Click to access mapping_belmonts_story.pdf

Honoring Germans Who Fought For Freedom

Posted on May 31, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press

I was going to send an e-mail to a woman at the San Mateo Historical Society, but then found this article on the monument Germany is considering of an American Veteran, Carl Schurz. I was going to point out the remains of my Janke grandparents being dug up and moved to the Union Cemetery in the middle of the night. If I had received anything that resembled a civil greeting from any member of Belmont Historical Society, I might have visited the Union Cemetery this very day – that Nikki Haley called our VP “unprofessional and unfit” . I suspect I was snubbed by the BHS because I posted some Oakland History of Kamala Harris. Politics makes up a huge chunk of our history. I just posted on my Patriot Rosamond Family who owned slaves in South Carolina where Haley got votes. I wrote Ursula von der Leyen about this matter – which is a huge world concern – and can not be constricted by teeny tiny prejudiced members of the BHS.I am done with the Lilliputians!

I believe that is a image of William Janke taken in Twin Pines Park. His daughter, Augustus Janke, married William Stuttmeister. He moved our family to Cypress Lawn after our graves were dug up and evicted from the Odd Fellows cemetery. That is the Stuttmeister monument in Berlin with a replica of a famous statue of Jesus.

John Presco

President: Belmont Soda Works

Forty-Eighters – Wikipedia

The Holy Land of The Gold Rush | Rosamond Press

Stuttmeisters Expelled From Belmont | Rosamond Press

I just sent this message to Ursula van der Leyen the head of the European Commission:

“My ancestors are a Gold Rush family who came to California in 1849 from Hamburg, and the island of Heligoland. They brought six portable homes around the Cape and erected them in Belmont California that is near Stanford University where Commissioner von der Leyen attended college. I have found evidence of prejudice against Germans in Belmont. The graves of Cark Janke and his wife were dug up in the middle the night, and moved to another city. Janke Street was changed. The study of my family in Belmont has been oppressed. I am kin to Ian Fleming and am authoring a Bond novel, starring Victoria Rosemond Bond. I find Erdogan’s treatment of women, appalling. Sincerely John Presco President: Royal Rosamond Press”

I sent a letter to the Belmont Historical Society in 2000, and again when I posted this on Royal Rosamond Press on June 8, 2012. I was miffed when I got no response. I suspected Good Ol Boyism was at play. Was there prejudice against my German ancestors? Carl and Dorathea Janke were dug up from their graves in the middle of the night – and reburied in Redwood City!

John Presco

https://rosamondpress.com/2021/02/24/janke-and-turner-vigilantes/

Tanforan Cottages

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press

There is a contest to determine which is the oldest house in San Francisco. The two Tanforan cottages in the Mission district were considered the oldest, but, the Treat house is a recent contender.

“Tanforan cottages, you have met your match. Mission Loc@l reports on the discovery what is perhaps the oldest house in San Francisco at 1266 Hampshire (between 24th and 25th), dating to 1849. It has been traced to the brothers John and George Treat, whence the street name came.

“The house on Hampshire, historians said, was likely built in 1849 — the year a pair of influential pioneer brothers arrived in San Francisco — or 1850.” It was identified during the city’s South Mission Historic Resources survey. Gregory Thomas of Mission Loc@l does a fine job referencing maps, but he makes the rookie mistake of stopping with the 1861 Langley map in the search for Treat.  But  going back to the 1859 US Coast Survey map, we can see the Treat compound at its original wonky angle, next to their Pioneer Race Course.”

Then, there is a house in Emeryville where horse racing found a home, also.

“He and his wife Lavinia assembled a small house, which may have been shipped around Cape Horn, farmed the land, and raised pigs and cattle.”

In 1994, a few months after the death of my sister, Christine Rosamond Benton, I went to the Sacramento Library and in the California History room, I began to research the history of my family. Rosemary had recently told me that William Stuttmeister and his brother-in-law, William Breyer had built over forty homes in the Fruit Vale area of Oakland that was a city at one time. We owned a farm and orchard in the foothills below Joaquin Miller’s house. Miller would come visit the Stuttmeisters and carry my father on his lap as he and Melba rode the trolley.

Going into the microfish I found an article from the San Francisco Call bulletin that said William had married Augustus the daughter of Carl Janke and lived in the city of Belmont California. I then looked for Carl Janke in the catalogue and found an entry in the history of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a encyclopedia of around four books. It said Carl brought six portable houses around the cape and erected them in the city of Belmont that was not incorporated until 1926. About ten years ago I read that one of the Tanforan cottages was moved from Belmont, they on a Spanish land grant that came to be owned by Toribio Tanforan, the grandson-in-law of Jose Antonio Sanchez.

No one can find any history of Toribio. Why then is being honored? Jose Sanchez is very famous in regards to Spanish land grants. There is no Tansforan land grant. One historian says Toribo was a gaucho from Chile, and thus he was a excellent horseman. And, that’s it! This is what conects the mysterious Torribo to the Tanforan race track and Belmont. Give me a break! Why are two houses in San Francisco named Tanforan?

I suspect Tanforan was the name of the German theme park that Charles Janke built in Belmont, it said he modeling it after a German way of life. Tanforan is not a Spanish name. It also resembles Turnverien, who were Forty-Eighters who fled Europe in the ‘Erupecan Spring’. Consider the ‘Arab Spring’ no doubt named after the revolutions that swept Europe, including Italy, that bid Count Leonetto Cipriani to leave his home in Belmont and pretty much rule the United Italy under Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel. Why wasn’t Ciprianis name applied to a race track? I did find a ‘Cipriani Dog Park’.

In his Overland Diaries Cipriani discuss his prefab house that was out together by screws. This is the famous house in Belmont, called ‘Ralston Hall’. Across the bay in emryville Mr. Coggeshall and his wife have screwed together their new home that was shipped around the cape in 1849. Is this yet another of six portable houses brought around the Cape by my kindred, Carl Janke? San Francisco realtors are selling land in Emeryville. What we are looking at is the birth of California Real estate where track homes are built to arrack folks from back east. Did Cipriani invest in real estate? Who financed him if her did?

“The second sale that Vicente Peralta made was for the greater portion of his estate to a group of San Francisco investors for $100,000 in August 1853. These investors then sold off plots within the estate. Perhaps the first American to settle in what later became Emeryville was Frederick Coggeshall, a native of Massachusetts who came to San Francisco in 1849 and purchased a 45-acre tract on the San Pablo road near where 45th Street is today. He and his wife Lavinia assembled a small house, which may have been shipped around Cape Horn, farmed the land, and raised pigs and cattle.”

One so called historian says the Tanforan Cottages were built by ships carpenters from ships that were abandoned in the Gold Rush by 49ers, sailors who jumped ship to look for their gold mine, that were in want of experience carpenters, who were not paid much. One citations said portable houses were built on the east coast where labour was cheap thanks to the Irish immigration. As to the idea that the Tanforan cottages were moved from Belmont to the Mission, after the San Francisco, consider ‘The Vans’ a structure that was moved to Belmont from San Francisco.

“One of two surviving structures from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition is on Belmont Avenue (the other is the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco). The building was brought to Belmont by E.D. Swift shortly after the exposition closed in 1915. Swift owned a large amount of land in the area.”

The San Francisco exhibition was a giant them park like the one Janke built, called Belmont Park. The first theme park in San Francisco was right next door to the Tanforan cottages. The Treat house was located next door to a race course. It is said Janke brought his houses to the Bay Area to sell to 49ers that struck it rich, but, I put forth a theory that these homes were owned by race track owners who took many fortunes away from those who struck it rich. The cost of a house was nothing in comparison to participating in ‘The Sport of Kings’. There was no great city, but, a 49er could show off his wealth at the race track, he putting on the Ritz, smoking Cuban cigars, and losing a bundle with a girl under each arm. Elmer Big Bones Remmer understood what men want – and women! They don’t want a church-goer penny-pincher, not ‘Out West’ Consider Las Vegas and the real idea these portable homes were used as houses of ill repute. There was a real shortage of women in San Francisco that was wanting the oldest profession in human history to come to town.

The Stuttmeisters fled Germany as members of the Turnverien and lived in Chile. German Free-thinkers changed America, forever. During World War One the Windsors changed their German name Saxe-Coberg because of anti-German sentiment. I believe this name-change was forced upon Heinrich Alfred Kreiser Rengstorff, who once owned more land in America than anyone. The story of how he was named Henry Miller – is a fairytale! Hienrich (Henry) got his start in SF as a buthcer. Consider Cipranis’s cattle drive. Now consider the real possibility that the Emmet House that was moved to a new location in Belmont appears to have been added on to over the years like the Ralston house, but one can see it looks like one of the Tanforan cottages underneath. (top photo)

Someone has got to look at these homes to see if they were put together by screws. If so, then my kindred will go down in history as California first Real estate tycoons who bought land for next to nothing. However, men who could build a home were hard to find our west. The Janke prefab homes were bought and sold several times, then moved to a new property. This is the fate of the Emmett house this very day!

As for Belmont’s history, I find it very shoddy. It appears that some well-to-do and well-meaning citizens of a new Bay Area city (1926), went looking for their roots. They could not ignore the Jankes, or Cipriani who were foreign revolutionaries, even Socialists and Atheists. It was these men that founded the Republican party and nominated my kindred, John Fremont, as that parties first presidential candidate. These foreigners made up John and Jessi Benton’s bodyguard.

Belmont Park had contests of physical prowness, and marksmanship. So did the Turnverein gymists who held gatherings in San Francisco. It appears Janke lured them to Belmont. The idea that Belmont was acenter for German Revolutionaires, repulsed some Belmontese who were no doubt WASPs. Turnverein beccomes Tanforan, and Spanish.

One California Dreamer wanted the city of Benicia to be the state capitol. The first citizens lived in prefab houses purchased back east, that were dismantled, then brought around the Cape. Was there a prefab supplier in the Bay Area? There was a contest to see who could erect California’s Captiol.

Jon Presco

Copyright 2012

Given the radicalization of the movement in the 1840s, it is not surprising that the German gymnasts were directly involved in the 1848 revolutions. Turnverein leaders won renown for their leading roles in local uprisings, among them Gustav Struve in Baden, Otto Heubner in Dresden, and August Schärttner in Hanau. One Turnverein leaders who was not in the forefront of radical change was Turnvater Jahn. Elected as a representative to the Frankfurt Parliament, Jahn was given honor, but no real influence, in the revived gymnastic movement.

Although a proposal to form a “Gymnastic Army” (Turnerschar) to supplement the National Guard was never realized, gymnasts manned barricades and participated in crucial fighting during the revolutions. Early in the revolutionary period, the eighty-odd members of the Kiel Turnverein took arms against Denmark in the conflict over Schleswig-Holstein.

One of Belmont’s oldest and most historic homes has come a long way in 126 years. About three blocks, to be precise.

The former home of a prominent citizen, Belmont’s Emmett House was ripped off its foundation nearly three years ago and transplanted to a new location.

Now, after nearly $1 million in seismic and structural renovations, the house has been converted to two units, has had a two-car detached garage added, and is ready to begin a new life as low- to moderate- income housing. The city is in the final stages of choosing the residents, and will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday.

Though the 10-year ordeal of saving the historic home is near its end, the project didn’t come without controversy.

“We wanted to preserve it … plain and simple,” said Carlos de Melo, Belmont’s community development director, citing the house as one of the city’s more special historic landmarks.

De Melo said the house’s previous location at 843 Ralston Ave. began to see rapid development and was deemed to be no longer appropriate for a historic landmark. After a number of public hearings, the City Council voted to move the house to its new location at 1000 O’Neil Ave.

In a bizarre sight, the 126-year-old relic was lifted off its foundation and transported to an empty parking lot on the rainy night of Jan. 22, 2008. The house had to be moved via roadway at night to avoid traffic, said Belmont Mayor Coralin Feierbach.

When the home was relocated, however, some people in the vicinity of O’Neil Avenue objected to their new but run down neighbor. The house “didn’t look very good” and added to neighbor resentment of low- to moderate-income units in the area, Feierbach said.

expectation was that Benicia would become a metropolis of Northern California, situated as it was at the head of the ocean and being in a position to command the trade from the interior rivers and valleys.

Semple constructed a small scow and began ferry service between the north and south shores of the straits. Shortly after, he built a better ferry. He charged an extra 50 cents for ferrying wild horses, which had to be lashed down during passage and were difficult to offload. He started out making $115 a month. During the Gold Rush days he was making $50 a day. He was already printing the first newspaper in California, aptly named the Californian. He married Frances Cooper in 1847 in Benicia’s new hotel, California House, a large two-story adobe. The proprietor of the hotel was Maj. Cooper, the father of the bride. After his marriage, he went on to pursue his dream for Benicia. It was due in great part to Semple’s persistence, constant promotion and industrious nature that by 1850 Benicia was poised to challenge San Francisco as a major port.

Most new inhabitants, circa 1847, were from the New England states. These early settlers of Benicia were obliged to live in tents and wagons before several adobe and small frame houses were erected. But with lumber $300 to $600 per thousand board-feet, the fact that there were no lumber yards and that carpenter’s wages were high, the people of Benicia soon turned to prefab housing. They ordered their homes from back east. The houses were dismantled there and shipped in sections around the Horn. Time was also a factor. A house ordered in this manner would be in place within two years. A house constructed on site with hand tools would take around three years before it could be inhabited.

Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California was a thoroughbred horse racing facility that operated from September 4, 1899 to July 31, 1964. Tanforan was constructed to serve a clientele from the nearby city of San Francisco. The facility was named after Toribio Tanforan, the grandson-in-law of Jose Antonio Sanchez, the grantee of Rancho Buri Buri. [1] [2]

In addition to horse racing, dog,[citation needed] motorcycle,[citation needed] and auto [3] races were also held at the track during its early years. Closed following California’s 1911 anti-gambling legislation, it reopened without betting for the 1923 and 1924 seasons through the subsidy of prominent area businessmen led by sugar magnate Adolph B. Spreckels. After 1924, it would be another ten years before a full racing season was held once the ban on parimutuel betting had been lifted. [4]

Hollywood film director Frank Capra filmed scenes for two of his films, Broadway Bill and Riding High, at the racetrack.[5]

EXHIBIT: “Emeryville’s Wild Gambling Past”

Did you know that Emeryville, a town just over one square mile in size, was once a gambling mecca with a huge one-mile horse-racing track? The city that today draws crowds to its shopping complexes has always been an entertainment center where card clubs, the Chinese Lottery, and the first dog races in the U.S. occurred and thrived. Thanks to years of original research by members of the Emeryville Historical Society, this fascinating story of a former “vice capital” is finally being brought to light ­ from it’s wild West poker legacy to the failed crack-downs during prohibition and its last remaining card room.

A History of Gambling in Emeryville, a brand new exhibit at the Oakland Public Library’s Oakland History Room, uses pictures, pamphlets, and poker chips to tell the town¹s colorful past. This unique history of an East Bay community will be on display starting August 3 and running through October 4 at the Oakland History Room, located on the second floor of the Main Library at 125-14th Street. The free exhibit is co-sponsored by the Oakland Public Library and the Emeryville Historical Society.

The history of The Van’s is a colorful tale that dates back to around the turn of the century. Built in 1915, it originally was erected to house part of the Japanese Exhibition at the Panama Pacific International Exposition held in the San Francisco Marina District in commemoration of the opening of the Panama Canal. At the close of the exposition, all but two of the buildings were dismantled — the Palace of Fine Arts, which remains standing in San Francisco, and the Japanese Tea house.
Land Baron, E.D. Swift, purchased the Tea house in 1915 and barged the entire structure down the Bay to Belmont, California where the house then served for three years as a private residence for Swift’s two daughters. In 1921, teams of horses and mules pulled the structure up a steep dirt trail to its present location nestled in the hills overlooking the Bay Area.
In 1933 during Prohibition, Elsie Smuck bought the house and under the name “Elsie’s,” she offered bootlegged whiskey to a select group of friends and acquaintances. The speakeasy was also rumored to have slot machines and dice games operating on the first floor, and the use of the third floor was quite suspect as well.
A trolley that ran from San Francisco to Redwood City was the popular means of transportation to an from the secluded hideaway. With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Elsie’s became a legalized saloon,however, stories of gambling and harlotry lingered.
Upon her death in 1945, Elsie left the establishment to a prominent Burlingame citizen, and the saloon was turned into an Italian restaurant. Business partners Gene Sowle and Ivan Sawyer bought the restaurant in 1947 and renamed it “Gevan’s.” Ten years later they dissolved their partnership and Sawyer, who retained ownership of the restaurant, subsequently shortened the name to “The Van’s.”

Belmont is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. It is in the San Francisco Bay Area, located half-way down the San Francisco Peninsula between San Mateo and San Carlos. It was originally part of the Rancho de las Pulgas, for which one of its main roads, the Alameda de las Pulgas, is named. The town was incorporated in 1926. The population was 25,835 at the 2010 census.
Ralston Hall is a historic landmark built by Bank of California founder, William Chapman Ralston, on the campus of Notre Dame de Namur University. It was built around a villa formerly owned by Count Cipriani, an Italian aristocrat. The locally famous “Waterdog Lake” is also located in the foothills and highlands of Belmont.
One of two surviving structures from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition is on Belmont Avenue (the other is the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco). The building was brought to Belmont by E.D. Swift shortly after the exposition closed in 1915. Swift owned a large amount of land in the area.

Belmont Soda Works
 
The 1870s saw the first industry local to Belmont, the Belmont Soda Works. Founded and operated by two German immigrants, Carl Augustus Janke and his son Carl Ferdinand, the Belmont Soda Works produced over one thousand bottles a month, selling sarsparilla and other drinks to people across the Peninsula.
The Jankes, in addition to founding the Belmont Soda Works, located on the west side of Old Country Road (150 feet from Ralston Avenue), they ran and owned Belmont Park. By selling drinks to the Park’s visitors, Janke was able to make his two businesses work together to increase his profit. Although the Soda Works would be gone by the early 20th century, it was not forgotten.Belmont Park
Belmont Park was well known in the latter part of the 19th century as a fine picnic spot. During its heyday, picnics took place weekly on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Trains made special runs to its location. The picnic grounds were the brainchild of Charles Janke, who was a native of Germany and who structured the park after his German experience.
The park could accommodate 300 people at its dance pavilion. Contests (three legged races, pony cart races, foot races, and marksmanship) were held regularly for the men. The ladies amused themselves in more docile ways: taking walks, dancing, or listening to the live music.
The park’s main entrance was at Ralston near 6th Avenue. Participants at park events included various organizations from San Francisco. At times, the San Franciscan crowd became so rowdy that it was appropriate for them to have brought along their own policemen, which many groups did. At times, this did not prove sufficient enough to quell the resulting disturbance and a jail was built to address the problems. In addition to violence which necessitated the use of a private jail, tragic occurrences took place at the park. Specifically, there was a gang related shooting and kidnapping.
By the beginning of the 20th century, charters were no longer run by Southern Pacific. It is uncertain whether the termination of service resulted from complaints of wealthy residents from Burlingame/Hillsborough who did not appreciate the tourists traversing their property or attributable to the horrific costs associated with the damages the drunken picnickers invoked on the trains.

The history of The Van’s is a colorful tale that dates back to around the turn of the century. Built in 1915, it originally was erected to house part of the Japanese Exhibition at the Panama Pacific International Exposition held in the San Francisco Marina District in commemoration of the opening of the Panama Canal. At the close of the exposition, all but two of the buildings were dismantled — the Palace of Fine Arts, which remains standing in San Francisco, and the Japanese Tea house.
Land Baron, E.D. Swift, purchased the Tea house in 1915 and barged the entire structure down the Bay to Belmont, California where the house then served for three years as a private residence for Swift’s two daughters. In 1921, teams of horses and mules pulled the structure up a steep dirt trail to its present location nestled in the hills overlooking the Bay Area.
In 1933 during Prohibition, Elsie Smuck bought the house and under the name “Elsie’s,” she offered bootlegged whiskey to a select group of friends and acquaintances. The speakeasy was also rumored to have slot machines and dice games operating on the first floor, and the use of the third floor was quite suspect as well.
A trolley that ran from San Francisco to Redwood City was the popular means of transportation to an from the secluded hideaway. With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Elsie’s became a legalized saloon,however, stories of gambling and harlotry lingered.
Upon her death in 1945, Elsie left the establishment to a prominent Burlingame citizen, and the saloon was turned into an Italian restaurant. Business partners Gene Sowle and Ivan Sawyer bought the restaurant in 1947 and renamed it “Gevan’s.” Ten years later they dissolved their partnership and Sawyer, who retained ownership of the restaurant, subsequently shortened the name to “The Van’s.”

Greyhound racing in Oregon began in 1933, when the Legislature passed a bill to
permit pari-mutuel wagering in the state. A group of principals from the Belmont
Greyhound Track in California formed the Multnomah Kennel Club and opened their
first racing season in May 1933 at Multnomah Stadium, now known locally as Civic
Stadium.
In the early 1850s Toribio Tanforan, an early Mexican era settler erected a pair of matching cottages on Dolores Street, north of 16th Street. Set on a very large lot, they served originally as farmhouses for him and his family. They are among the oldest houses surviving in San Francisco.

The “Tanforan Cottages,” so called because members of the family of Toribio Tanforan occupied them from 1896 to 1945, are simple frame structures with modified late Classical Revival facades. Though very nearly identical in appearance, they were not constructed at the same time; 214 Dolores is said to have been built a little before 1853, 220 not long after that date. This dating is questionable, though, as the first substantiated date is 1866, when Revilo Wells, owner of 214, had water piped in. There is still a small carriage house behind 220 Dolores–occupied as late as 1940 by one of the Tanforan carriages. The large gardens of these houses have been well maintained and contain many specimens of turn-of-the-century San Francisco taste in flora (Olmsted and Watkins 1969,

Toribio Tanforan was actually from Chile and passed away in 1884. His wife (called his relict in the SF Morning Call) passed away a few months later. He was only 54 and his wife 52 which gave me a real understanding of 19th century life-spans –unless they died in one o the numerous epidemics that swept through SF before the city had a reliable system for providing clean water and disposing of sewage.

They must have been a wealthy and influential family because they didn’t lose their land during the Gold Rush, as did so many Spanish land grant families. The fact that they kept their property during the skyrocketing rents of Gold Rush San Francisco also speaks to their prosperity as well as the fact that the Tanforan Racktrack (located on the former site of Rancho Buri Buri, a Spanish land grant farm), was named after Toribio. During the Gold Rush, small buildings in the Portsmith Square area were renting for $6000 a month and one building on the square rented for $150 a day, proving that high rents are nothing new in SF. The family survived fires and vigilante groups, corrupt mayors and even an unpaved Delores St as I found an image from the 1860’s which shows that the area that we now know as Delores St. was an unpaved mess, muddy during the winter and dusty during the summer.

In the 1860’s, SF had its first amusement park just two blocks away. Located at 16th and Valencia, it was called “The Willows” and its prize exhibit was a Emu. That inspired one of Bret Harte’s early verses (not very well known but maybe better so).

“O say, have you seen the Willows so great,
So charming and rurally true,
A singular bird, with the manner absurd,
Which they call the Australian Emu?”

Well, maybe you had to be there.

In the 1860s, the population had bloomed up to 56,000 and Kearny St. was the city’s chief shopping center. Horse drawn cars went up and down Market St. and for the fee of a whole .5 cents (maybe high for the time); you could ride all the way to the Ferry Building. The Tanforan family wouldn’t have had to use public transportation; after all, they had their own carriage and a building to house it in. The city had its first newspaper, the San Francisco Call Bulletin, its first theatre (The Jenny Lind), and the city had grown from a motley collection of tents and shacks to mid-sized city. They even had paved streets in the downtown area and a succession of officials, some corrupt and some not. Some were efficient and some….were not. Obviously, some things never change.

Landmark 67
Tanforan Cottage 1
214 Dolores Street Between 15th and 16th Streets
Mission Dolores
Built 1853
This is one of a pair of redwood cottages built by the Tanforan ranching family on land that lay within the 1836 Mexican Grant to Francisco Guerrero. Located only half a block from Mission Dolores, the oldest building in San Francisco, these two cottages are probably the oldest residential buildings in the Mission District.

Landmark 68
Tanforan Cottage 2
220 Dolores Street Between 15th and 16th Streets
Mission Dolores
Built 1854
The following is quoted from Here Today, San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage by Roger Olmsted and T. H. Watkins, published by Chronicle Books in 1969:
Two very old houses that have maintained their original appearance can be seen side-by-side at 220 and 214 Dolores Street. The “Tanforan Cottages,” so called because members of the family of Toribio Tanforan occupied them from 1896 to 1945, are simple frame structures with modified late Classical Revival facades. Though very nearly identical in appearance, they were not constructed at the same time; 214 Dolores is said to have been built a little before 1853, 220 not long after that date. This dating is questionable, though, as the first substantiated date is 1866, when Revilo Wells, owner of 214, had water piped in. There is still a small carriage house behind 220 Dolores – occupied as late as 1940 by one of the Tanforan carriages. The large gardens of these houses have been well-maintained and contain many specimens of turn-of-the-century San Francisco taste in flora.

Tanforan cottages, you have met your match. Mission Loc@l reports on the discovery what is perhaps the oldest house in San Francisco at 1266 Hampshire (between 24th and 25th), dating to 1849.  It has been traced to the brothers John and George Treat, whence the street name came.
“The house on Hampshire, historians said, was likely built in 1849 — the year a pair of influential pioneer brothers arrived in San Francisco — or 1850.” It was identified during the city’s South Mission Historic Resources survey.
Gregory Thomas of Mission Loc@l does a fine job referencing maps, but he makes the rookie mistake of stopping with the 1861 Langley map in the search for Treat.  But  going back to the 1859 US Coast Survey map, we can see the Treat compound at its original wonky angle, next to their Pioneer Race Course.

“Historians believe the house was lifted and moved about 100 feet east of its original location as streetcar lines were extended into the Mission –- reoriented to comply with a grid-style layout as the neighborhood took shape.” The concept of lifting up and moving a house simply blows my mind.
It seems like that block of three houses (marked in green) are the Treat compound. Red is the “new” position at 1266 Hampshire.  The red arc is the edge of the Treat’s Pioneer race course, about 300 yards away.

(Google Earth rant — make sure you frequent save your Places.  Apparently Google doesn’t believe in autosave.  GE crashed and I lost about 15 hours of work on maps.  Ripshit doesn’t begin to cover how I feel right now.  Someone please make me an HTML5 based map/image overlay tool, OK?  (Hint hint ,Stamen.))
Anyway, rant off. The San Francisco County Recorder’s office has ridiculously detailed maps of the land tracts and subdivisions through the history of the city. (Warning, not friendly to browse. A/B/1/2/3 are the oldest sets.)  Here we see the 1864 submission for the “Pioneer Race Course Tract” (click to zoom

making his home in Belmont in the Chateau that once belonged to Count
Cipriani, a prominent figure in Europe.

1822-1846    Rancho Buri Buri, owned by Jose Sanchez, covered 15,000 acres in what later became Colma, Burlingame, San Bruno, South San Francisco and Burlingame. Rancho Laguna de la Merced, owned by Jose Antonio Gallindo, covered a half league around the lake. He sold it to Francisco de Haro, the son-in-law of Jose Sanchez.

Rancho Buri Buri

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rancho Buri Buri (also called Sánchez Rancho) was a 14,639-acre (59.24 km2) Mexican land grant in present day San Mateo County, California given in 1835 by Governor José Castro to José Antonio Sánchez.[1] The name derives from the Urebure village of the Ramaytush speaking Yelamu tribe of Ohlone people who were settled by the banks of San Bruno Creek. Rancho Buri Buri extended between the north line of South San Francisco and the middle of Burlingame, and from the San Francisco Bay to the top of the Peninsula ridge and included present day Lomita Park, Millbrae, South San Francisco, San Bruno, and the northern part of Burlingame.[2]
[edit] History
Rancho Buri Buri, which was first established as grazing land for Mission Dolores and the Presidio of San Francisco. In 1827, Sub lieutenant José Antonio Sánchez, who was stationed at the Presidio, was granted permission by Mexican governor José María de Echeandía to occupy the rancho for “grazing and agricultural purposes”. The land grant was confirmed in 1835, by Governor Castro. Sánchez worked the land from the time it was granted to him until his death in 1843. Upon his death, the rancho lands were divided between his 10 children.

THE CATTLE KING AND THE TIDEWATER TYCOON
A TALE OF TWO HENRYS
Henry Miller. Henry Rengstorff. Parallel lives – up to a point. What’s the connection? Henry Miller was one of the many producers who shipped farm products through Henry Rengstorff’s Mountain View Landing, as shown by Rengstorff’s recently restored journal from the 1880s. Miller’s company, Miller & Lux, owned 130 acres in Mountain View adjacent to the railroad tracks and shipped wheat in 1880 and 1881.
Henry was an “adopted” name for each man: Miller was born Heinrich Alfred Kreiser, Rengstorff as Michael Heinrich Rengstorff. Both were born in Germany – Miller in 1827, Rengstorff in 1829. (Miller and Rengstorff’s wife Christina were born one year and 40 miles apart.) Miller arrived in San Francisco in 1850 with six dollars in his pocket, Rengstorff, also in 1850, with four dollars. Miller died in 1916 owning a million acres in California, Nevada and Oregon – and controlling millions more; he was the largest private land owner in the United States. Rengstorff, one of the most prominent of Mountain View’s citizens, died in 1906 with 2,000 acres in two counties – and his wharf on the tidewaters where Stevens Creek empties into San Francisco Bay.
Miller/Kreiser arrived in New York in 1847 and plied his trade as a butcher. With the California gold discovery of 1848 he was determined to get there, not to search for the precious metal for he knew nothing of mining and cared little for easy money. All he knew was the raising, slaughtering and sale of livestock, and he knew that demand for meat would be intense. The butcher developed a friendship with a shoe salesman by the name of Henry Miller, who also planned to go to California and purchased a ticket for the passage. But the shoe salesman changed his mind and offered to sell the ticket to his friend the butcher. Later, with the ticket in his hand, Miller/Kreiser noticed the inscription “Not Transferable.” So, on boarding the vessel, he identified himself as “Henry Miller” and that became his name for the rest of his life. In 1858, he had enough influence to have the State Legislature pass a special act formalizing the Miller name.
Rengstorff came for gold but on arriving in San Francisco abandoned that idea and saw his future in farming and shipping. It is not clear whether any formality attached to Rengstorff’s use of the name “Henry.”

William Janke on Haight St.

Posted on June 9, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press

William August Janke, the son of Carl August Janke of Belmont, lived in a Victorian house at 320 Haight St. a a block and a half from Fillmore St. Carl founded what may be the oldest theme park in America that catered to members of the Odd Fellows who lived in San Francisco. Carl Janke hired a special train to bring people to his theme park modeled after a German folk town and beergarten. Carl owned the Belmont soda works and sold a drink that may have contained cocaine. Carl made a jail for his town because folks got out of hand. Consider the Haight-Ashbury that was the haven for the Hippie Movement, that got out of hand. It became a theme-park that attracted folks from all over the world, and was the focal point of the war on drugs.

Consider the rise of the Republican religious-right that has become very powerful by opposing and demonizing the fun time my kindred were having – before California became a state! You could say my good buds and I made them what they are to day, fake political Puritans that destroyed our economy, and spent a trillion dollar on the Bush holy war. Too bad there is no longer a land of the free to go to out west, that is not under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government of the United States, so we can do what we want – and have more fun! Making fun is a huge industry, verses making blue laws.

Google 320 Haight to see my great grandfather’s home (grey-blue) and 2795 Pine St. to see the second story apartment I lived in with Nancy Hamren, Keith Purvis, and Carrol Schurter. Two members of the Jefferson Airplane partied with us, and hung out the bay window while on acid trying to cause an accident – which they did!

Keith, Tim O’Connor, Peter Shapiro, and myself, lived in a large Victorian house in Oakland. That is us on a bridge in Venice California. Peter played with The Marbles that played at the longshoremen’s Hall, and later with the Loading Zone at the Fillmore. Zone members also lived with us in Oakland.

Bryan McLean of Love sang at my wedding, and was good friends of the folks that began the Renaissance Fair, another theme park. Disney studied Fairyland in Oakland for his theme park. Add to this my conection to Elmer ‘Big Bones’ Remmer, gambling, and Tanforan horse racing, then you can say my kindred started the greatest party of all time!

Here is the obituary of William in the San Francisco Call.

JANKE – in this city, Nov. 22, 1902 at his residence 320 Haight St. William August Janke, beloved husband of Cornelia L. Janke, and beloved father of Mrs. W.O. Stuttmeister and Carl and W.E. Janke, a native of Hamburg Germany aged 59 years. Internment, Laurel Hill

“According to Belmont Historical Society records, Dorothea and Carl August Janke sailed around Cape Horn from Hamburg, Germany, in 1848. After landing in San Francisco, they settled in Belmont in 1860”

I found Carl and Dorothea (also and Doretta) are buried at the Union Cemetary in Redwood City.

Carl_August_Janke
Names Listed on the Marker:
Janke, Carl August
Janke, Dorette Catherine
Janke, Mutter Heinrich
Inscription:
— From the 1937 headstone survey —
Carl August Janke, born in Dresden, Germany Oct. 1806, died Belmont, Calif. Sept. 2, 1881 
Dorette Catherine, wife of Carl August Janke, born in Hamburg, Germany, July 21, 1813, died in Belmont, California, Feb 16, 1877
Mutter Heinrich, mother of Dorette Catherine Janke, born in Island of Heligoland, Germany, 1781 died in Belmont, California 1876
NOTE: In 1937 the Daughters of the American Revolution recorded all the headstones.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF UNION CEMETERY
By: John G. Edmonds
Before Union Cemetery

Times and Gazette Building
The first entry that mentioned a cemetery in the Times and Gazette (which was the only newspaper in San Mateo County at that time) was in early January 1859. William Cary Jones had allowed 13 burials on his property, the site of today’s Sequoia High School. Now that Horace Hawes had taken over the property, he informed the county that he no longer wanted the dead to be buried on his property and he wanted all 13 bodies exhumed and moved elsewhere. This caused great anxiety in Redwood City.

1864-1910, page 133).
Records from Tombstones in Laurel Hill Cemetery, 1853-1927 – Janke
– Stuttmeister
Mina Maria Janke, daughter of William A, & Cornelia Janke, born
February 2, 1869, died March 1902.
William August Janke, native of Hamburg, Germany, born Dec. 25,
1642, died Nov. 22, 1902, son of Carl August & Dorette Catherine Janke. Frederick William R. Stuttmeister, native of Berlin, Germany, born
1812, died January 29, 1877.
Mrs. Matilda Stuttmeister, wife of Frederick W.R. Stuttmeister, born
1829, died March 17, 1875, native of New York.
Victor Rudolph Stuttmeister, son of Frederick W.R. & Matilda
Stuttmeister, born May 29, 1846, died Jan. 19, 1893, native of New
York.

Jon Presco

Copyright 2012

Belmont park has history of sun, libations, mystery and disasters

October 22, 2001, 12:00 AM By Paul D. Buchanan Daily Journal Feature Writer

The most popular daytime excursion destination on the Peninsula during the late 19th century once occupied the area in Belmont now known as Twin Pines Park. The Belmont Picnic Grounds proved so popular, in fact, that scores of picnickers would travel regularly from San Jose and San Francisco for sun, fresh air and libations.
The size of the crowds and the fondness for libation, however, eventually led to the attraction’s demise.
According to Belmont Historical Society records, Dorothea and Carl August Janke sailed around Cape Horn from Hamburg, Germany, in 1848. After landing in San Francisco, they settled in Belmont in 1860. Industrious and entrepreneurial, Carl Janke purchased land in the vicinity of 6th and Ralston. Janke set out to create a site for leisure activities, modeled after the biergarten in his native Hamburg. His creation became Belmont Park.
Janke’s park offered all the necessary provisions for an outdoor holiday, which included a dance pavilion to accommodate 300 large glassless windows, a conical roof and a dance floor situated around a large spreading tree. The pavilion was also equipped with a bar, an ice cream parlor and a restaurant.
Outside the pavilion, the park provided a carousel for children, footpath bridges crossing the meandering of creeks, and a shooting gallery, with picnic benches and lathe houses situated about the shady grounds. Brass bands performing from bandstands could be heard all around the woodland.
In 1876, Janke opened Belmont Soda Works, located north of Ralston along Old County Road. Janke’s sons, Gus and Charlie, operated the soda works, which offered a variety of sarsaparillas. Within two years, the Soda Works produced more than 1,000 bottles a month — a large percentage of which would be sold at Belmont Park. Between the Soda Works and the several bars situated in and around the park, the liquid refreshment flowed abundantly.
Belmont Park became so popular that Southern Pacific Railroad began reserving exclusive trains for the sojourn to Belmont. Several local organizations and fraternities used the grounds for the celebrations, such as the Germania Rifles, the Apollo Verein, the Blue Bells, the Bunker Hill Association, the Ignatian Literary Society, the Hibernians and the Purple Violets. Races – foot, three-legged, and pony cart – as well as other amusements became commonplace at the gatherings.
The same year the Belmont Soda Works opened, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) hired 75 Southern Pacific railroad cars to transport 7,000 of its members from San Francisco to Belmont Park. There, 1,000 other members met them there, making the largest picnic ever held at Belmont Park.
With all the alcohol, dancing and overheated bodies gathered in a relatively small place, trouble seemed destined to follow.
In 1880, rival gangs started a small riot at Belmont Park, leaving one person dead and several injured. On another occasion, a young girl named Anne Mooney mysteriously disappeared. Authorities assumed she had been kidnaped, but a suspect was never identified. The fate of Anne Mooney remains a mystery.
By the turn of the century, the weekly treks to Belmont had become something of a nuisance. The drunken tussling would often begin at the on-board bars, continuing and intensifying by the time the passengers reached Belmont. The small communities through which the trains rumbled complained about the outsiders cavorting and otherwise disturbing their peaceful Peninsula neighborhoods. Southern Pacific, tired of the rowdies and the damage inflicted to the railroad cars, finally stopped operating the excursions in 1900.
In her book “Heritage of the Wooded Hills,” Ria Elena MacCrisken writes, “… if the railroad looked down its nose at the San Francisco picnickers, the little town of Belmont welcomed them with open arms. These early-day tourists brought lively times to Belmont and revenue to its stores…” Unfortunately for the Jankes , when the train stopped bringing carloads of revelers, much of Belmont Park’s clientele disappeared.
By 1910, the property had sold to George Center, the director of the Bank of California, who built a home on the property. Later Dr. Norbert Gottbrath opened a sanitarium called “Twin Pines,” which operated until March of 1972. The City of Belmont took over the property, dedicating Twin Pines Park in June of 1973.

theme park is the modern amusement park, either based on a central theme or, divided into several distinctly themed areas, or “spaces” as is often used. Large resorts, such as Walt Disney World in Florida (United States), actually house several different theme parks within their confines. The first such built park still in operation is ‘Bakken’ at Klampenborg, north of Copenhagen. It was founded in 1583. Walt Disney is credited with having originated the concept of the themed amusement park. Disneyland was based loosely on Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, California

History of American amusement parks
The first American amusement park, in the modern sense, was at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago, Illinois. The 1893 World’s fair was the first to have a Ferris wheel and an arcade midway, as well as various concessions. This conglomeration of attractions was the template used for amusement parks for the next half-century, including those known as trolley parks.

Children’s Fairyland, U.S.A. was the first theme park in the United States created to cater to families with young children. Located in Oakland, California on the shore of Lake Merritt, Fairyland includes 10 acres (40,000 m2) of play sets, small rides, and animals. The park is also home to the Open Storybook Puppet Theater, the oldest continuously operating puppet theater in the United States.
Fairyland was built in 1950 by the Oakland Lake Merritt Breakfast Club. The sets were designed by artist and architect William Russell Everritt. The park was nationally recognized for its unique value, and during the City Beautiful movement of the 1950s it inspired numerous towns to create their own parks. Walt Disney even came to Fairyland often to get ideas for Disneyland.
Numerous artists have contributed exhibits, murals, puppetry, and sculptures to the park. Some of the better-known artists are Ruth Asawa and Frank Oz.

In the mid-1960s, The Fillmore Auditorium became the focal point for psychedelic music and counterculture in general, with such acts as John Mahon, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Carlos Santana, The Allman Brothers Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Miles Davis, and British acts The Who, Pink Floyd, Elton John, and Cream all performing at the venue.[2] Besides rock, Graham also featured non-rock acts such as Lenny Bruce, Miles Davis, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Charles Lloyd, Aretha Franklin, and Otis Redding as well as poetry readings.
The venue had a legendary ambience as well as the stellar performances, often with swirling light-show projections, strobe lights and uninhibited dancing. The cultural impact of the Fillmore was very large. It is referenced by Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in a description of the counterculture of the 1960s in the San Francisco Bay area.
The Fillmore was mentioned in the film Dirty Harry.

Concert Summary
The Loading Zone was one of the first Bay Area bands to incorporate a horn section into the emerging psychedelic sound emanating out of San Francisco. Formed in Oakland in 1967 by keyboard player and vocalist, Paul Fauerso, the Loading Zone opened many a show at the Fillmore, supporting acts like Cream, Big Brother & The Holding Company, the Grateful Dead, and many others. From the Berkeley psychedelic-rock band, the Marbles, Fauerso recruited both guitarists, Pete Shapiro and Steve Dowler. The rhythm section of Bob Kridle and George Newcom held down the bottom end, forming the core group.…entire summary
Linda Tillery – vocals
Paul Fauerso – keyboards, vocals
Pete Shapiro – guitar
Steve Dowler – guitar
Bob Kridle – bass
George Newcom – drums
Todd Anderson – saxophone
Pat O’Hara – trombone
The Loading Zone was one of the first Bay Area bands to incorporate a horn section into the emerging psychedelic sound emanating out of San Francisco. Formed in Oakland in 1967 by keyboard player and vocalist, Paul Fauerso, the Loading Zone opened many a show at the Fillmore, supporting acts like Cream, Big Brother & The Holding Company, the Grateful Dead, and many others. From the Berkeley psychedelic-rock band, the Marbles, Fauerso recruited both guitarists, Pete Shapiro and Steve Dowler. The rhythm section of Bob Kridle and George Newcom held down the bottom end, forming the core group. Though rooted in R&B, the group also veered off into psychedelia, rock, jazz, and electric blues initially. Adding horns to the mix, they paved the way for bands like Tower Of Power. In early 1968, Fauerso placed an ad in the San Francisco Chronicle seeking a new lead vocalist, resulting in Linda Tillery joining the band just prior to them signing with RCA Records. Tillery was the key ingredient; a charismatic singer who became the focal point on stage and her powerful voice provided much of the band’s identity.
However, the group’s self-titled album failed to capture the onstage excitement, receiving poor reviews and the group was soon dropped from the label. They did soldier on to record another album, but after internal problems and the failure to gain support of radio, the band broke up in 1969. Fauerso and Tillery revived the group with new members in 1970 before breaking it up for good less than a year later. Shortly afterwards, Tillery began pursuing her own path, releasing her solo debut album, Sweet Linda Divine, on CBS in 1970 to enthusiastic reviews and high praise, becoming a prominent musical figure on her own throughout the next several decades.
This performance, recorded on the final night of a three-night stand at the Fillmore Auditorium supporting Arlo Guthrie and John Mayall, captures what the Loading Zone was all about. In early 1968, when Tillery had just joined and the group, they had serious potential and were unquestionably powerful onstage. Although this recording features none of the material soon to be recorded for their debut album, it does contain thoroughly engaging performances of two remarkable covers that were often highlights of their early live performances. The meat of this recording is a highly extended take on “Cold Sweat,” an infectious cover of the Pee Wee Ellis song released by James Brown the previous year. One of the precursors of funk, this classic song gets a thorough workout here, with Tillery belting out the vocals and the band providing a relentlessly propulsive backing. The Fillmore Auditorium was geared toward dancing and this performance proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Loading Zone knew how to get those audiences moving. The set concludes with a soulful rendition of “Try A Little Tenderness,” a song dating back to the 1930s. Recorded by countless artists over the years, including Frank Sinatra, Percy Sledge, Nina Simone, and Three Dog Night, to name but a few, here Tillery makes it her own. Starting off slow and with plenty of soul, this continues to build into an explosive frenzy that delights the Fillmore audience and brings their set to a memorable close.

Performers:
Love
Grateful Dead
Moby Grape
The Loading Zone
Blue Crumb Truck Factory
 

Tour/Show:
The First Annual Love Circus
Artist:
Herrick
Date:
Mar 3, 1967
Venue:
Winterland (San Francisco, CA

http://thefillmore.wordpress.com/

The Marbles had the following members: Peter Shapiro on lead guitar, Steve Dowler on rhythm guitar, David Dugdale on bass and Ray Greenleaf on drums. They were a psychedelic group whose most notable performances were at the Tribute to Dr. Strange at the Longshoremen’s Hall in San Francisco on October 15, 1965, and again at the same venue for The Trips Festival on January 21, 22 and 23 along with Jefferson Airplane, The Charlatans and The Great Society. Both Shapiro and Dowler went on to become members of Paul Fauerso’s The Loading Zone.[1][2]

The Loading Zone[1] was an American rock band of the late 1960s and early 1970s. They issued two albums worth of material, with differing band lineups, before disbanding in 1971.

Contents
 [hide] 
1 Career
2 Discography
2.1 Albums
3 References
4 External links
[edit] Career
They were formed in Oakland, California in 1966 by singer-keyboardist Paul Fauerso, following the dissolution of his jazz group The Tom Paul Trio. The original lineup was Fauerso, bassist Bob Kridle, drummer Ted Kozlowski (replaced by George Newcom), and guitarists Peter Shapiro and Steve Dowler,[2] both formerly of Berkeley psychedelic rock band The Marbles, who had supported Jefferson Airplane at the historic “Tribute to Dr. Strange”, the inaugural Family Dog promotion concert held at San Francisco’s Longshoreman’s Hall in October 1965.
The Loading Zone’s first major concert was the Trips Festival at the Longshoreman’s Hall in January 1966.[3]. Although primarily an R&B band, The Loading Zone added contemporary psychedelic influences and soon became a popular attraction on the burgeoning Bay Area music scene. The Loading Zone was based at the Berkeley venue The New Orleans House, but performed numerous times at major venues including the Fillmore West.
Although The Loading Zone occasionally headlined, the group is better known for supporting some of the biggest acts of the period including Cream, The Who, The Byrds, Big Brother & the Holding Company, The Grateful Dead, Country Joe & The Fish, Howlin’ Wolf, Sam & Dave, Chuck Berry and Buddy Miles.[4][5]
In 1968 Fauerso placed an advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle seeking a new lead vocalist, which led to the recruitment of Linda Tillery, who joined just prior to the band’s signing with RCA Records. Despite their live popularity, the group lacked a strong base of original material; their self-titled debut album was poorly received, and was criticised for its excessive production and its reliance on cover versions. The Loading Zone was unable to garner support from radio, and eventually split in 1969.
In 1969, Fauerso re-formed the group with new members- guitarist Steve Busfield, bassist Mike Eggleston, and drummer George Marsh, and initially with previous horn players, Todd Anderson (tenor sax) and Patrick O’Hara (trombone). Anderson was replaced after a few months by Ron Taormina. The new Zone also recruited old friend and drummer, Frank Davis to play with the group for a while. During this brief period, the band performed with two drummers at the same time – Davis and Marsh – with some exciting results. The band recorded their second LP One for All for their own label, Umbrella, before disbanding in 1971.
Tillery released her solo debut album Sweet Linda Divine on CBS Records in 1970. It was produced by Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat and Tears fame. Fauerso went on to produce the unreleased Mike Love solo album First Love and more recently, a second entitled “Only One Earth”. Fauerso went on to make recordings of new age music and also to compose and produce award-winning commercials for radio and TV. Tillery resurfaced with the jazz fusion group Cesar 830 before embarking on a solo career.
In 2005, Fauerso reconnected with Eggleston and Marsh to record a new Loading Zone CD entitled “Blue Flame” (available through CD Baby and iTunes) The album contains five new tracks and three cuts from the second Zone album, “One For All”.
George Newcom died from a heart attack on July 1, 2010, in Red Bluff, California. He was 63 years old.[6] Pat O’Hara, trombonist, later worked with Buddy Miles on “Cold Blood” and others, and died in the late 70’s or early 80’s of an overdose.

In October 1965, a small commune called the Family Dog threw an unusual dance at Longshoreman’s Hall, starring a rock band called the Charlatans that had played the previous summer at the Red Dog Saloon, a restored silver rush dance hall in Virginia City, Nev. The second-billed group, which had an even weirder name, Jefferson Airplane, was making its first appearance outside the Marina District nightclub it had opened the month before. The third act on the bill, the Great Society, featured a former model from Palo Alto named Grace Slick.
More than a thousand people turned up for the dance. Hair flowing over their collars, the revelers were dressed cheerfully in colorful discards plucked from thrift stores. Many were on LSD, as were many of the musicians. Virtually everyone who attended “A Tribute to Dr. Strange,” as the dance was called, seemed to have the same thought about the gathering: “I didn’t know there were this many of us.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/20/MNG2NPUD1C1.DTL&type=printable
The other development that helped form the Haight’s early temperament took place at a Western-style dance hall, the Red Dog Saloon, in the ghost town of Virginia City, Nevada. In June 1965, a San Francisco band, the Charlatans, took up residency at the saloon. Their easygoing attitude and meandering performances–as they played sometimes under LSD’s influence for an audience also sometimes under LSD’s influence–set another model for psychedelic gatherings, one less tense and sardonic than Kesey’s.
In San Francisco in October 1965, some Red Dog veterans, now calling themselves the Family Dog, staged an evening of bands and dancing at the Longshoremen’s Hall; billed as ‘A Tribute to Dr. Strange,’ it featured the Charlatans, Jefferson Airplane and the Great Society. The event spontaneously fused the lenient spirit of the Acid Tests with the Red Dog’s focus on dancing and proved a pivotal occasion in the psychedelic scene’s history. Over the next two years, San Francisco dance ballrooms–primarily the Avalon and the Fillmore–became not merely a central metaphor for Haight-Ashbury’s reinvention of community but also a fundamental enactment of it.

By the time the fabled Summer of Love hit San Francisco 40 years ago, the party was already over in the Haight-Ashbury.
Yet the mythology of that summer in 1967 has never disappeared. The San Francisco hippie, dancing in Golden Gate Park with long hair flowing, has become as much of an enduring American archetype as the gunfighters and cowboys who roamed the Wild West. More importantly, the rise of ’60s counterculture has had a significant impact on our culture today. The Summer of Love resonates in strip mall yoga classes, pop music, visual art, fashion, attitudes toward drugs, the personal computer revolution, and the current mad dash toward the greening of America. While some of the counterculture’s dreams came true, others, particularly the movement’s idealistic politics, evaporated like the sweet-smelling pot smoke that saturated the air that summer.
“If you look at all the political agendas of the 1960s, they basically failed,” says actor Peter Coyote, who belonged to a Haight-Ashbury commune called the Diggers in the late ’60s. “We didn’t end capitalism. We didn’t end imperialism. We didn’t end racism. Yeah, the war ended. But if you look at the cultural agendas, they all worked.”
“It was sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and those were all fun,” says social satirist Paul Krassner. “But at the core of the counterculture was a spiritual revolution.”
In the weeks leading up to the end of the 1967 school year, while many of the more forward-thinking of the Haight community left town to continue their social experiments elsewhere, San Francisco braced for an anticipated onslaught of more than 100,000 young transients for a psychedelic circus in Haight-Ashbury. “The Invasion of the Flower Children” announced one Chronicle headline.
The phrase itself, Summer of Love, echoed for months in advance throughout the national media, which took great delight in cluck-clucking over those kooky kids out in San Francisco, the ones on space-age drugs who called themselves hippies.
There couldn’t have been better advertising. College students read about the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park in January 1967. Some of them came to check things out during spring break. The rest couldn’t wait for the school year to be over.
That summer was ripe for change. It was only two years after the Watts riots in Los Angeles, 3 1/2 years after the Kennedy assassination, and more and more American troops were being sent to fight in the Vietnam War. Against the backdrop of an ever-widening chasm between the nation’s youth and their parents that would eventually be dubbed “the generation gap,” young people all over the country headed toward San Francisco.
“It was sort of like a farmer unloading a truckload of onions — once the onions start to move, there’s no stopping them,” says Carolyn Garcia by telephone from her home in Oregon. At the time, she was known as Mountain Girl and lived at 710 Ashbury St. with her boyfriend (and eventual husband), guitarist Jerry Garcia and the rest of his band, the Grateful Dead.
“That’s kind of how it felt, that the streets were just filling up with people, vegetables yearning to be free,” she says with a laugh.
Ground zero for the Summer of Love was an old San Francisco neighborhood filled with large Victorian rooming houses built for Irish workers, where a student could get a room for as little as $25 a month. San Francisco State was a bus ride away and, in those early, innocent days, just after the Beatles came to America, the beatnik underground had begun to drift away from the coffeehouses and jazz clubs of North Beach into the Haight.
In September 1965, a small commune called the Family Dog threw an unusual dance at Longshoreman’s Hall, starring a rock band called the Charlatans that had played the previous summer at the Red Dog Saloon, a restored silver rush dance hall in Virginia City, Nev. The second-billed group, which had an even weirder name, Jefferson Airplane, was making its first appearance outside the Marina District nightclub it had opened the month before. The third act on the bill, the Great Society, featured a former model from Palo Alto named Grace Slick.
More than a thousand people turned up for the dance. Hair flowing over their collars, the revelers were dressed cheerfully in colorful discards plucked from thrift stores. Many were on LSD, as were many of the musicians. Virtually everyone who attended “A Tribute to Dr. Strange,” as the dance was called, seemed to have the same thought about the gathering: “I didn’t know there were this many of us.”
LSD was the secret ingredient. The psychedelic drug had become increasingly popular in Haight-Ashbury underground circles by the time Life magazine trumpeted the mind-altering chemical in an April 1966 issue. Again, the advertising couldn’t have been better. By October, LSD was illegal, but the cork was out of the bottle.
In January 1966, former San Francisco Mime Troupe business manager Bill Graham began throwing weekly dances at the Fillmore Auditorium and, within weeks, his onetime partner Chet Helms, who took over the name Family Dog from its original owners, was producing weekly shows at the Avalon Ballroom at the intersection of Sutter Street and Van Ness Avenue. Rock bands with funny names were springing up everywhere — Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish — and the golden age of San Francisco rock was under way.
In January 1967, 15 months after the “Dr. Strange” dance at Longshoreman’s Hall, a crowd estimated at 35,000 filled the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park for the Human Be-In. Subtitled “a gathering of tribes,” the Haight-Ashbury community event featured several rock bands, beatnik poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure, and the LSD evangelist Tim Leary, who urged everyone there to “turn on, tune in and drop out.”
As spring turned to summer, a human tidal wave swept from the East toward San Francisco. Gray Line began driving tourist buses down Haight Street and hippies ran alongside, holding up mirrors to the visitors. Graham predicted 3 million young people would descend on the city that summer and said he would operate the Fillmore six nights a week.
“Law, order and health regulations must prevail,” proclaimed Police Chief Thomas Cahill.
Even the hometown paper got into the act. The Chronicle dressed reporter George Gilbert in a turtleneck sweater and sent him to spend a month skulking around Haight-Ashbury crash pads for a front-page series, “I Was a Hippie.”
By July, the Haight was swarming.
“People were walking down the street six deep,” says Peter Berg of the Diggers. “Kids were coming in from all over the United States wearing rainbow-colored clothes and psychedelic scarves around their neck.”
When a bunch of street people experimented with stopping traffic and jumping on car bumpers, the police came down hard and the resulting hourlong melee left four people badly injured and nine arrested.
Almost as soon as the party began, the nature of drugs on the street changed. Speed became an epidemic. The colorful, carefree characters who populated Haight Street only a year before had been replaced by long-haired urchins holding out their hands and asking, “Spare change, man?” Health and hygiene issues festered.
“When the Haight was healthiest was when it wasn’t known as the Haight,” says political activist Michael Rossman, one of the organizers of the 1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement that started the era of student protests.
“There’s a funny thing. I’ve known a number of people who’ve become famous and, by and large, the experience is really destructive,” he continues. “Why do I mention this? Because something certainly as destructive happened from media attention to the Haight.”
The neighborhood made it through the summer, but it has been a long, slow recovery process for a strange little nook of San Francisco. In October 1967, some local characters staged “The Death of Hippie,” complete with a funeral procession down Haight Street. The Grateful Dead made it official when the band moved to Marin County the following March. The chapter was closed and Haight-Ashbury has become as much a commercialized tourist destination as Fisherman’s Wharf.
No matter how quickly things turned bad, and no matter how far the actual Summer of Love fell short of its cultural legend, many of those who were there believe good things came out of it.
“If these young people hadn’t declared the possibility of a new culture, a new family,” says beat poet Michael McClure, “a new tribe, believing in peace, nature, sexuality, the positive use of psychedelic drugs — if they hadn’t been there to broaden and deepen the hundreds of thousands and then millions of people who were broadened and deepened by this — we would be in an even bigger stew.”

But as the Airplane’s reputation spread, there was more of a demand for their services and, like any new band, they needed all the work they could get. The most pivotal of the first outside gigs was undoubtedly the one that took place October 16th at Longshoreman’s Hall, at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, dubbed by its comic-book-loving promoters “A Tribute to Dr. Strange.” Also featuring the Charlatans, the Marbles and the Great Society, the event was presented by a four-person collective calling itself the Family Dog, who took their name in honor of Harmon’s recently deceased pooch and lived together in a communal house on Pine Street. It was billed as a Rock ‘n’ Roll Dance and Concert.

Daily Alta California, Volume 42, Number 14175, 24 June 1888 STUTTMEISTER-JANKE. One of the most enjoyable weddings of the past week took place at Belmont, Wednesday morning last, the contracting parties being Miss Augusta Janke, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. August Janke of Belmont,
and Dr. Wm. Stuttmeister of San Francisco. The house was handsomely decorated with a rich profusion of ferns and flowers, and at the appointed hour was filled with the relatives and intimate friends
of the contracting parties. At 11 o’clock the wedding march was played and the bridal party entered the parlor. The bride was attended by Miss Alice Stuttmeister, a sister of the groom, and Miss Minnie Janke, a sister of the bride, as bridesmaids, and Dr. Muldownado and Wm. Janke, a cousin of the bride, were groomsmen. The Rev. A. L. Brewer
of San Mateo performed the beautiful and impressive ceremony under an arch composed of flowers and greens very prettily arranged, after which the guests pressed forward and offered their congratulations. The bride was attired in a very pretty and becoming costume of the crushed strawberry shade, and wore a corsage bouquet of orange
blossoms. She carried a handsome bouquet of white flowers. After the guests had paid their compliments the bride and groom led the way to the dining-room, where the wedding dinner was served and the health
of the newly married pair was pledged. The feast over, the guests joined in the dance, and the hours sped right merrily, interspersed with music singing and recitations, until the bride and groom took their departure amid a shower of rice and good wishes. Many beautiful presents were received. Dr. and Mrs. Stuttmeister left Thursday morning for Santa Cruz and Monterey, where they will spend the honeymoon. On their return they will make their home in Belmont. 1911: Dr. Willian O. Stuttmeister was practicing dentistry in Redwood City, CA. (Reference: University of California, Directory of Graduates,
1864-1910, page 133).
Records from Tombstones in Laurel Hill Cemetery, 1853-1927 – Janke
– Stuttmeister
Mina Maria Janke, daughter of William A, & Cornelia Janke, born
February 2, 1869, died March 1902.
William August Janke, native of Hamburg, Germany, born Dec. 25,
1642, died Nov. 22, 1902, son of Carl August & Dorette Catherine Janke. Frederick William R. Stuttmeister, native of Berlin, Germany, born
1612, died January 29, 1877.
Mrs. Matilda Stuttmeister, wife of Frederick W.R. Stuttmeister, born
1829, died March 17, 1875, native of New York.
Victor Rudolph Stuttmeister, son of Frederick W.R. & Matilda
Stuttmeister, born May 29, 1846, died Jan. 19, 1893, native of New
York.

info]
Janke
Augusta
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke
[info]
Janke
Carl
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke
[info]
Janke
Charles August
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke
[info]
Janke
Charles Ferdinand
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke
[info]
Janke
Dora
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke
[info]
Janke
Elizabeth Dorothy
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke
[info]
Janke
Lulu
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke
[info]
Janke
Rose
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke
[info]
Janke
Walter
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke
[info]
Janke
William
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke
[info]
Janke
William August
1889
145
145
bio of Charles Janke

The Schellens Collection
Schellens, Richard comp.
Schellens Collection of California Materials 1852-1975
191 v.manuscript
Richard Schellens, one of the founding members of the Redwood City Archives Committee, was an accountant by trade and a historian by obsession. His love of the history of San Mateo County and San Francisco has left us with a collection of abstractions that have been organized into binders by the Redwood City Archives Committee. The originals of these volumes, which cover the whole county rather than just Redwood City, are housed in the Redwood City Main Library History Room.
Schellens gathered not only current day information, but he systematically went back through old directories, county histories, great registers, county record books and newspapers, extracting, abstracting, photocopying and indexing the lives of the residents of San Mateo County, San Francisco and beyond.
Three volumes of Redwood City real estate transactions include hand drawn maps and references to the deeds in the San Mateo County Official Record books. More than 50 books hold records of Redwood City residents sorted by the main surname of the record. Other volumes are sorted by township, with both current and no longer existent townships being covered.
While the Schellens Collection would seldom be considered an end source, being comprised of second hand materials, it is a wonderful finding aid for records of tens of thousands of San Mateo County and San Francisco residents, as well as residents of other California counties and the western states. The main limitation of this work was the lack of an index. With the help of many dedicated SMCGS members as well as members of other societies around the state, the entire 191 Volume collection has been indexed and you can find links to the indexes below.
It is important to note which index you find a name in if you are ordering copies or trying to find the item in the library.
The original volumes are housed in the Redwood City Public Library History Room.

Carl Janke
Born May 13, 1844; baptized May 27, 1844. Parents: Michael Janke and Rosine Rehbein. Witnesses: Friedrich Ruhnke (?), Ferdinand Splitt____ [unable to decipher last part of name] and Dorothea Rehbein (frau). [LDS Film #0245420 – Vandsburg Evangelische Kirche, Record #1384]
Carl Aug. Ferdinand Jahnke
Born Aug. 22, 1862; christened Sept. 7, 1862; parents – Carl Jahnke and Justine Marquardt; location – Neulubiza [?] [LDS Film #245422 Evangelisch, Vandsburg, Prussia, records]
Carl August Jahnke
Sept. 1829 (birth/christening record?); parents – Carl Wilk [?] Jahnke and Ana Dorothea Wandrey [line over n in Ana]; location – Chodziesen [LDS Film No. 807992 – Evangelische Kirche Kolmar – Kolmar, Posen, Prussia]
Carl August Janke
Born Dec. 4, 1841; baptized Dec. 26, 1841. Parents: Michael Janke and Eva Rosine Rehbein of Schonwald. Witnesses: David Schauer, Johan Rehbein [line over n in 1st name] and Eva Splitt___ [looks something like Splittstozer] [LDS Film #0245420 – Vandsburg Evangelische Kirche]
Carl August Janke
Born Jan. 1, 1843; baptized Jan. __ (2 or 8?), 1843. Parents: Christoph Janke and Louise Meyer of Vandsburg. Witnesses: Gottfried Hamler, Rose Goms (?) and Michael Schrand (?). [LDS Film #0245420 – Vandsburg Evangelische Kirche, Record #1061]

m

Janke
Anna Dorothea
10
Jun
1862
3

182
183
grantor
Janke
Carl August
10
Jun
1862
3

182
183
grantor
Janke
Carl August
1
Dec
1858
1

457

grantee

Janke, Dorette Catherine
DIED: 1877

Click [here] for more information on this marker!

BURIED IN UNION CEMETERY WITH THE SAME LAST NAME:
Janke, Carl August
Janke, Mutter Heinrich

Carl_August_Janke
Names Listed on the Marker:
Janke, Carl August
Janke, Dorette Catherine
Janke, Mutter Heinrich
Inscription:
— From the 1937 headstone survey —
Carl August Janke, born in Dresden, Germany Oct. 1806, died Belmont, Calif. Sept. 2, 1881 
Dorette Catherine, wife of Carl August Janke, born in Hamburg, Germany, July 21, 1813, died in Belmont, California, Feb 16, 1877
Mutter Heinrich, mother of Dorette Catherine Janke, born in Island of Heligoland, Germany, 1781 died in Belmont, California 1876
NOTE: In 1937 the Daughters of the American Revolution recorded all the headstones.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF UNION CEMETERY
By: John G. Edmonds
Before Union Cemetery

Times and Gazette Building
The first entry that mentioned a cemetery in the Times and Gazette (which was the only newspaper in San Mateo County at that time) was in early January 1859. William Cary Jones had allowed 13 burials on his property, the site of today’s Sequoia High School. Now that Horace Hawes had taken over the property, he informed the county that he no longer wanted the dead to be buried on his property and he wanted all 13 bodies exhumed and moved elsewhere. This caused great anxiety in Redwood City.

Heligoland (German: Helgoland; Heligolandic: deät Lun [“the Land”]) is a small German archipelago in the North Sea.
Formerly Danish and British possessions, the islands (population 1,127) are located in the Heligoland Bight (part of the German Bight) in the south-eastern corner of the North Sea. They are the only German islands not in the immediate vicinity of the mainland and are approximately three hours’ sailing time from Cuxhaven at the mouth of the River Elbe.
In addition to German, the local population, who are ethnic Frisians, speak the Heligolandic dialect of the North Frisian language called Halunder. Heligoland was formerly called Heyligeland, or “holy land”, possibly due to the island’s long association with the god Forseti.

The neighborhood became the center of the San Francisco Renaissance and with it, the rise of a drug culture and rock-and-roll lifestyle by the mid 1960s. College and high-school students began streaming into the Haight during the spring break of 1967. San Francisco’s government leaders, determined to stop the influx of young people once schools let out for the summer, brought additional attention to the scene, and an ongoing series of articles in local papers alerted the national media to the hippies’ growing numbers. By spring, Haight community leaders responded by forming the Council of the Summer of Love, giving the word-of-mouth event an official-sounding name.[11]
The mainstream media’s coverage of hippie life in the Haight-Ashbury drew the attention of youth from all over America. Hunter S. Thompson labeled the district “Hashbury” in The New York Times Magazine, and the activities in the area were reported almost daily.[12] During that year, the neighborhood’s fame reached its peak as it became the haven for a number of the top psychedelic rock performers and groups of the time. Acts like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin all lived a short distance from the intersection. They not only immortalized the scene in song, but also knew many within the community as friends and family. Another well-known neighborhood presence was The Diggers, a local “community anarchist” group known for its street theatre who also provided free food to residents every day.
During the “Summer of Love”, psychedelic rock music was entering the mainstream, receiving more and more commercial radio airplay. The Scott McKenzie song “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, became a hit single in 1967. The Monterey Pop Festival in June further cemented the status of psychedelic music as a part of mainstream culture and elevated local Haight bands such as the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Jefferson Airplane to national stardom. A July 7, 1967, Time magazine cover story on “The Hippies: Philosophy of a Subculture,” an August CBS News television report on “The Hippie Temptation”[1] and other major media interest in the hippie subculture exposed the Haight-Ashbury district to enormous national attention and popularized the counterculture movement across the country and around the world.

The Haight-Ashbury district is noted for its role as a center of the 1960s hippie movement. The earlier bohemians of the beat movement had congregated around San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood from the late 1950s. Many who could not find accommodation there turned to the quaint, relatively cheap and underpopulated Haight-Ashbury. The Summer of Love (1967), the 1960s era as a whole, and much of modern American counterculture have been synonymous with San Francisco and the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood ever since.

Share this: