.G. awarded personally by Q ueen

Elizabeth.

Last year he published his highly amusing and thoroughly readable autobiography called “As I Remember” (Faber and Faber, London), which is not only a contribution to contemporary musical history but also reflects his own versatile and entertaining character. Herein he wears his likes and his dislikes as gallantly as an old-time commander wears his medals. He reflects upon his life in what reads like a mingled chime of musical notations which he has composed into a grammatical whole. His friends and interests are multitudinous and he writes of them with a lilting happiness.

MANY FRIENDS IN SANTA BARBARA Santa Barbara is given considerable space considering how brief was his stay here. He has passsed his life before and after in England save for an occasional conducting tour abroad or one teaching stint at the University of California at Berkeley in 1939. Of the many persons he knew in Santa Barbara he speaks of Frank Morley-Fletcher, whose relatives, the Arnold Lejeunes (still with us), were also friends. The noted Santa Barbara composer Henry Eichheim and his wife Ethel are recalled as spiritual affinities; and his hostess of that period was my mother, Ethel C. Bliss who had married his father in 1919, five years after my own father was killed in World War One. Francis E. Bliss brought us all to the U.S.A. in 1923, and he and Arthur took a fancy to Santa Barbara, so here he bought a Montecito estate and here we stayed — my sister Cynthia (now Lady Corry), myself, our half-sister Enid (now Mrs. Morris of Carpinleria). Howard Bliss, another son and a gifted cellist, joined us a little later on.

With twenty-one years difference in our ages the rapport between us was hardly one of brothers but I remember his continuous kindness to my sister Cynthia and myself, buying us presents and taking us to our first moving-picture show. I recall his exuberant gaiety especially. A childlike mirth leaped and danced in him; he was always bubbling with quips and

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jests. This laughter-loving mood which will be remembered by anyone old enough to recall this period of Arthur Bliss, was soon to be quenched, to some extent at least, by the advance of years and marital responsibilities.

His early compositions were linetured with humor and it is significant that his music has grown more and more serious with the years.

All his life Arthur has gravitated to exciting people in his own orbit and in Santa Barbara he gave of himself to every cultural project into which he was invited. He acted in plays produced by the Community Arts Associ ation in one of which he met Gertrude Hoffmann, whom he married in 1926 and who ever after discharged the role of femme inspiriatrice so effectively.

He wrote incidental music for a play “The Queen of Sheba,” by Albert Herter (who built the house which became the El Mirasol Hotel). This was produced at the old Potter Theater directed by Nina Moise, and my sister Cynthia and I played bit parts as children. Arthur lectured on music once at the palatial home of Mrs. William H. Bliss fno relation) in Monlecito. He formed his own chamber music ensemble which gave a first per formance of a string quartet while in Montecito. He also wrote piano pieces and a song cycle named “The Women of Yueh.”

One hilarious memory I hold is of the time Arthur was engaged by the Santa Barbara Morning Press to write a critique of Ruth St. Denis who was appearing with her dance ensemble at the Potter Theater. He very kindly took myself and Cynthia and I remember being spellbound at this, our first live dance spectacle. Miss St. Denis essayed a number with some hoops, one in each hand. In the review, written by Arthur in his tiny but inimitable long-hand, the demon compositor had erred. He printed; “Miss St. Denis used her dainty hoofs to artistic advantage ..

LEAVES SANTA BARBARA Although Arthur’s adoring father hoped that he would settle permanently in Santa Barbara, it was not to be. As if clairvoyant, he realized that Eng land was where he could best climb the ladder to world-wide success. He was one of the first of his generation of composers to utilize dissonance in his music which had become an exploding love among the younger listeners of England but not yet in America. A concert of his work which he per sonally conducted at the Hollywood Bowl was not well received and this may have climaxed his decision to return to England. Of his orchestral works at this time it could not be better commented than to say he proved the dissonance of today is the consonance of tomorrow' — and the dissonance he used sounds nicely melodic compared with some of the more modern composers!

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s

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C

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When youth is at the prow and gladness at the helm

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Thomas Gray.

MODERN COMPOSER He is still a modern composer because he expresses his own mind, a mind which belongs to the present day even if it looks back nostalgically now and then upon the lyrical life of Music’s opulent past.

Always true to himself his music remains as he himself does, a splendid example of the paradox that the most composite of minds can be, at the same time, profoundly original. Even when his music has been controversial it has always possessed attention value; it has never been boring. During the two years he lived in Santa Barbara changes in musical taste had been happening in Europe not as apparent in the U.S.A. There was a newly edu cated mass-public due to increasing popularity of radio, improved technique of the gramaphone, also a sudden craze for operettas. Only a man born with empathy and sympathy could face this change as successfully as Arthur faced it on his return. In no time at all his name was on everyone’s lips and one heard continually of Bliss, Bax, and Berg — the three Bs!

ORIGINATES FROM MAYFLOWER In his book Arthur is best when expatiating upon himself in self-analysis.

He devotes space to his family but fails to mention his collateral to Eugene Field, the noted American poet and writer. The Bliss family originated from the Mayflmver landing, and my stepfather was very proud of this. However, he is most vocal with gratitude in devoted memory to his father who was a Victorian gentleman of good looks and surpassing English charm (he had lived most of his life in London, became naturalized, then Americanized again!). Mr. Francis E. Bliss held an enviable reputation while he lived here.

He was an art collector of stature and exhibited his famed Alphonse Le Gros etchings locally several times. He was also the first important collector of Ed. Borein, the Santa Barbara cowboy artist. As noted lately in Noticias, he and H. G. Wells were among the first to appreciate the genius of Frank Morley-Fletcher’s water colors. Indeed, Mr. Bliss was interested in every facet of art and encouraged local artists.

ROOTS IN SANTA BARBARA Sir Arthur Bliss will always have a root here because his father’s ashes are enshrined in the Santa Barbara Cemetery Chapel. When my mother’s were placed in his crypt in September 1968, I was glad to see they are sur rounded by those of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Eichheim, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Howard Webb, and Mrs. Eleanor Kelsey (her closest friend in Santa Bar bara) — all former Montecito neighbors and friends. It was as if, like Arthur’s father, they had been waiting for her.

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SOME EARLY SANTA BARBARANS The largest funeral procession ever seen in Santa Barbara prior to 1880 was staged on March 29th of that year for one of the city’s principal and most respected citizens, Dr. Samuel Bevier Brinkerhoff. More than half a mile of carriages followed the ornate hearse to the cemetery, according to the Santa Barbara Daily News. The carriages, reported the paper “contained nearly the entire population of Santa Barbara.

Dr. Brinkerhoff came to Santa Barbara in 1852 from New England and rapidly undertook to involve himself in many of the city’s civic and cultural activities. He joined Mortimer Cook, the banker who built the first Clock Building, named for himself, in establishing the First National Gold Bank and became one of its directors.

With Henry Tallant, for whom Tallant Road in the Samarkand area is named, Brinkerhoff, in the 1870’s, purchased most of the block bounded

by Chapala and De la Vina and Haley and Cota streets. They cut a street through the middle of the tract from south to north and called it Brinkerhoff Avenue. At the head of the one-block-long street, at 124 West Cota, today is an interesting Victorian house known as the Redwood Inn. It was built

by Charles Pierce in 1896 and acquired, in 1902, by the Byron Abraham family who planted the tree which gives the present restaurant its name.

Mrs. Abraham was Adeline Crabb whose mother, in 1877 planted the seed ling which has since become the giant Moreton Bay Fig tree near the Southern Pacific depot.

Dr. Brinkerhoff and Henry Tallant engaged Peter Barber, Santa Bar bara’s leading archietct of the time to design a number of houses on both sides of the street. The Tallants retained three lots, on two of which they built houses for themselves, at numbers 528 and 532.

The house at 528 is today an antique studio operated by a lady by the name of Emilee Salvini. It is a charming old-fashioned house with an en trance hall and a staircase which brings you to the second floor by two stages, with a half-way turn. The interior has been somewhat modernized but not enough to spoil the feeling of its period.

A few houses down the street at 512 is the General Store, a delightful old-fashioned place complete with oil lamps and a pot-bellied stove. It is run by Robert and Margaret Marcom who have happily retained the flavor of the 1870’s.

● Santa Barbara Daily Press, March 30, 1880.

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r Dr. S. B. Brinkerhoff in the 1870’s. from S. F. Journal of Commerce, Oct. 1887 —8

There are a couple of other antique shops on the street which give one the urge for exploration and discovery.

While the street is directly in the way of a projected realignment of the freeway, there is reason to believe that it may survive and the freeway may take an alternative route, thus saving Brinkerhoff Avenue for posterity.

In the 1870’s eastern tourists arriving in San Francisco by train could make the trip to Santa Barbara by steamer in a matter of a couple of days very comfortably and reasonably instead of suffering the discomforts of stage coach travel through the hilly and sparcely settled coastal country.

However, there was a deterrent to the water route. Santa Barbara had no adequate wharf for schooners and steamers to tie up to, necessitating passengers to be brought ashore in small dories and then carried, pick-aback through the pounding surf on the backs of sailors. This method of landing did not appeal to the eastern tenderfeet, especially so because when they finally got ashore they found inadequate, if not primitive accommoda tions in the way of housing awaiting them.

1872 IMPORTANT YEAR TO SANTA BARBARA In 1872, the year before the Tallants arrived, certain leaders and busi nessmen of the town, sensing the handicap which threatened to hamper the growth of Santa Barbara, organized the Immigration Bureau {later the Chamber of Commerce) and the first order of business was the planning of a large tourist hotel. Simultaneously Col. W. W. Hollister urged his friend John P. Stearns, an attorney and lumberman, to build a wharf at the foot of State Streets and offered to finance the project.

The next five years was a period of such building and development for Santa Barbara that it has been called the town’s renaissance. The main street was graded, board walks were installed, a mule-car line was started con necting the new wharf with the site of the new hotel (the Arlington was completed in 1875), the Lobero Theatre was opened (with the help and blessings of Hollister), a college was founded, a volunteer fire department was organized, and a daily newspaper was established.

A visitor from the east coast, Charles Nordhoff,

well known writer,

spent some time in Santa Barbara and became so ecstatic about his experi ence that he went home and wrote a book which he called “California for Health, Pleasure and Residence” in which he praised Santa Barbara en thusiastically. The book became a best seller and started an influx of easterners that further taxed the meagre facilities of the town.

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OAK PARK SAVED FOR THE PUBLIC Henry and Caroline Tallanl, like converts to a religion, felt themselves swept along in this renaissance and became involved in many projects that called for help.

Out in the western edge of town was an attractive acreage studded with oaks and sycamores, where children had played since Santa Barbara was a Spanish village. On learning that certain promoters had their eyes on the area for a real estate project, Tallant launched a community-wide campaign to raise funds to buy the area and convert it into a community park. The campaign was successful and title to the land eventually was deeded in fee simple to the city. Today, at the entrance to Oak Park there is a bronze plaque mounted on a boulder commemorating Henry Tallant for saving the park for the people of the community.

Caroline’s most important contribution was her participation in the founding and operation of Santa Barbara’s first real hospital. Cottage Hospi tal. She served as a director for many years.

THREE TALLANTS SETTLE IN MONTECITO Lucy, Edward and Elizabeth Tallant, three of the Tallant’s ten children, settled in Montecito. Lucy married a famous horticulturist, Kinton Stevens and they acquired a large tract of land on which to carry on their horticul tural business. They introduced many exotic plants and flowers, including blood oranges, pomelos, alligator pears (avocados) Egyptian lotus and many others. Lotusland, the beautiful private estate of Madame Gana Walska in upper Montecito, is what remains of the Stevens’ horticultural efforts. The eldest of Lucy’s three children, Ralph, served for many years as Santa Barbara’s landscape architect and plant authority.

The second member of the children’s group was Edward Charles who married Martha Dillon of San Francisco. The young Mrs. Edward Tallant was the moving force behind the establishment of the Associated Charities, the first welfare organization in Santa Barbara and the forerunner of the Community Chest. Its objectives were to help the poor and underprivileged and help keep the county indigent list under control. Her sudden death at age 48 resulting from a previous automobile accident, put a sad and abrupt end to her charitable endeavors.

Ed, along with other activities, was Chairman of the Board of Super visors, and later, tax collector. He instituted numerous measures to provide a more efficient operation of the process of tax collecting. Later he was chosen by Mrs. Hannah Hollister to be general manager of the sprawling Hollister estate and served in that capacity until his death in 1936.

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EDWARD TALLANT —U—

JUKICHI-THE STORY OF AN ILL-FATED JAPANESE JUNK, 1815

By James E. Fagan An American attorney, James E. Fagan, living in Tokyo, having a penchant for history, was researching recently in certain Japanese historical archives when he came across a manuscript purporting to be the record of the ill-fated voyage of a Japanese junk bound for Nagasaki in the year 1815.

The junk, according to the manuscript, carried a crew of some 35 men un der a captain by the name of Jukichi.

The story, writes Mr. Fagan,

. . includes a few pages of description

of Santa Barbara as seen by Japanese sailors in 1815. These sailors were the three survivors picked up from a drifting junk by the brig ‘^Forester''* on March 24, 1815, about 300 miles off the coast of Southern California.

At various times in the first half of the 19th Century,” writes Mr. Fagan, there were instances of Japanese castaways being rescued by Am erican whalers and merchantmen from disabled junks which had been blown from the coasts of Japan by storms. Several suck groups of castaway sailors were carried either to Honolulu or to the American mainland by their res cuers and many of them succeeded ultimately in making their way back to their homeland, where they described what they had seen in foreign lands. These eye-witness accounts were rare sources of information for the Japanese, as Japan at that time was a closed country. Under the govern mental policy then in force, no Japanese was permitted to leave the country, or having left it, to return, except such accidental castaways as these. No foreigner was permitted to enter the country, with the exception of the Dutch and Chinese traders whose vessels were permitted to call once a year at Nagasaki.”

In sending us this story, Mr. Fagan comments that the English-language sources cited by Dr. Porter, author of ''The Cruise of the Forester” say variously that the brig called at Santa Barbara or at Conception. Japanese language source materials deriving from the returning castaways have assumed that the place was Santa Barbara.

"I am inclined to think, however,” writes Mr. Fagan, “from the contents of the Japanese description, that the place visited was perhaps not Santa Barbara proper but was some other, smaller settlement in the vicinity, such as Conception or Refugio.” — Ed. * For an account of the Forester’s voyage based on English language sources, there is “The Cruise of the Forester, Some New Sidelights on the Astoria Enterprise,” Kenneth W. Porter, Washington Historical Quarterly, Vol. 23, Oct. 1932, pp. 261-285.

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From there^ they sailed north-northeast for about two days and ap proached the land and anchored at a place which seemed to be a harbor.

The Japanese had thought that their rescuers were taking them to Nagasaki and therefore thought that this must be Nagasaki.

Captain Pigot went ashore with seven men and Jukichi^ went with them.

They were met by fourteen or fifteen men with horses. These men were dressed like the people from the ship and looked the same to Jukichi. Still thinking that this place was Nagasaki, Jukichi thought that these people must be Dutchmen. But the horses were somewhat big for Japanese horses and their faces were longer. The girth was “tied in three places” and the stirrups were three-cornered.

The foreigners exchanged greetings and all mounted horses. Jukichi was told to mount up also but he had never ridden a horse before. He asked them to lead his horse but they could not understand him. So he got on his horse but the horse refused to move. He signified in pantomime to his companions that he had better go on foot but they gestured back that they had a long way to go and that he must ride. To which he replied by gestures that he had better ride double with someone and so that was what they did.

They rode through a valley in which there were cultivated fields in which grain was ripening in the ear. As this was only the end of March, it would be extraordinary for grain to ripen so early in Japan. But Jukichi thought that perhaps in Nagasaki the season was earlier than elsewhere in Japan.

They went about a Japanese league (about 2.5 miles), and looking ahead he saw a whitewalled house like a Japanese nagaya?. This he thought must be the Dutch factory'* of which he had heard. Before what seemed to be the main gate there came out about twenty men and women to greet the newcomers. There was a man who seemed to be in charge, who wore clothing of purple wool like Captain Pigot. The women wore clothes of beautifully printed cotton, like that which in Japan was called Chinese calico^. The sleeves were slightly bigger than a man’s sleeves, and from the hips down the dress had many pleats and folds, like a Buddhist priest’s robes. The under (?) skirts of this clothing were wide and could be seen (?). The women wrapped their heads with a cloth and wore rings in their ears, with various ornamentation.

1 The lee of an island, probably San Nicholas. Jukichi said that land was dimly visible from there in the distance, to the east and to the north.

2 Jukichi had been the master of the ill-fated junk. His two surviving crew members were too weak from their long ordeal to go ashore with him.

3 A tenement house where more than one family lived, made of several houses joined together under one roof.

■* I.e., the trading-post, or factory, occupied by the Dutch at Nagasaki.

5 Morokoshi Sarasa — 13 —

On seeing Jukichi, all laughed and turned him about. Captain Pigot seemed to be explaining that this was a Japanese and giving details of how he came to be there. Then the prominent man came up to Jukichi and firmly grasped his right hand.

Then, when they went inside the house, Jukichi saw that it had an earthern floor. Chairs with arms, like a Buddhist priest’s chair, were set out and the seven persons from the ships, including Jukichi, were made to sit in the places of honor, while the other people were five or six men. As Jukichi still thought that this was Nagasaki, he expected to be called at any moment to the Nagasaki magistrate’s office. But before long they brought out a big table in the middle of the room and placed on it various good things to eat, with table utensils nearly all of silver.

The people there could not all understand the language of the people from the ship and there was a man among the ship’s crew who acted as in terpreter. The house was like the residence of a government official in Japan and was built of earth, with glass in the windows. There was a door that opened about six feet^, for coming and going.

After the meal, everyone went outside. Around the house there was blooming a mass of red flowers resembling the wild rose which in Japan is called ibara botan, growing in profusion and in full bloom. On picking some of these flowers and thrusting them into his sleeve’, there was an indescribably beautiful scent. The other Japanese on the ship must be weary of waiting, he thought. He was only awaiting the summons from the Nagasaki magistrate’s office.

SAW NO JAPANESE There were fourteen or fifteen other houses in this vicinity (or five or six according to an earlier version). The people living in them all seemed like officials®. The party walked about here and there but Jukichi did not see a single Japanese. It became evening and they went back to the ship. Jukichi described to his two country men what he had seen on land and said, “Today I did not see any Japanese. No doubt from here they will report to the magistrate’s office and tomorrow they will come for us.” So thinking, the three Japanese happily went to sleep. But early on the following morning, about twenty sailors went ashore with axes and knives and a little later Captain Pigot awoke and came out and after breakfast took Jukichi ashore ashore with him again. Where they landed there were many cattle and horses. There were 46 cattle tied up and seven of them had been killed and

One ken. This may indicate either the height or the width of the opening.

7 A common way of carrying things, in the broad sleeves of Japanese men’s clothing.

8 I.e., like Japanese samurai who lived by administering, not like peasants or tradesmen.

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skinned. Jukiclii saw the sailors kill another of them by striking it between the horns with an axe, after which they skinned it with their knives. On seeing this he realized suddenly that this place could not be Nagasaki'’. Once again, as he had before when they were first rescued by the strangers, with their unfamiliar ways, Jukichi lamented to himself fearfully Have we fallen alive into the Realm of Beasts?.

With the realization that he had not regained his own country tears came to his eyes. He realized too that his two companions on the ship would be mournfully surprised on seeing the carcases of the slaughtered animals brought aboard the ship.

PREPARATION FOR FEAST Once again Jukichi and the others went on horseback to the house they had visited on the previous day. Before the entrance there were lying cattle, sheep, pigs, rabbit, and others, altogether about seven different kinds of animals. All killed and laid out in a row. It seemed that the people would cook them after showing them one by one to Captain Pigot. This apparently was done for the purpose of showing the articles of today’s feast to the guest in advance. There was some etiquette or custom having to do with it, he

thought.

Today again as yesterday there was another feast. Then, on seeing there a map of the world, Jukichi asked what land this might he. He was 12 told that this was a place called Nova Espania^\ a country belonging to Russia (!) on the boundary between South America and North America, between five and ten degrees^^ of the Equator on the opposite side of the upper half of the globe from Japan. He also learned that the ship which had rescued them was not from Holland but from London, the capital of England, a country in Europe, belonging to Russia (!). It was a ship that went around trading from one country to another. The English had 1200 public vessels and 600 merchant ships. All English ships that came to North America could not enter without a certificate from this place (Nova Espania).

So they all came here for that and also for vegetables, fresh water and other provisions.

^ In Japan, a Buddhist country, animals other than fish and fowl were not slaughtered for food or other purposes.

Chikushodo, a Buddhist purgatory.

11 As Jukichi transcribed it, Nokva Isupaniya.

12 Related or belonging to Russia. This seems to have been the error either of Jukichi or of the scholar who prepared Jukichi’s narrative from Jukichi’s dictation and who may have added a few contributions of his own.

13 Another error, which perhaps the said scholar made from consulting a Japanese map on which Nova Espania was shown as located about 5° north of the Equator, on the border between South America and (Russian) North America.

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Nova means new, and this country was joined to the country of Espania after the latter (had been formed), so it is called Nova Espania or New Espania. It is a very warm country. The name of the man in charge here was Yotega^'’. In that year he was 55 years of age and his wife was 50. He had by the same wife twenty-five children of whom eleven were sons and fourteen were daughters. They raised all twenty-five strong and healthy with out losing a single child.

The two sick men could not regain their health aboard the ship, Ortega said, and so took them into his own house where they received care. Jukichi lived on the ship but went ashore daily and went to the Ortega house where he was feasted many times.

They were at that harbor for ten days, during which they loaded vegetables, water and other provisions and also about eleven salted beef and many pigs. On the eleventh day they sailed away and sailed to the NNW for eleven days.

The above is the description as taken from the two Japanese-language sources: 1. the deposition which Jukichi made to the examining officer on his return to Japan and 2. the book about his travel which he thereafter dictated, Marco Polo fashion, to a Japanese scholar. In the English-language source Captain Pigot in a letter written the same year seems to have referred to this place as “Point Conception” while another officer of the Forester, in an interview of 45 years later, told a newspaper reporter in 1860 that place to which the Japanese w'ere taken was “Santa Barbara.” Jukichi refers to the name of the place as Shiyuhan, which may be the last syllables of the name Conception, as this would have been written in Japanese as something like Konseppu-shiyuhan.

No doubt Ortega.

15 Phenomenal. But as Jukichi knew hardly a word of English or Spanish, it is quite possible that he misunderstood when he was being told the number of Ortega’s children and grandchildren.

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SANTA BARBARA IN 1903

By Robert Harrington The following story by Mr. Harrington is published just as remembered by the author after almost 70 years. We think it captures the emotions of a small boy upon his arrival in Santa Barbara with his parents so long ago.

—Ed. On the Santa Barbara Local, a little three car train pulled by a small steam locomotive, we arrived in Santa Barbara at the old Victoria Street Station about seven o’clock at night. Our train had started from Saugus, at that time the junction on the San Joaquin Valley line from Los Angeles. The coast line of the railroad through Oxnard didn’t start running until the fol lowing year.* At the depot we took a horse drawn cab for Rainey’s boarding house, located on Santa Barbara St. just below Victoria St. There we were told that they didn’t take children, but after mother and father told them that we were model children they made an exception to the rule and let us stay.

At this point, I think that I should tell you a little more about our family. Father had been an attorney in Waltham, Massachusetts, and was sent to California for his health. At first he went to Pasadena, and after three years there, feeling that he was making little progress, moved to Santa Barbara where he regained his health; a good recommendation for Santa Barbara’s wonderful climate.

MULE CAR TO THE BEACH The day after landing at Rainey’s boarding house, we took the mule car to the beach. I played hard in the sand and got pretty tired. My mother was a tea drinker, and by putting a little milk in her tea, she used to give some to me. She called it milk tea. That night I asked for milk tea and be cause it didn’t taste like what mother used to make I made a big fuss, and disgraced my father and mother who had called us model children.

After I had disgraced the family by my conduct, father was quick to find another place for the family to live, and we found just such a place in the Edwin Hayward House on Bath Street. We were close to Islay Street, then the end of the old mule car line. Although only four years to get out and turn over the seat backs, while the driver was team around the car ready to start for the beach. This old line down Bath to Sola and across to Chapala and then down Chapala

old, I used taking the used to go

to Victoria and across by the front of the old Arlington Hotel. Another line went across

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on Victoria to Garden and up Garden where it also stopped at Islay. The old mule car lines were narrow gauge.

After a few years electric cars came to Santa Barbara. The people who were installing the electric cars thought it would be nice to give the faithful old mules who had pulled the cars for so many years, a ride, so they arranged to have a flat car attached to the first electric car and pull them around through the city.** This they did and all of the schools let out so that the children could see the new cars pulling the mules.

I was in the second grade at the time and since the new electric cars went right by our house, I went home to see the car go by. But it never came! It seems that on Sola Street, which was not yet graded, the new car line had cut a channel, on proper grade, and had not made it wide enough for the flat car carrying the horses to pass through. So I never saw the show that the other children, let out from school, saw. I remember sitting on the front steps of our Bath Street house and asking my mother if I was safe sitting there. You see I had never seen an electric car.

COTTAGE HOSPITAL OUT IN THE COUNTRY Of course before long these difficulties were overcome, and the electric cars passed our house daily. They ran to the Cottage Hospital, which at that time was way out in the country. Before long the narrow gauge track, made for the old mule cars, was changed to standard gauge and the electric cars altered to fit. After a few years the electric cars were superseded by busses, as in practically every section of Southern California.

At first I attended the old Fifth Ward School. It was an old two story building, two rooms down and two up. When I was in the fifth grade, it burned down. We were all jubilant, for we thought we wouldn’t have to go to school any more. Not for long, however, for we were soon told to go to the Lincoln School way down on Cota Street. Except for the greater distance, this was not too bad however, for we had the same teacher and retained our identity, not having to mix with the other children except at recess.

By the next year a new six room school was ready at the same location as the old Fifth Ward School. It was on the corner of Arrellaga and Anacapa. It was called the Washington School. I was now in the seventh grade and a Mr. Stewart was our teacher. These are recollections of some of my first years in Santa Barbara.

● Southern Pacific Railroad, Wilson Taylor, McGraw Hill Book Co., N.Y. 1952, page 127.

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See Noticias, Vol. XV, No. 1 for complete story of Santa Barbara street cars.

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Old Lincoln School about 1870.

Lincoln House (1870's) al 1404 De la Vina, at Sola. Now the Upham Hotel.

NEWS AND NOTES OF THE PAST FROM THE JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, OCTOBER, 1887 The Santa Barbara County Railroad Edition of the San Francisco Jour nal of Commerce, dated October, 1887, was circulated as a promotional piece to commemorate the completion of the first railroad connection with Los Angeles (through Saugus and the Santa Clara Valley) on August 19th of that year. Although by then two of the most important and well loved bene factors of the city had passed away. Dr. Brinkerhoff in 1880 and Col. W. W. Hollister, August 10 in 1886, their portraits (in steel engravings) together with that of living George Tebbets of the Daily Independent, dominated the pages of the paper. The likeness of Dr. Brinkerhoff was centered in the middle of page one of the Journal of Commerce, indicating the high esteem in which the people of Santa Barbara held their late friend who had done so much to secure the railroad for the area.

The following items have been copied from the special edition above mentioned.

FIRST TELEPHONES The first telephones were established in Santa Barbara by the Sunset Telephone Company of San Francisco on July 10, 1886, with 35 subscribers.

A year later there were 94 phones connected. It was announced that lines would soon be extended to Montecito, Carpinteria, Ventura, Goleta and Lompoc.

MISSION CANYON EARLY WATER SOURCE Pure, clear, healthful water was promised in 1872 to the residents of Santa Barbara from a new company. The Mission Water Company, headed

by R. B. Canfield. The water was piped through town from its source, the “living springs of Mission Canyon” and by 1876 something more than 500 connections had been made to the mains.

HOT SULPHUR SPRINGS The famous hot sulphur springs in El Montecito valley, 6 miles east of Santa Barbara, are becoming a great resort for the afflicted. The tract in which they are situated contains 320 acres of land, with an ample supply of fresh water. The average temperature of the five principal mineral springs is 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

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THANKS TO COL. HENRY deB. FORBES Praise is but poor payment for the continuing efforts of one of our Board Members, Col. Henry deB. Forbes, Jr., USAF Ret., who for the past two or three years has devoted literally endless hours of his time to super intending a variety of complicated maintenance jobs in and around the Museum complex.

Among the many projects requiring professional supervision have been the complete re-wiring of the Covarrubias Adobe; the installation of attrac tive new lighting fixtures; the tearing out of quantities of ancient, crumbling adobe around the foundations of the building and the substitution of fresh reinforcements of cement to preserve the 153-year old structure; termite treatment for the entire building {our hats off also to the companies that provided the labor and material. See Noticias, Vol. XV, No. 4, 1969) ; es tablishment of an entirely new drainage system around the building to pre vent the disintegration of the foundation and walls; installation of a new sewer system to replace one no longer usable: and many other smaller jobs like installing new plumbing facilities, repairing fixtures and locks, and countless other maintenance jobs requiring thoughtful action.

We are constantly in Col. Forbes’ debt for his generosity. It is rare to find an individual who is not only willing to devote his time consistently over a long period entirely gratutiously, but who also is able to provide highly skilled and professional ‘"know-how” to everything he handles.

IN MEMORIAM Miss Ruth Henderson Mrs. Clarence Rogers Mrs. C. Tutenberg Mr. Cameron Rogers Mrs. George Climo Mr. Ewen Cameron MacVeagh Mrs. Dorothy R. Fenzi

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n

nn

0 B

uuu uu Via San Luis Obispo, In THIRTY HOURS! Only Direct Land Route!

Fare from Santa Barbara to Goleta $ 75 tf Pat’s Station 2.00 (1 Home Station 3.00 it Santa Ynez 4.00 II Ballard’s 4 50 Los Alamos ● 6.00 Round Trip from Santa Barbara to Los Alamos 10.00 Stages leave Santa Barbara every day at 7:30 a. m. Arrive at Los Alamos at 6:30 p. sr., same day. Connect with the Pacific Coast Railway for San Luis Obispo. By far the grandest scenery on the Pacific Coast. Stages arrive at and depart from all Santa Barbara hotels.

LELAND & PATTERSON, ProprietorF. D. R, PERHAM, Oeneral Agent.

Advertisement from S.F. Journal of Commerce, October 1887

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RUSSELL RUIZ LECTURE POSTPONED NOTE: Russell Ruiz’s lecture on “The Oldest Books in America scheduled for April 20 has been postponed to April 27, one week later to accommodate many of our members who wish to attend a lecture at UCSB and yet do not want to miss the Ruiz lecture.

ADDITIONAL LECTURE SCHEDULED MAY 18 The Santa Barbara Historical Society has been fortunate to be able to book an additional lecture in its current series by Dr. Sigurd Hess, Ex change Professor from Norway, presently on the faculty of Santa Barbara City College, on Tuesday, May 18, 1971 at 2:30 p.m. in the Covarrubias Adobe adjoining the Museum. Dr. Hess will speak on “Norway, Culturally, Politically, Economically and Educationally.” Members may bring guests to this lecture.

WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS ACTIVE Mr. Christian Brun

Dr. C. Seybert Kinsell

Mrs. Janet Caminetti Mr. and Mrs. John P. Carhartt

Mr. Donald K. Livingston Mrs. Donald K. Livingston

Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth S. Greenberg Mr. Michael R. Hardwick

Mrs. Philip B. Lukei Mrs. Berthe Malecot

Mrs. Edgar F. Harvey

Miss Gertrude K. Richman

Mr. George F. Hartnett

Mrs. Michael C. Rodrigue Mrs. C. E. Russell

Mr. Jeremy Hass

Miss Marv A. Tucker SUSTAINING

Miss Ynez D. Haase

Mrs. Donald Kellogg Mrs. Kenneth Kennedy Mrs. E. Keith Lockard

Mrs. Emma M. Hubbard

Mr. and Mrs. Henry L. Stambach

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen R. Boyle Mrs. Ronald Fendon

CONTRIBUTING Mr. and Mrs. Robert Bernstein

Mr. Walter G. Silva

Mr. and Mrs. E. Kenneth Ray

Mr. and Mrs. William B. Watling ASSOCIATE

Mr. and Mrs. Neal V. Robinson STUDENT Mr. Craig W. Smitheram

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SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY OFFICERS President

Francis Price

First Vice-President ..

Hugh J. Weldon .... Mrs. Edwin Dewter

Second Vice-President Secretary Treasurer

Miss Lillian Fish William K. Serumgard .. Mrs. Henry Griffiths

Museum Director Editor of Noticias

Courtenay Monsen

DIRECTORS Mrs. William B. Azbell

Edward Kemble

Mrs. M. C. Conkoy Rev. Virgil Cordano, O.F.M. Mrs. Edwin Deuter Miss Lillian Fish

Dr. Edward Lamb Patrick Lloyd-Butler Mrs. Leo T. McMahon

Col. Henry deB. Forbes, Jr. Whitney T. Genns Mrs. W. Edwin Gledhill

Russell A. Ruiz

Mrs. Charles Piper Francis Price

W. K. Serumgard Hugh J. Weldon

John Jordano, Jr. HONORARY DIRECTORS John Galvin

Thomas More Storke

HISTORICAL SOCIETY MEMBERSHIPS Classes of membership: Benefactor, $5000.00 or more: Life, $1000 00Patron, $500.00; Fellow. $100.00; Associate, $50.00; Contributing, $25.00; Sustaining, $10.00; Active, $7.50; Student, $5.00. Dues are tax deductible.

Mailing Address: 136 East De la Guerra Street

●

Santa Barbara, California 93101

Contributions to the Society are tax exempt.

Cover picture: from San Francisco Journal of Commerce Santa Barbara Edition, Oct. 1887.

Non-Profit Org. QUARTERLY BULLETIN OF THE SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY 136 EAST DE LA GUERRA STREET SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA 93101

U. S. Postage PAID Santa Barbaro, Collf.

Permit No. 534