“Alexander Gordon was a native of New Hampshire, born in June 1826. He was educated in the public and private schools of his native State. In 1849 he came to California with the gold seekers and followed mining until 1852 when he purchased a hotel near old Hangtown in Placer county and continued in this business until 1853. Mr. Gordon, from his early training, was best fitted for a farmer’s life and in 1853 he moved to Marin county and became a dairyman and farmer on a large scale. It was while living in this part of the State that the deceased was married, this event being the culmination of a youthful romance.
“While Gordon was a boy in his native state one of his favorite teachers was Phoebe Lewis. The friendship between the teacher and the pupil ripened into love and when Mr. Gordon was comfortably situated in California, Miss Lewis journeyed to this state and the couple were married.”
(Images: At left, Gordon’s Chute, at right, Alexander’s Gordon’s home near San Gregorio)
Read his February, 1912 Times-Gazette obit:
“Another Pioneer Gone To His Rest…Death Ends Long and Honorable Career of Alexander Gordon
“Once more San Mateo County has been called upon to note the passing of a figure prominent in its history. Once more the call of the death angel has been heard among the rapidly thinning ranks of our early pioneers and Alexander Gordon has crossed the Great Divide to the haven of eternal rest with his Maker.
“Born among the granite hills of New Hampshire, deceased was endowed with a magnificent constitution which preserved by a regulated life, withstood the hardships of early combat far beyond the full allotment of three score and ten years. Imbued to the full with the higher attributes of manhood, he enjoyed more than the respect –almost the filial love –of the people of his city, among whom he had made his home for more than a quarter of a century.
“Perhaps no better record of the life work of this truly stalwart figure in the early foundation of this commonwealth can be found than the following sketch, compiled largely from a biographical history of the central section of this state.”
Something on January 16, 1973 when five-year-old blonde Anna C. Waters vanished from her Purisima Creek home, south of Half Moon Bay. Anna’s mom, Mikie Benedict is a longtime Coastside resident, now living in Montara near famous Devil’s Slide. Mikie has never given up looking….If you lived in Half Moon Bay, if you lived near Purisima Creek in 1973, please search your memories…you may not realize that what you remember could bring loved ones back together.
Mikie tells me that she has written a book called, “Searching for Anna,” which will be published in 2008.
To read a sample chapter of Mikie’s book click here.
[Photos, Anna at age five and how she might look today]
I was reading your article [click here] on the battle to electrify Half Moon Bay. I find it interesting as I am retired from PG&E and at one time worked in Berkeley and Richmond area in the mid 60’s. Great Western and PG&E were also rivals there. It was interesting as construction standards for each was different as well as working on some structures that were installed prior to 1920 gave you a sense of history of the two companies.
In the 70’s I transferred to Auburn eventually ending my career in the transmission department where I had access to the old hydro generation plants some of which have been operating as far back as 1890, many of course were on line in 1910-1920.
Steel transmission towers were constructed from Drum Power House to Newark in 1912. I researched a Rite-a-way easement once that had been purchased in 1890 for “electric poles and wire”.
The purchase of a Rite-a-way for one milk cow, another for a $20 gold piece.
I also enjoyed your article on Ken Kesey, and the “Search for Beatniks” [click here] which is how I came to your web site via a link that was posted on the Strawberry Music Festival list serv.
Bruce
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P.S.
I just wrote you about PG&E and then I read Vietnam, I saw the picture of the Hand Book for Conscientious Objectors. I was a draft counselor for 4 years in Walnut Creek. This brought back memories of that time. I primarily dealt with CO’s, draft board appeals and preparation for court cases.
I understand very much why the present administration doesn’t want a draft, if they had one the country would be in an uproar over their policies.
(Image courtesy San Mateo County History Museum. The Museum is one of my favorite charities. Please visit the exhibits and archives located in the Redwood City’s historical courthouse, the one with the beautiful dome.]
John Vonderlin [click here for more of John’s writing about the South Coast] collector of the Coastside’s natural wonders, asks: Was Pescadero home to the “mythic Atlanteans?”
Read more of his email:
“Being a skeptic, I was subsequently more excited to find out there were star-shaped bits for rock borers. But, how a rotating bit could make anything other then a circular hole was beyond me.
“In fact, I have a beautiful piece of granite, of a type that I call “Explosivite,” because of the smooth three inch hole bored in it for placement of explosives in making the pass down from Yosemite to Highway 395.
“Strangely it was an Atlantean researcher who wrote a paper about his expedition to analyze these ocean floor oddities that solved the mystery as far as I was concerned.
“He was able to trace the shipment of huge blocks on barges from the island quarry they were mined from to an early reef building project. Several barges had overturned losing their cargo. The mysterious holes are merely the product of the concussive impact drill getting its drill bit stuck. Instead of turning and forming a round hole it merely pounds its way through the rock, leaving a star-shaped hole.
” I’ll include a few pictures to illustrate this phenomena and a few other NotRocks. The last picture is of a 5K to 7K Jomon artifact a friend from Japan sent me. This ocean rounded stone was found 50 kilometers from the ocean in the same yam field from which he has gathered thousands of artifacts.
“The Jomon, an extremely sophisticated early culture are the genetic ancestors of the Ainu, the aboriginial settlers of Japan. While there are only a few thousand Ainu (badly treated by the homogenous, conquering culture)left in Northern Japan, there is good evidence that they were the genetic stock that first settled the New World. They share more with the earliest skeletons found in America (Kennewick Man, Spirit Cave Man, etc.) then the later Native Americans.
“Note the amulet? talisman? has a groove worn where it must have swung from a thong. My point being my love for NotRocks is well founded historically. Enjoy John”
[Images below, courtesy John Vonderlin]
June: What is “Atlantean super science?”
John Vonderlin: Atlantean Super Science, is the fanciful belief that the supposed civilization of Atlantis had scientific and technological powers far beyond our present civilization. This general belief of lost technological or paranormal powers once possessed and used by ancient civilizations is very common. The insistence by some, that the Egyptians couldn’t have built the Pyramids or raised hundred ton obelisks without anti-gravity machines is another example. The Ica Stones with their etchings of beings hunting dinosaurs from the backs of pterodactyls with laser rifles is another interesting if totally fraudulent example.
Even the Bible gets involved In Ezekial 1, (4 to 28) there seems to be a description by Ezekial of him watching a spaceship landing and meeting Space Aliens displaying what people of that time would have considered Super Science. Or at least that was what a former N.A.S.A. scientist in a pulp paperback I once read maintained. Some of Scientology’s core beliefs include this kind of concept as have endless issues of D.C. and Marvel Comics.
John Vonderlin, collector of the Coastside’s natural wonders asks, “Was Pescadero an outpost of the mythic Atlanteans?”
Read his fascinating email:
As I mentioned previously, one of the type of rocks I collect I call “NotRocks.” A NotRock is a rock that’s attractive or collectible because of the parts that are missing. On our coast it is common to see rocks that have been holed by various molluscs.
(Photo: A “notrock”, courtesy John Vonderlin)
“Notrocks” come in an amazing array of shapes with the holes being spaced in pareidolic arrangement sometimes.
“Tafoni” is probably the seond most common NotRock found on our coast. I have hundreds of photos of various tafoni along this stretch of coast. While tafoni are mysterious, the forces that create them are at least partially known.
Not so for the mysterious star-shaped holes I found in rocks at several places along the coast. Fascinated I posted my finds on several rock forums, but never got even a hint of what might have caused them. While with a computer controlled laser or lathe you could duplicate this in a lab or shop, how was it happening in isolated hard to even reach spots?
I did learn that there were people who believed that these same star-shaped holes found in large blocks of rock on the ocean floor in the Caribbean were the product of the super science of Atlantis. They reported in some cases the star-shaped holes actually spiralled through the rocks.
Could there have been an outpost, now submerged, of the mythic Atlanteans in Pescadero?
Heard from Miramar Beach’s photographer/artist Michael Powers this morning. He just returned from kayaking 250 miles on the Colorado River..and that reminded me of the “Ocean Studio” he has established, a unique artistic workplace for adventure
photographers, writers, and filmmakers by the sea.
