Created by June Morrall
Rizzoli has reissued the original book Italian Villas and Their Gardens by famous East Coast writer Edith Wharton; inside there are pretty garden images by artist Maxfield Parrish, who adds his trademark magic to the illustrations from more than a 100 years ago.
The Wharton-Maxfield work was published the same year that Jennie Crocker wed Malcolm Whitman in San Mateo.
If the garden water spigot is turned off on the Coastside, you can still have a beautiful garden with cacti and succulents.
There’s a “banana belt” in El Granada, for example, and these moisture-storing beauties do just fine.
Important County Politician & Famous MD To Tie The Knot At The Oceano Hotel & Spa, Princeton-by-the-Sea
Details to follow…………
By June Morrall
[From my “Over the Hill” series]
When the banks learned that the New York underwriters, following the lead of their London counterparts, would pay the insurance claims promptly, a spokesman said, “This will be a great relief. The money market needs it, too.”
The Eastons, Adeline and Ansel, returned to California, and in 1860 purchased 1,500 acres of land in Burlingame, then known as Easton, according to the archives of the San Mateo County History Museum in Redwood City.
Adeline’s prominent banker brother, Darius O. Mills, purchased an adjacent 1,500 acres in what is today called Millbrae.
Before Adeline Mills Easton died at age 87 in Burlingame in 1916, she retained Nellie Olmsted Lincoln to write a 38-page booklet called: “The Story of Our Wedding Journey.”
The bell of the steamer Sonoma, which had rung on the morning of the Easton’s wedding in San Francisco in 1857, was brought to St. Matthew’s Church in San Mateo and tolled at the grand lady’s funeral.
But history’s final curtain did not drop on the Central America as she lay one mile deep on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Hatteras.
In the 1980s maverick engineer Tommy Thompson set out to find the wreck and salvage its treasure from the ocean floor. In author Gary Kinder‘s suspenseful book, Ship of Gold, he chronicles Thompson’s epic search for the lost vessel leading to one of the most successful salvage operations ever undertaken.
Ship of Gold brings to the surface another lost treasure: the remarkable tale of a Peninsula couple with extraordinary ties to the Gold Rush and California’s early history.
——–
Finale!
Some railroad advocates used the disaster of the Central America as an argument in support of a transcontinental railroad. This effort was led by Sacramento engineer Theodore Judah, who published an important pamphlet on the subject at the time of the shipwreck.
Judah never lived to see the transcontinental railroad but there is an historic irony here. He had solicited financial support from the Sacramento merchants: Hopkins, Huntington, Stanford and Charles Crocker, soon to be better known as the Big Four, the builders of the Central Pacific Railroad. Later, Adeline Mills Easton’s daughter, Jennie, would marry the son of Charles Crocker.
The Central America herself was not insured but the underwriting companies were committed to covering the losses of the precious gold cargo. The New York banks–already faced with the financial Panic of 1857 –could collapse if the American underwriters did not reimburse their losses.
(Next Part 13)
Sixty of the survivors, including the Eastons, chose to sail to New York aboard the Empire City. Chief Engineer Ashby–the man passengers blamed for allowing the engines that operated the pumps to break down–also wanted to make that voyage.
According to Adeline, Captain McGown prohibited Ashby from boarding the Empire City. “Not on my steamers,” he said. “You can’t come aboard.”
News of the wreck was slow to reach San Francisco, and it was uncertain who had been saved. When a vessel was wrecked, it was maritime practice for the next ship to bring the passenger list. That meant an agonizing wait for the information.
Meanwhile, the brig Marine telegraphed that 100 of the shipwreck victims had landed at Norfolk and an additional 91 sailed to New York via the Empire City. This was good news but San Franciscans still didn’t know if their loved ones survived.
(Next Part 12)
Adeline was aboard the Marine when another commercial vessel, the Empire City, came into view, and her captain climbed aboard with stunning news.
“Where’s Mrs. Easton?” he asked. “Tell her her husband is awaiting her in Norfolk.”
Adeline Mills Easton almost buckled and couldn’t wait for the reunion.
“Of our meeting a few hours later I cannot speak,” she said. “Great joy is too deep for words.”
(Next Part 11)
Molly chases bubbles at Mavericks. Can you see the bubbles? To see more, click here
