The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 1, 1897, Page 20

THE 189", LMOST FORGOTTEN RELICS OF BY-GONE GREATNESS A Neck Ornament That at SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST I, SOME 4 An Armchair W‘That Was Once the Pr President Martin Van Buren. Only three walls are leit of what was| once a room in the Mansion House, the | swellest hotel for miles around. | The site of the Mansion House is the corner of Sixteenth and Dolores streets, opposite the Mission Dolores. Before Bixteenth street was cut through, the pas- tor's house stood where the car-track is now laid, which was‘an adobe structure about forty feet long; the burying-ground | also extended across the street, in fact, | across two lots from where the carner of | Bixteenth street pow is. When the street was cnt through those buried thers were | removed: to either the smalier buryi grotnd ivn- Dolorés or to | Holy > { these three walls | 5 4 two-st truc- ture built ‘of adobe, with a baicony run- ning around tie second story. Tberoof, | which rested on rough-hewn posts, was formed of curved tiles. This waz the Palace Hotel of the Mission 1rom the date | of itz eréction in 1 Eixteenth | street was cut thro ar this build- | ing were several buildings, the | homes of the padres and of the military | guards. Thefathers often complained of | the insufiiciency military guards in case of a suddcn ian uprising. | In the first part of this century every | branch of industry was represented; the | women were empleyed in sewing, weav- ing ard making straw hats, mats and | baskets. Tue Mission Dolores not only | supplied i's own wants but furnished the | Presidio, puebles and ranchos with most | of theirrequirements. Lhe military posts | drewall their provisions from this $ource. | The storerooms were filled with great | «uantities of wheat, barley, beans, mn,] other 13 DEMAIAL operty of so from King of dea Ito for mar CAPTAIN JACKS BCW AND ARROWS. that there is in this country. What &. is a quee any words can. is a piece of heavy woolen cloth. Honolulu, but be values his gifts from tbe last King of thbe islands so much that be thinks they are safer here than there. doubt but that this is the most valuable collection cf relics {rom Hawail They are valuab'e as curios, but much more that they were presents to an American from the last the pretty hittle islands in the Pacihc, tbe fact * * * * . - ng old chair. It is msde of a dark wocd thi e hi FROM THRONE ROOM OF . att values most among all tbe collections in his house B A glance at it would give the impression that it was some old thing the like of which couid be found any day. The accompanying drawing will conves s better ides ol the chair than v painted, and the back There are thousands of chairs a good ke il thet can be found in sny second-band store. ory of this chair gives ita most important place as a relic. to £resident Van Buren, and way in bis } The piece of heavy wooien cloth that form KING KALAKAUA PRESIDENT CHAIR. There can be littls record. . . dsy saw the backed chair. you want and I will repair at t Presi dey and night uniil ew York house he back was as w Mi co; n Dolores, 2s We now s er of it, at the teenth and Dolores streets, was originally but the southeast corner | | of the ori nal Mission of Mater Doloross and San Francie d’Ass!si, the old mission having been laid out in a square. Imme- diately bebind the mission buildings a small orchard and vineyard was planted, for the good old monks were as fond of thexr wine as the Dutchman is of his beer and pretzels, It is even whispered that these monkssided illegal traffic with the Russians and Americans who visited | the port'of San Francisce. That, I sup- pose, ‘was the only bit. of enjoyment they { had, and there are not very .mapy about to-day who can prove that in the ar 1776 good Father Laudasta, then the head of Missior Dolores, permitted or aided illegal traffic in the mission. The property where stands the old adobe relic bas been in the handsof the Raffina fam- ily for a century and a quatter. The house is occupied by two old maid sisters, the Misses Raffina. g Up a short flight of wooden steps 1 went and rang the bell to beg a glimpse of this ruin from within. The door was an- | swered by a bright intelligent woman of 40 years, more or Jess, who, when I told wy mission, informed me that she was very weary of showing the house, for she I Las been cverrun with visitors, curiosity seekers, camera crunks, artists of all kinds and descriptions, Miss Raffina was cer- tainly a beauty of the pure Cas: in Ber younger days, forghe is looking woman, & zood talker—firm snd decisive, Instead of baving pets from catdom these two spinsters have seven dogs, of all sizes and descriptions. To see s beef, dried, salted or smoked. | ill & fine- |- | | them basking in. the sun one would im- mediately decide that the antiguaied siructure was & home for indigent curs The adobe partof the house is used as 3 storeroom now, but until cracked this was the parlor. As I walked across the ve- randa I could perceive the building creak. Tie door leading to the piazza is in the | center of a large room. Out of this large | room are two smeller ones—one on exch { side. The partitions are very thin. | whole appearance of the interior of the | house -is as though any great weight | thrown heavily agsinst the wall would i bring the house down precipitatety. | *ZEvery artist who coines here,” raid | Miss Raffina, ‘‘promises me a picture of | tae house, but I never get it, and I don’t | propose 1o be annoyed any more."” | It would be utterly impossible to geta | picture ‘from the opposite side of the | | street, as the fence is covered with ivy | | i end the plaza is filled with all kinds of | creeping plants—not a flower on ihe ve- randa, nothing but green leaves every- where one tarns. In a littie platto the left of the steps are a few struggling flowers of uncertain family. How damp | and cheerless this old ruin is. The roof is covered with moss, which sends out an odor that is not at all like Pinaud’s violet. I read a short time ago a very interest- | ing sketch of the monks of the Mission Dolores in the year 1806 which impressed | me very much. Itseems that in the eariy | part of this century the Governor had a | great deal of trouble with the monks, who | | traded with foreign vessels that came into | port, which was strictly forbidden. I will quote 1t: “With ail due reverence for the pious fathers, 1 must beg you to watch them closely. Use all your energy | to suppress a iraffic so detrimental to the revenue his Majesty the King. The fathers are in possestion of articles obtain- able only throngh these strangers. For instance, do I find in their bands silver watches and other valuables procurable only through the Russians or Americans, to whom the fathers give tbe sealskin prepared by tbe Indians.” These instruc- | tions were given to the comandante at the Presidio, whose duty it was to sup- press all traffic with foreign peoples. Just think, in the eaily part of the present century what we znow as Mission Dolores wes also a trading station, The people of the immediate vicinity of the Mission Doloross are Spanish, all of whom. spent their childbood days in an adobe bouse, all of wbhom love it as the Indian does bis wigwam. . 2 This very pleasant person with whom I spoke regretied very much that she didn’t bave the adobe ‘house in close range that she mizht explain it thoroughly to me and relate some interesting story con- nected with it, : Haven’t you ever seen an adobe house pefore? Lots of people bave Been here to look at Raffina’s place, but that isn‘t any- thing compared with thosein Monterey! Perhaps it's because Father Ugarte used 1o live there, . % Fatber Ugarte! Who washe? ° . Why, be was the smartzst, greatest smuggler that ever lived—awful smary man he was, too! *Tell me about it,” I said. “Well, now, - I don’t know much, only The | As I remember a passage from the book i | | | what I have heard my grandiather tzli,{! land be knew Father Ugarte. When Father Ugarte was a young man he fell | in love with a besutiful Spanish girl in the City of Mexico, but the girl promtiy | rejected him. Ugarte decided to kill the | man who bhad won the girl, and set| |about to lay his plans; but a certain | 1amount . of religiousness asserted it- | self and he decided to join thel mornastery. He was sent from Mexico up here to try to convert the Indians, | | but he found this very slow work, so then | | he became interested in the sealing busi- | | ness and carried cn very extensive transe | { actions with all the foreign vessels that entered the harbor, and it. was through | bim thet many a foreign trader left this | port unscathed, He was loved by all his | peovle, and no one would inform on him. In those days the law was very severe Ugarte was never even chastised. He | always kept on band two hogsheads of wine, one full and the other empty in case while trading with any of the foreigners, be would be surprised by a visit from ofti- | cers of the law. He would put the fugi. tive in the empty cask. “Father Ugarte is buried over there be® | | bind the church, perhaps you can see his | grave if you go over.” | | Iwent, but McNamara and Gagan were ! the only names decipherable on the many | weatherstainea and mossgrown monu- | | ments in that much neglected city of the dead of the Mission Dolor: He Lost His Tips. “O! course Ihad avariety of experi- ences,” he began, ‘‘while I was chasinga | fortune in the great Southwest. Perhaps jas odd a one as any of them was thisone in Northera Texas. A few of us was building a narrow-gauge railroad to open | upa new section and put some land on the market. At the same timea broad- gauge line was being constructed through that portion of the State, “‘Along a stretch of about five miles we happened 1o secure the same rightof way, akeen old Yankee taking pay from both of us. Neither road would yield, it would take too long to fight the matter outin the courts and we compromised by laying the narrow-gauge between the rails of the broad-gauge, arrangipg timetables with a view to avoiding sccidents, 3 “Things went along without a clash for about s1X weeks, when I started over our road 4s the guest of the engineer. He was showing me the paces of the locomotive, and while we were fairly flying over the common right of way we saw through the dim light of early morning that an im- mense sleeper was coming toward nsatno less than a mile a minute. It had be- come detached from the train ahead and wes shooting down grade. “'There was no time to reverse or at- fempt to retreat. The engineer set his testh, pulled her wide open and shot through the sliéepes as though it were a fog bank. We cnt out the broad aisle as slick as a saw could have done, raked the ends of a few seats, caught the porter on the smokestack and flew on without checking speed. Not a Dassenger was burt, but the porter sued- us for $6900, ‘Hurt? No, but he lost the trip, don’t you see? and tips were tips in those days,” VAN BUREN'S be had a neighbor and friend named Charles 8. Edwards. long been a sufferer with coosumption and was daily growing worse. President Van Buren used to drop in occasionally to see him, aud one ck man trying to make himself comfortable in a stiff- That won't do,”” said the President. 'A ROOT G & 2 2 2ag | N SuA FRAACISCO against trading with foreigners, but Father | | without much ceremony. for it was found | | because one of the roots of the fir tree, at SWORD OF crechetted by the hands of Mrs. Van Buren, 2nd the good old lady did it for the purpose of bringing relief to a suffering man. When the chair wes first made is a matter of which there is no It seems that some time during Van Burem's term of offics Edwards hed sena it over.” it was finished. Both the President and his wife often came in to tes how the sick man was zetting along, and it gave both of them great pieasure to see what comfort he ook out of th= old chair. BUNKER HiLw. “] bave just what Baut it seems thas the chair was out of be time and needed a new back. As soon as she heard that the dent wished to send tbe chair to the sick man, Mrs. Van Buren volunteered to make a new back for it, which she did, working almost There is little doubt but that GROWING IN A HUMAN SKULL breathing.a word of tha bad done bim. The litt. of Van Buren. famiiy; Charies £ Edwar e-of time she fouad urally enoughb she ire 10 her busband, the pr What is very Ii pent is another of Mr. P old. libood thst it is not cor her great-grandmother w. a century ago, and the old lady wao for ion at least that many years more, so that it gives It a century of sfe. ses has beer proparty. embroidered w and shawl was brouszh aze. ¢can hardiy authenticate ihe gr B * A real sword of G ress sword of the B bard. In ger existence at & father, James J. owned ty that man's | - er. land. As down from A pateb-box of the most antique patter by M t. This bas been in- the McCae and o ¥ came from the same eariy porcelain mirror on the ins of “lair ladies’ existence. n COpper. cauvsed 80 much troubie chiet was captured and among hbis friends, and M tbe chair prolonged the sufferer’ for bim to pass away when flet : alirricts stc Mr. and Mrs Van Buren for the favor th peliticat life to ‘take a piessure ; . After the death of Charles S, Edwards, the relztives wanted to ye: chair 16 Van Buren, but be refuced 1o teke it, and so it remained om her aunt, who was present when That is, its bistory can be traced rect. n she was a small The shawl is of Dutch manufacture of raw silk. in tke family ever since the year 1600. ¢ . there are the proper legal papers to prove the ownership of this piece of There is little to the shawl to describe. 2 simple design around tbe edges. The remarkabl thing about the shawl is the way in which it bas be.d its color. lues are as perfect as the day they were put on. It does not look Ii be said to barmonize with it. at age of the fabric. * Bapker H and usec the oid sword that now e which hasno doubt reflec through the twoor ihree ceai The last of this valuabie collecti from a Mr. Griffin about twenty vears ago. Modoc country and knew tne cold Indian ch w he would have t riffin got the bow and arrows. One Time Belonged to King Kamehameha the First. }ife for many ‘daye and made if easier ecame. - This he d:d, in the ofa ¢k ineldent serves to throw copsiderable lizht on the character It shows him ‘#s 3 map who wasablein = of storm in ministering to in the Juren cbair. er life, and on ber death was an oncle of Mrs. Pratt, and in possession of the Va 1. The chair came to Mr: k man, so that there can be nbdoubt-2bout'its . . . . . Dat an conti- relics. iar back and there islittle I as & beritage from gi s was at least balf merly owned it had it in her pos- Mrs. P The story goes that it It is said tbat in Holland It is 2 dul! yellow in color, The reds It is iikely that the llow color colors on the shawl case it will only . ill is amother cf Mr. P, - period and . ter it had been ht 2t Bunker Hill scure house in Oak- but had been handed ble specimen of gn and b ting {aces of hundreds ies that it has beenin The box is pre on of relics comes from our own is nothing less than a bow and , the famons Modoc chief who Mr. Pratf received this i & settler in the After ‘the oid ded his property Of co in tnose days they were not as valuable as they are now. Mr. Grifin thoyght chief's stamping-ground. ccliection. they would be more interesting to some on not living so close to the old Ana so they became a part. of Mr. Pratt's _ This Strange Freak Was Recently Found on the Southern End of Bay Farm Island. There is a tree over on Bay Farm | Isiand, that little addition to Alameda, into which & man bas grown. The trec apparently has absorbed the brain of a man into its sap veins, and the man who | made the discovery now regards the tree with a superstitious awe as if it were | partly buman. | The tree is an ordinary fir tree that has been growing for at least a half century. | Some time ago Frank Silva, who lives upon the island, was dizging at the foot | of the tree, completing a trench which ran just at the base of the fir. As he was working away among the roots that im- peded his work he turned up some buman bones. The vnearthing of s skeleton is zlweys interesting and Mr. Bilva directed his search for the rest of - the bones. These be located after a little work and he found a complete skeleton. The bones had been burled for a long | while, for they were denuded of every vestige of flesh and were bleached and white. From the position in which the bones were found it was very evident that the body liad been tumbled into the grave face down and in a erouching position, as | if the body bad been hurriedly thrown into its last resting-place. Upon exposure to the air the bones fell one from another, though they did not crumbie into dust. They were all care- fully removed from the hole save the skull, and Mr. 8ilva made an effort to re- | move that. Bat he found it impossible to | bring it from the porition in which it lay, the base of which it lay, had grown en- tirely through the skull. it was found necessary to chop the root away entirely before the skull could be removed. Tue reot had penetrated a crack in the skuli and had forced its way through the head and out at the opposite side, When it dawned upon Frank Silva that the tree had grown through tue skull and had actually absorbed the brain of a man into its wooden trunk he regarded the tree with awe. He has since refused to allow the tree to bé cut in any way. Deputy Coroner Smiley of Alameda took charge of the remains, though no in-- uest was ever held. S “The skeleton Avas undoubtedly that of an Indian,” said Mr. Smiley. “The bon were found on the south shore of the island, about fifteen feet from the bank, beneath a fir tree that has been a land- mark on the island before the first settler plantea his asparagus bed. The skeleton was in a crouching position and covered by the roots of the tree, while ciear through the skull a root almost as thick asmy arm had grown. It wss necessary to use a hatchet to remove the skall, “It is my opinion that the fir tree has been growing on the island nearly halfa century. The bones had probably rested beneath the tree forty years, It may be that one of the Indians, who were the original inhabitants of the island, was murdered and buried near the young tree. I cannot understand how the root could have penetrated and grown through the skull unless there was a hole in it. The skull was & perfect specimen when I se- cured it except that it had been perforated by the roet. *“1am not sufficient of a scientist to ex- press any opinion ss to how much of the man, if any, grew into that tree through the root. You have got to ask some of these scientitic follows about that, but it is certain that the tree must have obtained some nutriment from the brain of this ran. It may hive changed its form in the tree, but I think that. the brain was absorbed by that root.” g £ Never -Pay Cash: "Konx pay cash for anyihing. if you want to get commercial rating,” said a business man toa New York Sun reporter. “'Get goods on credit, even when able to pay. spot cash for them, and pay the bill with promptness when it becomes. due. 1f you do this long enough you wiil proba- bly get the reputaticn of pouosniu"tll the'money you haye &ot trusted for, and, at any rate, will.be known in business circles where you wouldn’t be named {f you always paid cash. A man who pays cn_l; for. everything ‘is supposed to. be dolpg_ business on small capital, while a man who gets things on credit or, what is better still, pays for them in notes, is gen- erally believed 10 be operating on such a large scale that he has no ready money-to spare for small deais. "< . - {io ““As for getting credit, it is the first step that costs, of course; but a man can begin by referring people to ‘his landlord and i / 7 .45;. i L, the tradesmen with whom he deals, if he ean do no better. If he has no scconnts anywhere be must set about baving them: Get trust for small amounts, and you will in time get trusted for larger ones. The first requisite to wealth is not money, but credit. Get credit, and you will do business amounting to an indefinite num- ber of times your capital. “Without dilating further on the ad- vantages of credit, let me give you an il- lustration of the disadvantages of doing business on a ¢ash basis. A country mer- chant I know, who had always paid cash for everyihing he bought (and did a cor- respondingly small business) determined finally to enlarge his trade, and to o this Tequired the credit he had never before asked. for. When he came to town and asked the men to whom he had alwavs vaid cash to let him Lave goods on time they one and all became suspicious of him and refuted. The very fact that he had always paid cash made them think, when he: finally asked for credit, that he wasa't a safe man to trust. Moral: Never pe¥ caph for anything 1f you would avoid sus- picion.” The temperature ow cncumber is one degree below that O the surrounding atmosphere, It is, therefore, spparent that the expression *‘cool as a cucumber” is scientifically correct.