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La California

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Royal Rosamond Press

The name Belmont comes from Beaumont. Count Leonetto Cirprini named a province in Italy after California, the place he dwelt. He was the first Italian ambassador and fought the Habsburgs as a Forty-Eighter, who I suspect were going to colonize California. Was Belmont going to be the capital of the Italian Unification, and, this is why Carl Janke brought six portable houses around the Cape? Little Italy?

I am going t establish correspondence, and unite the two Californians.

Jon Presco

I will be composing a proposal to the Mayor and City Council of Belmont, suggesting they purchase my newspaper and install it at 901 Waltermire. I will take residence upstairs, and operate the Royal Sardinian Touring Company.

In January of 2021 I bought art supplies with the last Corvid check I received from the United States Government in order to maintain, and further my existence this Great Democracy. Being very poor, I had a taste of what it is like to – have money! This Government Money inspired me t look at ways – I can have more money! Being a theologian, Bohemian, and Historian, I get paid every day – ascetically. Wanting to envision a more material existence, I looked at homes for sale in Belmont California and Crockett. I put my newspaper, Royal Rosamond Press up for sale. I reasoned there were folks in the world with much money, who would want to invest in my – and my gifts! I would continue to write articles for my ex-paper in relative safety. My neighbors in Springfield were threatening me and the cats who came to visit.

I saw myself working on paintings in the sunroom of the the Waltermire house, and writing in the other half of this space. I wanted passerby’s to see a Real Bohemian at work. There would be a potbelly stove where gather the La California Touring Club of Belmont that takes members to our resort in Sardinia – where I hope to have a small writers cottage where I work on my Ian Fleming inspired books. With the Napoleon series, I suspect the interested in the Emperor and his family – will soar! I will be there, waiting for the lovers of history, and the school children.

“Did you know the Bonaparte family were thinking of invading California?”

John Presco

President: La California Touring Company TCTC

Last night as I was admiring my post of the history of Crockett, I went to Belmont California to see if they had any interesting homes for sale. Eureka! Is this the future home of Royal Rosamond Press? What was here before? I moved in the daughters of Christine Rosamond Benton. Why not Tyler, too? Our children can experience the miracle the Presco Children created growing up on San Sebastian Avenue in Oakland. Belmont – needs our history – in their Downtown! There is nothing there – there! The same goes for Crockett. If they only knew where the remains of William Janke ended up, after being dug up and evicted from his grave. Did William interact with the children gathered in the giant oak tree? I am going to do a painting of these little people dressed as Bohemians, posing before the Time Machine.

“What does the future have in store for us? Can we all get along?”

It appears that Cipriani was successful in uniting the House
of Savoy with the Bonapartes, and thus the House of Stuart. Prince
Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul of France, Pr Napoléon, married in Turin
in 1859, Princess Clothilde of Savoy daughter of Victor Emanuel. From
this union would come other Bonapartes with the name Victor. Prince
Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric, Prince LOUIS Jérôme Victor Emmanuel
Léopold Marie, and, Prince Charles Marie Jérôme Victor
Was the Jacobite ‘Order of the White Rose’ somewhat successful
in their plan to put the Stuarts on a throne and rule the world?
There appears to contention with the Prussians who can claim the same
ancestry through the Winter Queen of Bohemia, Elizabeth Stuart,
daughter of King James, and thus the Hanovers who are in all regards,
the Windsors.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Jacobite/conversations/messages/4180

http://osdir.com/ml/culture.templar.history/2003-10/msg00001.html

Count Cipriani was born in Centuri Corsica, on October 10,

1812. On his father’s side he is descended from an old Florentine
family of Ghibellines, which after a long struggle with the vitorious
Guelfs, found refgue in Corsica in the fifteenth century. On his
mother’s side he is descended from Saint Francis Caracciolo of
Naples, and thus Saint Aquinas. This struggle inspired Shakespear to
write ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and thus the question “What is in a name?”
came to be.

Royal Rosamond Press dedicates this closure to my
chapter ‘Bohemians and Bankers’ to Cipriani, a man who shaped the
West, and knew the ancestor of Rosamond, the ‘Rose of the World.

John Presco

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Jacobite/conversations/messages/4180

Did the Jacobite movement come to America? I am authoring a
biography of my family, and came upon Count Leonetto Cipriani who
became the President of Italy.

Jon

“On behalf of the Emperor Napoleon 3, he visited King Victor
Emanuel of Sardinia to explore the possibilities of a matrimonial
arrangement between the ruling houses as a prelude to a political-
military alliance between France and Sardinia.”

“It appears that Cipriani was successful in uniting the House
of Savoy with the Bonapartes, and thus the House of Stuart.”

Anarchists, Jacobites, Masons & Manifest Destiny

The City of Belmont
California was founded by Count Cipriani who appears to be related to
the Anarchists of Italy, who may have had something to do with
Sissi’s assasination. Anarchists Clubs sprang up in Italy in response
to the Hapsburg’s and Austria coming to rule Italy. Opposed by the
Piedmontese and the Milanese, Count Leonetto Cipriani would champion
the cause of a free and democratic Italy.

“A writer hostile to Cipriani accused him of forbidding his
son Italian citizenship because he did not want the boy to be a
subject of an Italy that, after 1882, was allied with the traditional
enemy, Hapsburg Austria. Cipriani seldom forgave and never forgot an
enemy.”

Whether Leonetto Cipriani is related to the infamous Italian
Anarchist, Amilcare Cipriani, I do not know. But, they surely had the
same cause, that would come to shape the culture of San Francisco, if
not the whole Pacific Coast, and not just the Italian community. It
appears that Cipriani was successful in uniting the House
of Savoy with the Bonapartes, and thus the House of Stuart. Prince
Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul of France, Pr Napoléon, married in Turin
in 1859, Princess Clothilde of Savoy daughter of Victor Emanuel. From
this union would come other Bonapartes with the name Victor. Prince
Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric, Prince LOUIS Jérôme Victor Emmanuel
Léopold Marie, and, Prince Charles Marie Jérôme Victor
Was the Jacobite ‘Order of the White Rose’ somewhat successful
in their plan to put the Stuarts on a throne and rule the world?
There appears to contention with the Prussians who can claim the same
ancestry through the Winter Queen of Bohemia, Elizabeth Stuart,
daughter of King James, and thus the Hanovers who are in all regards,
the Windsors.

Count Cipriani was born in Centuri Corsica, on October 10,
1812. On his father’s side he is descended from an old Florentine
family of Ghibellines, which after a long struggle with the vitorious
Guelfs, found refuge in Corsica in the fifteenth century. On his
mother’s side he is descended from Saint Francis Caracciolo of
Naples, and thus Saint Aquinas. This struggle inspired Shakespear to
write ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and thus the question “What is in a name?”
came to be.

To another member of the imperial household, Jerome
Bonaparte, ex-king of Westphalia, Cipriani revealed tha the had
considerable investments in California and hinted at receiving
interest of twelve to fifteen percent a month on his money. He also
boasted of his house in Belmont which “out there is considered
magnificent.”

On behalf of the Emperor Napoleon 3, he visited King Victor
Emanuel of Sardinia to explore the possibilities of a matrimonial
arrangement between the ruling houses as a prelude to a political-
military alliance between France and Sardinia. The conversation
eventually turned to Cipriani’s overland journey of 1853, which
apparently had not escaped the king’s notice. “I have heard tell,” he
said, “of a great journey of yours, with you on horseback and camping
out.”

“For eight solid months, Your Majesty,” Cipriani replied,
making certain to include the time he left San Francisco in February
to October, 1853.
“But it is true.” the king continued, “that you led covered
wagons and crossed the Rocky Mountains where there was roads, and
great rivers without any bridges.”

The above is from the ‘California and Overland Diaries of
Count Leonetto Cipriani’. a journey that may constitute the first
cattle drive. What this diary reveals is France’s plan to conquer
Mexico, and perhaps the Western United States.

“Cipriani must have followed with close interest the
activities of Count Raousset-Boulbon and other French filibusters in
the Sonora province of Mexico. The French consul in San Francisco, in
difficulty with the American government for his alleged support of
such filibustering activity, wrote to the Sardinian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in 1854 that he was grateful (moral) support he was
receiving from Colonel Cipriani. That Cirpiani had entertained some
such expedition in the Sonora is clear from his memoirs though there
is no evidence of any actual participation.”

The Royal Crockett Gallery

Come to Sardinia

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Royal Rosamond Press

Every year tourists flock to San Francisco. New Yorkers used to flock to the Catskills in the summer. SFers used to go to Occidental and Camp Meeker for the summer months. I suggest citizens of the city named after Saint Francis, come to Sardinia for a Bohemian Be-in. Every year there will be a meeting of the Creative Alternative Minds from all over the world. Ways to save the planet will be discussed. Global Warming will be a paramount concern. Pioneers of the Internet can discuss the future of Cyber-Space.

As fate would have it, there are several statues of Saint Francis on Sardinia. One looks like the Statue of Liberty. Here is Destinies Welcome! We can save the Animals of the Earth.

Jon Presco

Alghero’s Enchanting Church of Saint Francis in Sardinia

http://www.sardegna.com/en/blog/st-francis-lula-1st-may-sardinia/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKvwwo5wwSE&t=1s

Come Home To Beautiful Mountain

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press

“What does the future have in store for us? Can we all get along?”

“You can’t put your family in one place – there will be trouble!”

“There will always be trouble!” says Victoria Rosamond Bond as she takes her contraption out of the closet, she determined to play it at the Orange Parade!

I just learned the Fenian Brotherhood had gathered in large numbers at the Janke German Theme Park, perhaps the first theme park in California. They did what the Irish are famous for, they drank some beers and got in some fights. This writer-historian calls our past “shady”. How perfect for kin of Ian Fleming, Jaspar John, and all the Gettys. Let’s not leave out Liz and Richard Burton. There will be talk as the citizens pass our home.

“They say Rosamond’s Daughter are mad. One is for the Orange Lodge, and the other is for the Finians Brotherhood. Then there is Heather. She and her mother follow the Tree Goddess. There’s some witchery going on here!”

“I always cross the street when I go by that house!”

“Hurry! We’re going to miss the start of the Irish Unity Parade!”

May I suggest Belmont reach out to the United Ireland folks and begin a cultural exchange. I am going to do some large paintings of these images, and may have Shannon and Drew help. They both heled Garth Benton with the Getty Villa murals.

I see us working on our family history in the sunroom where the conference table is. The Public will be encouraged to come by and watch us – from the outside. I will be working on our newspaper in the other half of the fishbowl we have been living in since Christine became famous.

John Presco

President: Royal Rosamond Press

901 Waltermire St, BELMONT, CA 94002 | MLS# ML81825373 | Redfin

Twin Pines Park’s shady past | Local News | smdailyjournal.com

Orange Order – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon

The French Count and the Principality of Sonora

In his next attempt he knew he needed some serious backing. He had a grand plan for Sonora that went beyond his personal profiteering. From his days in colonial Algeria, Gaston had become closely connected with the family of Orléans and had a continuing correspondence with the Duke of Aumale. During a brief visit to San Francisco, Gaston became friends with François de Orléans, Prince of Joinville, the current Duke of Orléans’ third son who was married to the beautiful Princess Francisca de Bragança, the daughter of the Emperor of Brazil. With proper backing, Gaston wished for an independent Sonora ruled by the Prince of Joinville, a colonial paradise that would attract industrious immigrants from all parts of the world and whose military, and royal court, would be decidedly French. The old mines would be reopened and the irrigation programs like the ones the French used in Algeria would make the deserts of Sonora agriculturally productive. The Principality of Sonora would be ruled independently of France, a hereditary monarchy headed by the male heir of the House of Orléans. The nation of Mexico, aware of Count Gaston’s scheme, had other plans for Sonora.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_Bonaparte

Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte (born Girolamo Buonaparte; 15 November 1784 – 24 June 1860) was the youngest brother of Napoleon I and reigned as Jerome Napoleon I (formally Hieronymus Napoleon in German), King of Westphalia, between 1807 and 1813.

From 1816 onward, he bore the title of Prince of Montfort.[1] After 1848, when his nephew, Louis Napoleon, became President of the French Second Republic, he served in several official roles, including Marshal of France from 1850 onward, and President of the Senate in 1852.[2] He was the only one of Napoleon’s siblings who lived long enough to see the Bonaparte restoration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Patterson_Bonaparte

Bennett Rosamond Grand Master of Orange Order

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press

Above is a photograph of Bennett Rosamond the Grand Master of the Orange Order in Canada. Bennett is with members of Lodge 389 in Lanark, or, Almonte. The image on the banner is that of William of Orange who is carried in Orange Parades. That is Bennett on the far right, looking like Gandalf, or, a Levite Prophet.

According to the History of the Rosemond Family by Leland Rosemond, the Rosamond family were members of the Orange Order in Leitrim Ireland, and fled to Canada after a Rosamond son killed a Catholic lad who was invading the Rosamond home with a gang bent on doing my kindred harm.

Bennett may have been a Freemason as well – and an Oddfellow. There is a long history of the Rosamonds belonging to Guilds. They were members of the Swan Brethren.

My grandparents, Royal and Mary Magdalene Rosamond, begat my mother, Rosemary Rosamond, and her sisters, Lilian, Bonnie, and June Rice.

Fenian Brotherhood – Wikipedia

The Red Hand of Bond

Posted on September 5, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press

James Bond Fans have gone over every Bong Thing with a fine-tooth comb, and, can not answer the riddle of the Red Hand of Ulster being in the Bond cote of arms.

John Presco 007

https://www.araltas.com/features/oneill/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bond-coat-of-arms_(semi-fictional).svg

https://oneill.nd.edu/history/the-red-hand-of-oneill/

http://www.ronsattic.com/redhand.html

Red Hand of Ulster

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigation Jump to search“Red Hand” redirects here. For other uses, see Red hand.

The Red Hand of Ulster, right and left hand versions

The Red Hand of Ulster (Irish: Lámh Dhearg Uladh) is an Irish symbol used in heraldry^[1] to denote the Irish province of Ulster. It is an open hand coloured red, with the fingers pointing upwards, the thumb held parallel to the fingers, and the palm facing forward. It is usually shown as a right hand, but is sometimes a left hand, such as in the coats of arms of baronets.

From the Daily Journal archives

Twin Pines Park’s shady past

By Jim Clifford

Belmont twin pines park — Twin Pines Park in Belmont is a respite of nature, but its past wasn’t always that way.Dan Wadleigh

The Belmont City Council recently approved funding for a master plan to upgrade Twin Pines Park, a bucolic oasis where people can escape the push and pull of modern life by simply listening to the sound of a creek as it flows in the shade of towering trees. It is hard to believe this pastoral setting has a violent history that includes murder, rape and kidnapping.

The unsavory history took place a long time ago when the park was known as the Belmont Picnic Grounds as well as Belmont Park. The present park is a remnant of the original 12-acre, wildly popular venue that opened shortly after the train came to the Peninsula in the 1860s.

Belmont Park was the work of Carl Janke, who wanted to replicate a beer garden from his native Germany. The trains brought party goers from throughout the Bay Area to Belmont where they spent the day meandering through the woods or attending the many picnics hosted by immigrant groups and fraternal organizations, events that drew people by the thousands. Ships also brought park-bound passengers to the Belmont pier.

Today’s 10-acre Twin Pines Park is located on Ralston Avenue a few blocks west of El Camino Real in the same spot once occupied by the Belmont Picnic Grounds, according to the Belmont Historical Society. The society maintains a museum in Twin Pines, which is also home to popular summer concerts as well as picnickers.

Janke’s park featured a dance pavilion large enough to hold 300 dancers, a bandstand and, of course, a beer garden. Eventually, a jail cell was built under the bandstand to hold rowdy patrons, of which there were plenty.

Special trains carried passengers to the park for huge events, such as an 1868 picnic held by the Fenian Brotherhood, a group of Irish nationalists who wanted to free their native land from the English. The picnic drew 10,000 people, but such sizeable gatherings were not unusual for the times. Two years earlier, 15,000 turned out for a Fenian picnic in San Mateo. In 1870, 12,000 Fenians and their supporters converged on Redwood City, overwhelming a city of less than 2,000. The Irish group was not the only organization to hold massive picnics. In 1876, 8,000 people showed up at Belmont for an Odd Fellows picnic.

Victoria’s Orange Parade

Posted on April 19, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press

Being part Dutch, and able to trace her lineage to William The Silent, got Victoria Bond an invite to march in the Orange Parade. But, when she insisted she play her ‘Contraption’, some of the most diplomatic folks of the Isles slithered up to her, and, as calm as can be, tried to talk her out of it.

“There will be trouble!”

“What kind of trouble? There’s always trouble. I’m not giving up my pipes – mon! That would be like me, asking you, to give up your nuts. Coo’mon! Drop em!”

Jon Presco

Return to the Getty Villa

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Royal Rosamond Press

I have taken steps to be awarded several grants. A year from now, I hope to have my own room at the Getty Villa where I am allowed to roam freely admiring the art of my ex-brother-in-law, Garth Benton, and working on my paper and historic masterpiece………..

‘The Doomsday Prophecies of Wealthy Men’

I will be wearing the best headset money can buy with a endless soundtrack from the DaVinci Code, the Phantom of the Opera, and the best of Leonard Cohen. Young scholars will turn their heads as I pass them in halls.

“May the force be with you Professor Obi-Wan Kenobi!”

“Have you saved our planet yet, Obi-Wan?”

“He can’t hear you. He lives in his own world.”

I have also taken steps to receive a grant from the Paul Mellon foundation. Paul is in my rosy family tree via Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, and Warner. I introduced the Pre-Raphaelites to Christine Rosamond Benton. We are ‘The Last Pre-Raphaelites’.

I just made an offer to be Drew Benton’s Mentor. I can show her how to be a scholar in a year. Above is her mother at the Getty Mansion in New York.

Jon Presco

Obi-Wan Kenobi played by Sir Alec Guinness

“The murals on the J. Paul Getty Museum’s garden walls have been seen by millions of visitors since the Malibu institution opened 20 years ago. But who knew that the artist who painted–and is now restoring–the realistic likenesses of columns, garlands and still-life arrangements is Garth Benton, a third cousin of Thomas Hart Benton? The 53-year-old artist never met his famous relative, an American regionalist painter who rejected modern abstraction and championed a muscular style of realism until his death in 1975. But the younger Benton was turned on to art at the age of 8 when he saw a book of his relative’s paintings, and he occasionally corresponded with the late artist, who spent much of his life in his home state of Missouri.”

Tourism in Sardinia

Tourism in Sardinia is a relatively new phenomenon. Until recently, apart from the highly exclusive north eastern coast of the Costa Smeralda, there was little choice but to stay in modest hotels or private houses, especially away from the principal towns and a handful of seaside resorts. Today, the quality of Sardinian tourist accommodation has reached the same high standards as can be found in the rest of Italy.

Sardinian Kingdom Founds SF Colony

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Royal Rosamond Press

Not only have I found Sleeping Beauty Rosa, I have found her Kingdom in San Francisco!

“After Victor Emmanuel became King of Sardinia he appointed Cipriani to be his first consul in San Francisco.”

Cipriani’s home was brought around the Cape by my kindred, Carl Janke, whose daughter married William Stuttmeister. I believe my kindred were chosen to help found the Sardinian Colony that would support Victor Emmanuel’s kingdom. This is astonishing! With the history of John Fremont and his wife, Jessie Benton, my kindred are the Acme of California History.

Arrigo Cipriani and his son Giuseppe Cipriani in the middle with Maggio Cipriani on the left and Ignazio Cipriani on the right. The Ciprianis owns restaurants and bars all over the world and are worth about 1 billion. They have a large operation in New York City. They are major white collar criminals and launder criminal profits in private banks in Luxembourg. The Cirprianis employed the Colombo mobster Dennis Pappas as head of the Cipriani USA who worked for the FBI and their first attack on the World Trade Center and then blackmailed them to get off on criminal charges. The Ciprianis paid a fine for evading taxes through banks in Luxembourg. The Ciprianis are a white collar mafia worth at least a billion and they are ruthlessly evil and closely connected with the entertainment industry.

https://worldcrimesyndicate.blogspot.com/2020/03/venetian-mafia.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR1FRTpNTjuo9Ul-YzEy3u-yjmZHr9tbzlklVjd0N5XKKNqZ8qSfaHeUmHo

Janke Park, Hall, And Stagecoach Line

Many historians have wondered why the Italian Mafia was not present in California (with the exception of Big Bone Remmer) It appears the Sardinians own the franchise. Now I understand why, and how, my father, Victor William Presco, was a “made man”. The Stuttmeisters may be Italian-Germans. Here is William Stuttmeister and Cipriani.

I declare myself the Cultural Embasador of the Kingdom of Sardinia. I will establish a cultural exchange between Sardinia and its California Colonly. I will make Sardinia the the Tourist Mecca for San Francisco natives. We will form a Art Exchange program based upon the works of Frederico Biesta, a owner of a SF newspaper. There will be a Festival Sardinia Day held in Belmont.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Sardinia

This is the history that Christine Rosamond Benton – a world famous artist – would want to read and be a part of. Instead,

Stuttmeister-Janke Wedding at Ralston Hall

Christine came to live with me at the Idle Hands Commune in San Francisco paid for by Betty Williams, who was married to Col. Zorthian, a Armenian who was titled ‘The Last Bohemian’. We knew the manufacturers of LSD that fueled the Kesey Revolution. Nancy Van Brasch lived with us. Jessie Benton was a good friend of Lewis Kossuth who lived with Giuseppe Mazzini in London. She and John had a bodyguard made up of Hungarian Forty-Eighters who also fought the Papal Army in Europe. Wenzel Anton Prescowitz was a Forty-Eighter from Bohemia. We are looking at the most radical people in the world that would form the Abolitionist Republican Party.

This is the Invisible Revolution that made California a Colony of the Kingdom of Sardinia that was surrounded by the Habsburgs who had backed the Papacy for a thousand years. This is why Count Cipriani drove a herd of cattle to California known for its fruit and vegetables. The Rose of the World Revolution would not be starved out. If Opus Dai had a mortal enemy, it was Victor Emanuel, and Belle Marie Rosa.

http://burlingameproperties.com/en/communities/belmont/carlmont

Click on top photo to enlarge. There is a gun hanging in the tree between my father;s grandfather, William Broderick, and his wife, Alice Stuttmeister, who looks like Christine and Vicki. We lived with Beema and Beepa in Oakland where these folks fled after the San Francisco after the earthquake. The gentleman holding the wine may be the father of William Broderick. There is no lineage for this branch who I suspect were the Illuminati, and sold barrels to bootleggers during Prohibition. Who do you think owns that rifle? How many Catholics fell in the sights of this weapon?

There is a black wreath hung in the tree next to the rifle. What message does that give?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati

http://www.britannica.com/topic/Carbonari

Then there are the Rougemont Knight Templars that owned the Shroud of Turin. They were the Dukes of Athens, and very possible my kindred on my mother Rosemary’s side. The Stuttmeisters were Teutonic Knights. President Obama sent more troops to fight ISIS from Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_States

To my loyal friends, Marilyn Reed, and Amy Sargent, history will honor you as Good Souls, who cared about my mental and physical health. Like I told my sixteen year old daughter after we met for the first time……

“All’s well, that ends well.”

Jon Presco

Belmont Legacy of Carl Janke

http://www.academia.edu/5778858/The_Italian_Colony_of_San_Francisco_during_the_Italian_Risorgimento

http://www.britannica.com/event/Risorgimento

After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, the Italian states were restored to their former rulers. Under the domination of Austria, these states took on a conservative character. Secret societies such as the Carbonari opposed this development in the 1820s and ’30s. The first avowedly republican and national group was Young Italy, founded by Giuseppe Mazzini in 1831. This society, which represented the democratic aspect of the Risorgimento, hoped to educate the Italian people to a sense of their nationhood and to encourage the masses to rise against the existing reactionary regimes. Other groups, such as the Neo-Guelfs, envisioned an Italian confederation headed by the pope; still others favored unification under the house of Savoy, monarchs of the liberal northern Italian state of Piedmont-Sardinia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Sardinia

Victor Amadeus initially resisted the exchange, and until 1723 continued to style himself King of Sicily rather than King of Sardinia. The state took the official title of Kingdom of Sardinia, Cyprus and Jerusalem, as the house of Savoy still claimed the thrones of Cyprus and Jerusalem, although both had long been under Ottoman rule.

Towards the Kingdom of Italy[edit]

On 17 March 1861, law no. 4671 of the Sardinian Parliament proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy, so ratifying the annexations of all other Apennine states, plus Sicily, to the Kingdom of Sardinia.^[17] The institutions and laws of the Kingdom were quickly extended to all of Italy, abolishing the administrations of the other regions. Piedmont became the most dominant and wealthiest region in Italy and the capital of Piedmont, Turin, remained the Italian capital until 1865, when the capital was moved toFlorence. But many revolts exploded throughout the peninsula, especially in southern Italy, and on the island of Sicily, because of the perceived unfair treatment of the south by the Piedmontese ruling class. The House of Savoy ruled Italy until 1946 when Italy was declared a republic by referendum. In this referendum the southern regions, including Sardinia, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the House of Savoy, with the results being 63.8% in favor of maintaining the monarchy.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Jacobite/conversations/messages/4180

Before introducing the issue of the relationship between theColony and the central government, let us look into this type of political immigration which was characterised by different social implications and cultural backgrounds. In fact, one of these political immigrants was the young Leonetto Cipriani (1812-1888), destined to become the first Sardinian Consul of San Francisco. Assigned the tasks of improving trade between the Sardinian Kingdom and California,

’ in 1852, in quarters which he had physically brought from home. Curiously, the newborn Sardinian Consulate was constructed from 1200 pieces of wood, transported by sea and personally assembled by Cipriani and his entourage. Undoubtedly the official representative of the Sardinian Kingdom was welcomed with “interestand distinction” within a young Italian community which needed political support. Cipriani ’s activity in San Francisco essentially concerned the financial enhancement of the Colony, by improving maritime trade with the homeland. To this end the Consul enlisted the help of Nicola Larco and widely favoured him, funding the most lucrative initiatives of the Ligurian entrepreneur Cipriani was also a romantic: both his venturesome choice of emigrating to California and his early resignation can be traced to this inclination. In any case, more relevant than Cipriani’s impetuous nature is his list of citizens of the Kingdom, which he sent to Turin in 1853: this document is the first original report giving the names and activities of early Italian pioneers in California. Thanks to the list, we are introduced to a number of Italian residents in the West, including Larco and another personage who would later become historically significant: a certain Federico Biesta, vaguely and informally defined as a property owner Possibly even more interesting than the names included on the list is the exclusion of certain others. For instance, though his presence in San Francisco during the same period is well-established, the Sardinian Consul did not mention Felice Argenti, founder of the 1941 North American Chapter of the Giovine Italia. We now know that many others were also excluded from the list as well as Argenti: the new Consul, in fact, deliberately

http://sanfranciscoitaly.com/post/123993261859/meet-the-first-italian-consul-in-san-francisco

During the nineteenth century many prominent Italian travelers visited the Far West. One of the earliest visitors was Leonetto Cipriani (1812-1888). Cipriani was born in Corsica but his family roots (like those of Napoleon Bonaparte) were in Tuscany. After the Battle of Waterloo the family returned to Tuscany where it established a successful mercantile business. Cipriani was eventually appointed by Grand Duke Leopold II to be governor of Livorno and in that capacity established relations with King Carlo Alberto (King of Sardinia) and Louis Napoleon (President of France). – See more at: http://sanfranciscoitaly.com/post/123993261859/meet-the-first-italian-consul-in-san-francisco#sthash.e7UAQ3f2.dpuf

William Janke on Haight St.

After Victor Emmanuel became King of Sardinia he appointed Cipriani to be his first consul in San Francisco. Cipriani’s memoirs, which contain narratives of three separate journeys to California in 1851, 1853 and 1871, were published in1934. He recorded some very interesting encounters. In fact, the accounts of his two earliest journeys are the only central overland narrative written by an Italian. Throughout his travels he encountered local leaders and diplomats as well as other Italians. In Salt Lake City he met Brigham Young and other members of the Mormon hierarchy, with whom he established good relations, as well as an Italian musician named Gennaro Capone. In San Francisco, he was introduced to the French and Austrian Consuls as well as Nicola Lauro who he described as “the richest Italian merchant in the city” and his cousin Ottavio Cipriani. He also describes how he assembled his elegant prefabricated home in Belmont, the first of consequence on the San Francisco peninsula, later to become the Ralston mansion.

His memoirs Avventure della mia vita (pictured above) were published more than forty-five years after his death and were based on a manuscript that is still located in Bastia, Corsica in the original sea chest that he used during his travels. These memoirs were first translated into English by Ernest Falbo and published as California and Overland Diaries of Count Leonetto Cipriani from 1853 through 1871 (Portland, OR: The Champoeg Press, 1962). More recently I had the honor to examine the Cipriani archives in Bastia, Corsica. I included excerpts from Cipriani’s account in my documentary history of European travelers (including other prominent Italians) who visited Utah entitled “On the Way to Somewhere Else” (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2010) which is still in prin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_States

The Papal States were territories in the Italian Peninsula under the sovereign direct rule of the pope, from the 8th century until 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from roughly the 8th century until the Italian Peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. At their zenith, they covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio (which includes Rome), Marche, Umbria and Romagna, and portions of Emilia. These holdings were considered to be a manifestation of the temporal power of the pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy. After 1861, the Papal States, reduced to Lazio, continued to exist until 1870. Between 1870 and 1929, the pope had no physical territory at all. Eventually Italian leader Benito Mussolini solved the crisis between modern Italy and the Vatican, and, in 1929, the Vatican City State was granted sovereignty.

See more at: http://sanfranciscoitaly.com/post/123993261859/meet-the-first-italian-consul-in-san-francisco#sthash.e7UAQ3f2.dpuf

http://osdir.com/ml/culture.templar.history/2003-10/msg00001.html

Count Cipriani was born in Centuri Corsica, on October 10,

Royal Rosamond Press dedicates this closure to my
chapter ‘Bohemians and Bankers’ to Cipriani, a man who shaped the
West, and knew the ancestor of Rosamond, the ‘Rose of the World.

John Presco

“Returning to Paris in October, 1855, he was warmly received
by his friend Prince Napoleon who overwhelmed him with questions
about his travels in America. “I answered them the best I could.”
Cipriani wrote, “But , it is a veritable deluge….We keep talking
about my journeys, of the Sanora, of conquering it.” Perhaps he
thought of seizing it for France and hoped the prince might persuade
his cousin the Emperor to finance the undertaking. “It is an idea in
the air,” he added, “that I would willingly undertake, if necessary
capital and men were available.”
To another member of the imperial household, Jerome
Bonaparte, ex-king of Westphalia, Cipriani revealed tha the had
considerable investments in California and hinted at receiving
interest of twelve to fifteen percent a month on his money. He also
boasted of his house in Belmont which “out there is considered
magnificent.”
On behalf of the Emperor Napoleon 3, he visited King Victor
Emanuel of Sardinia to explore the possibilities of a matrimonial
arrangement between the ruling houses as a prelude to a political-
military alliance between France and Sardinia. The conversation
eventually turned to Cipriani’s overland journey of 1853, which
apparently had not escaped the king’s notice. “I have heard tell,” he
said, “of a great journey of yours, with you on horseback and camping
out.”
“For eight solid months, Your Majesty,” Cipriani replied,
making certain to include the time he left San Francisco in February
to October, 1853.
“But it is true.” the king continued, “that you led covered
wagons and crossed the Rocky Mountains where there was roads, and
great rivers without any bridges.”

https://books.google.com/books?id=ESusAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA213&lpg=PA213&dq=frederico+biesta+cerruti&source=bl&ots=yMSEfYTxVz&sig=e2EUDGXoyaBRpHftjQRoFAGpUzk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiqvbWyxq_MAhWHKGMKHdfKBIYQ6AEILDAE#v=onepage&q=frederico%20biesta%20cerruti&f=false
With the ‘Gold Rush’ came foreigners who sought to fulfill
the manifest destiny of their nations who now feared the growing
richness and power of America and the role she might play on the
world stage. One could say pre-emptive strikes were made against
the “boastful barbarians” as Count Cipriani titled most of the
Americans he encountered. Without a doubt he followed with interest
the moves of Count Gaston Raousset-Boulbon, who arrived in San
Francisco on August 22, 1850, just at moment US laws segregated the
foreign people who came to search for California riches. His arrival
coincided with the move of thousands of French-people who looked for
a way out of the wars in their country, who came to find substance
and well-being in California. Not finding any gold, Raousett wondered
if California’s gold extended into the Mexican State of Sonora. I am
sure Ciprinai wondered this as well, and he may have organized his
cattle drive for such an expedition, he selling some California
property to the Rothschilds to bank-roll his adventure that the
Bonapartes were well aware of.

Raousset-Boulbon made his first trip to Mexico in February
1852. Once in Mexico City, he met Consul André Levasseur who
introduced him to investors of a company called La Restauradora whose
majority partner was Jecker, Torre and Co. On April 7, 1852, Raousset-
Boulbon singed a contract with La Restauradora on which he is
appointed jointly with an “agent”, who he met in San Francisco, to
explore all places in northern Sonora, and discover gold mines..
The Count returned to San Francisco, and recruited a company
of about 270 men, in addition to weapons and food. On May 19, 1852,
he left San Francisco, on the Archival Gracie to arrive Guaymas,
Sonora, the first day of July, under a spectacular welcome provided
by the Guaymas people and Sonora authorities. But in no time it was
clear he was a rebel. Raousset-Boulbon granted the company with a
flag with the French colors and the words “Indepéndance de Sonora”.
On October 1852, General Navarro and Blanco faced Roausset
near Hermosillo. The treaty with the French company was dissolved,
but Blanco guaranteed the security of the French. Raousset-Boulbon,
who had hidden in Guaymas, and did not sign the treaty. The project
in ruin, the French nobleman returned to San Francisco where he
consolidated his mission in Sonora:
Becoming rich with the supposed Sonora gold
Putting a stop to the US expansionism.
Reestablish the pure Latin-blood on the Americas.
Taking revenge on Mariano Arista.

Back in Mexico, Arista was deposed and replaced by Juan
Bautista Ceballos as the presidency, then by Manuel María Lombardini,
who in turn was succeeded by Santa Anna, and Gandsen, US minister to
Mexico. Raousset-Boulbon departed from San Francisco on June 16,
1853, arriving in Mexico City on July 7. He met Santa Anna and
discused with him his colonization project in Sonora by bringing
6,000 emigrants from Upper California from Europe in six years. Santa
Anna refused the proposals and Raousset-Boulbon’s forces were finally
defeated by General José María Yáñez on July 13, 1854. He is shot
dead on August 12, 1854.
Around 1860 a group of rich Mexican emigrants met in Europe,
they had fled the Juarez revolution. Catholic and conservative, they
looked for support in Europe for their plan to establish a monarchy
in Mexico. They needed money, troops and a genuine European noble.
The Bonapartes had tried to bestow nobility upon Cipriani, but he
refused fearing to become more of a puppet then he was. Victor
Emanuel had made him Governor of Balogna, and he would become the
first President of the United Kingdom of Italy. Cipriani would marry
an American, Mary Tolly Worhtington of Baltimore County who a
descendant of George Washington. Cipriani descends from the famous
Caracciolo family of Naples, and appears to be the son of Napoeleon’s
major dommo, Franchesci Cipriani. The whole truth is not being told
here, and Cipriani may have been playing down the royal hand he was
dealt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Cerruti

https://books.google.com/books?id=obfFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=frederico+biesta+cerruti&source=bl&ots=SYNkSzEsNy&sig=6Ee_syqLX1BgjO-Z_l8aP3EWt0Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiqvbWyxq_MAhWHKGMKHdfKBIYQ6AEIIzAB#v=onepage&q=frederico%20biesta%20cerruti&f=false

Jerome Bonaparte married Elizabeth Patterson, and wealthy
heiress. Emperor Napoleon had marred Marie-Louis von Habsburg, and it
was a Habsburg that be amply qualified to become the first Emperor of
Mexico. Napoleon III. gave the emigrants troops, French financial
circles assured their assistance. The French supported the
conservatives in the civil war with the radicals and occupied the
capital. They planned an expansion of France on the American
continent close to the United States of America, torn up by the civil
war. Maximilian supported aspect of the Confederacy, it said he
financing Quantril. After the Civil War many Confederate officers and
politicians found sanctuary in Mexico.
The brother of the emperor Franz Josef, archduke Ferdinand
Max, seemed to be a suitable candidate. He was married to the Belgian
princess Charlotte. As commander of the Austrian navy and governor
general of Milan, he could not live all his ideas. Poet, lover of
large gestures, an emperor throne was enticing for him. In addition
he was honestly convinced to be able to bring law and peace to Mexico.
In 1863, pushed by Napoleon III., the ambitious Maximilian
and its wife Charlotte, fulfilled by romantic ideas, are proclaimed
emperor of Mexico. Charlotte saw herself as co-emperor, perhaps even
as the actual emperor, requesting her husband to finally show his
qualities – in Mexico. Perhaps she wanted also to flee the bores the
Miramar castle and the shades of the more beautiful empress Elisabeth.
The Austrian court was suspicious about this adventure,
Maximilian had to resign any rights of succession to the Austrian
throne. An Austrian volunteer corps followed him. Their uniforms
aroused the mockery of the Mexican children. On the trip the couple
prepared for their new job: How to behave at the audience, how to
place guests at diner, which medals to be given, what uniforms the
guards should wear.
But the emperor found only few followers and an indebted
government. The Mexican empire remained limited to a considerable
number of generals, ministers, chamberlains, stable masters, cooks,
gardeners and palace guards, plus some land owners and businessmen,
who profited from the emperor. Maximilian, a Sombrero on his head,
traveled around the country, gave dinners and distributed medals. He
adopted a small Mexican boy as his son, his mother reclaimed him back
later. This was a gesture my father would imitate as he loved history
and admired the Habsburgs.
The republicans became stronger and advanced. Vienna stood
briefly before the 1866 war against Prussia and Italy, and permitted
only a limited recruitment of volunteers. But they sent from the
imperial collections the shield of Montezuma and the report by Cortez
to Karl V., how he had won victory against the Aztecs.
The USA supported the opponents of the emperor, conforming to
the Monroe doctrine “America the Americans”. They demanded and
obtained that the recruitment of volunteers in Austria was stopped,
2000 men already embarked had to leave their ships. With the victory
of the north in the American civil war 1865 the decision fell also in
Mexico. In vain, empress Charlotte searched assistance. She arrived
in Europe after the battle of Königgrätz. In Paris, which had an
assistance contract with Mexico, she got the answer from Napoleon
III., “it would be good, if her majesty would not hang on to
illusions”.
Napoleon did not want to invest money into an affair without
future. She did not even bother to go to Vienna. Franz Josef did not
want to hear anything of its brother, specially not since the
Viennese rallied after the lost war against Prussia “Vivat emperor
Maximilian”, who seemed to them as more liberal and the better
emperor for Austria. Her last hope was the Pope, who could have
talked to Napoleon and Franz Josef, concluded a concordat with Mexico
and convinced the Mexican catholic church. But Pius IX. only wanted
to pray. Charlotte fell into depression, one night fled from the
hotel and required lodging in the Vatican. Her brother brought the
mentally ill Empress back to Miramar.
The French troops withdrew. Maximilian was on the way back to
Austria, however his Belgian and Austrian advisor’s, specifically
father Fischer convinced him not to give up the throne. Even his
mother now requested from him to endure as long this “can happen with
honor “. His wife had written in a memorandum before her departure
that “abdication is condemning himself, an certification of
inability, acceptable for the old and stupid, but not for a prince of
34 years full of live and future.”
But his armed forces were small and little motivated. On May
15th, 1867 Maximilian handed his sword to the partisan leader
Escobedo. He was taken prisoner. He could have fled, but he had
refused to leave his most devoted officers. He was condemned to
death. In the prison he complained briefly before his execution, that
he was here because he had followed his wife.
Now the diplomacy got into motion to prevent that a member of
the ruling European dynasty would be shot like a simple murderer.
Franz Joseph restored Maximilian’s rights to the succession of the
Austrian throne and asked the American secretary of state to
intervene.
On June 19th, 1867 Maximilian was executed on the Cerro de
las Campanas, a hill near the city Queretaro together with the
generals Miguel de Miramon and Thomas Mejia – latter an Indian –
scarcely 350 years after the murder of Montezuma by Spanish
mercenaries. Maximilian gave a golden piece of twenty pesos to each
soldier of the firing squad.
He was idealist, a human full of liberal thoughts and had
honestly hoped to bring the Mexican people liberty and internal
peace, “a figure of beautiful, pure knighthood, which will teach up-
striving souls that it there is something higher than the bare life
and benefit” wrote Adalbert Stifter.
He was idealist, a human full of liberal thoughts and had
honestly hoped to bring the Mexican people liberty and internal
peace, “a figure of beautiful, pure knighthood, which will teach up-
striving souls that it there is something higher than the bare life
and benefit” wrote Adalbert Stifter.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Jacobite/conversations/messages/4180

Did the Jacobite movement come to America? I am authoring a
biography of my family, and came upon Count Leonetto Cipriani who
became the President of Italy.

Jon

“It appears that Cipriani was successful in uniting the House
of Savoy with the Bonapartes, and thus the House of Stuart.”

Anarchists, Jacobites, Masons & Manifest Destiny

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25155579?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

La California

In 1851 he brought to Belmont a prefabricated house in 1,200 parts,
to be fastened together with 700 hooks and 26,000 screws. He invested
in local realestate but lacked the Midas touch. The Count sold his
prefab house and sailed back east to organize a wagon train to move
overland to the Pacific. In 1853 the Count left Missouri with 11
wagons, 24 hired hands, 500 cattle, 600 cattle, 60 horses, and 40
mules. He wrote an account of this six-month journey that became the
book ‘The California and Overland Diaries of Count Leonetto Cipriani’
by Ernest Falbo.

But, I have just touched the surface, for it appears Count Cipriani
was a relative of Napoleon’s’s major donmo, Franchisci Cipriani who
was a fellow Tuscan, whose family knew the Bonapartes well, and were
with him in the end, in the emperor’s exile on St. Helena. What is
truly extraordinary, is, there have recently appeared several books,
and a couple of television documentary in Europe suggesting it is the
body of Franchesci Cipriani who was found in the coffin of Napoleon
when it was exhumed and moved from England to France. You will hear
more about this as this genealogical tale, and mystery, unfolds.

Count Cipriani would make seven more voyages to the United States,
dabbling in mining, ranching, and the stock market. When Cipriani was
called home to serve in the Italian Senate in 1853, he turned over
his consular duties to a most unlikely Italian, Patrice Guillaume
Dillon, the French consul with the Irish last name. Dillon was
responsible for all matters concerning all the Italians in the Far
West. Since he could not read or write Italian, Dillon employed a
friend of Cipriani’s, Frederico Biesta. Biesta would eventually serve
as acting consul for Sardinia within the French Consulate. What is
going on here?

Biesta was born in Turin, the home of the Holy Shroud, and served in
the Army of King Charles Albert of Sardinia with considerable
distinction. He was made a cavalier. After six months he had to turn
to his friend Cipriani for financial help, and because of his many
talents, Cipriani became his backer. When the French government
reassigned Dillon to Port au Prince in 1857, Biesta became acting
consul of Sardinia. Everyone expected him to be named permanently,
but to everyone’s dismay he was passed over, and a native of London,
Benjamin Davidson got the post.

Davidson owed his selection to the fact he was the local agent of the
Rothschild banking house of London. Count Cavour’s of Sardinia
policies were commonly said to be financed by loans from the
Rothschilds. European Bankers were eager to have their agents in
consulates where thy could be on the lookout for financial
opportunities. Napoleon had his agents all over thw world and was
forever at war with Jacob Rothschild

Members of the emporers family were said to be Freemasons. I suspect
Dillon was a Mason, as was Bret Harte, the Californian writer and
poet who was the discovery of Jesse Benton Fremont, the wife of the
founder of the Republican Party, and its first Presidential
candidate, John Fremont who was titled ‘The Trail Blazer’, he a
Pioneer of the West. Jesse Benton is an ancestor of my niece Drew
Benton, whose father, Garth Benton, married my late siser, the world
renowned artist who signed he art by her middle name, Rosamond, which
is my mother Rosemary’s maiden This name hails from Rougemont
Switzerland.

Ralston’s’ death by drowning in San Francisco Bay while taking his
usual swim, has been titled a murder by some, it said his demise
coming at the hands of the agents for Rothschild Banking. William
Sharon would come to own the chateau of Cipriani, and beget a
powerful family of politicians and bankers, including the founder of
Welles Fargo. These bankers are related to the famous Preston family
who are kin to the Benton family, and thus my niece.

When Ralston needed silver and gold bullion to back up his bank notes
and stop a run on his, and other Sand Francisco banks, he had a un-
named person let him into the San Fransisco Mint, and in the middle
of the night they carried a couple of tons of bullion through the
streets. In the morning, Ralston showed the people the large pile of
gold and silver stacked-up in his bank. I believe this person who
worked in the Mint was Bret Harte, as it was Jesse Benton who got him
the job at the mint, where was minted the first U.S. coin where on is
printed these words “In God We Trust”. Some believe this motto is of
Masonic origin.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ctrl/conversations/messages/68104

FEDERICO BIESTA.

A Veteran Italian Editor Passes Away. He Died With His Pen in His Hand While at Work Translating Telegrams. The veteran Italian editor, soldier and diplomat. Fedeilco Kle>ta, died in his apartments on Mdtitgouieiy street at 7 o’clock yesterday morning. He passeci away quiellyiwith lits pen in his hand, and seemed as If he was going to sleep, so peaceful was the end.

i-‘ederico Uiesta was one of the best- known Kalians in California, tie was looked upon by bis own people as a man of high Intellectual attainments, and was respected by them. Somewhat irritable in disposition, but most reserved Iv manner, he counted his intimate friends only by hundreds, but ihose that he had loved him and appieciaied his intellectual aitainnients. At the tune of his death he was trausl.tlne telegrams lor the Ittliau paper L’Elvezia, and woiKed up to the lait moment, and ouiv stopped wiiting to die. lie had been sick for some time w itn a torm of anaemia, hut his deaib was unexpected by any

atiacue of the Italian consulate, m which he tilled me position of secretary naUl 1857, when lie went to British Columbia ana engaged iv tne business of assayer. He only remained at It for a few yeais and returnrd to California, agaiu taking a position In i he Italian consulate. From that time on lie rilled various offices of bis Government until 1881, when he went Into journalism eniliely. Ha started the tii>t Italian paper in California, called LEctio della l’atn.i, and was also editoi of the illustrated l ■au i r, La Patria, ISefote coming to this country Federico Biesia was in the Italian army under Klnc diaries Albert, aud In the revolution of 1849 gained

considerable distinction in the service. At the battle of Novarra he was ihe l’«;irer of the mi I’oitani dispatches from the King to bis son. Yicioi Emanuel. For his .ictiou ou that occasion he was made a chevalier. The life of lederico Diesta was filled with work, and he passed away knowing, he had done every duty sei him.

Victor William Presco made several expiditions across the border
and was good friends and partners with Americans who have been titled
the “Mexican Mafia”. He smuggled Connie, his Mexican bride to be,
over the border in a marijuana shipment, and it was his desire to
make Connie’s eleven children his heirs, which he did, much to the
consternation of Vicki who saw this a more grandstanding from a man
who commanded attention everytime he walked into a room, and got it;
for Victor was a Leo, a Lion-King in his own mind, and was forever
conducting loyalty checks.
I know he heard things from his mother. His cousin Bill was
hoisted atop a great wall in Belmont at ten, and told to go get his
stolen legacy. But, when one has lost a fortune, or a title, one
quickly learns to not talk about it, as one can be
titled “delusional” – especially when one has nothing to show for
their royal adventures and contacts with the high and mighty.
Vic was present when his daughter presented her portrait of
Jimmy Stuart to the actor my father was mistaken for when he and
Rosemary came out of a theater in Westwood, Vic just out of the
Merchant Marines. This was the only male she rendered because of the
striking resemblance. I do not know if Jimmy is a Stuart royal. But,
Vic wore the same white suit Jimmy wore in the painting, and upon it
was a large blazon. I asked Rosemary about it, and she said my father
had paid a genealogist to research his background, and apparently he
had found he was of a noble birth. He was very secretive about this.
Christine may have known, for in our last conversation she spat this
question at me; “You don’t know who I am!” I wondered at this, and
answered; “Yes I do. You are my sister.

Like myself, Rosemary and Vic loved world history, and they were
at peace when they conducted their long discussions about world
events. This no doubt had a influence on their children, and the art
of Rosamond, who revived realism in the 70s in regards to her
portraits. And what is history without its portraits and busts of
famous people? Rosamond was the model for many of the ‘Rosamond
Women’. I consider my sister to be a new Pre-Raphaelite artist – and
model – who had conversations with Joaquin Miller’s daughter on the
phone, she known as the ‘White Witch’ of Oakland, and is not unlike
the White Dame de Rougemont. Here is an account of Miller’s dinner
with the Pre-Raphaelites.

Victor Paladin Stuttmeister

No Friend of History

Meet Snitty Cynthia Karpa McCarthy

Twin Pines Double Cross

President of The Western White House

Count Cipriani and Napoleon

Cipriani of Roman Times

Posted on April 10, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press

Count Cipriani came from a ancient Roman family to Belmont California, and had to know my kin, the Janke and Stuttmeister family. Belmont is a gathering place for European Royalty. My condolences to the loss of Queen Elizabeth’s dear husband, Prince Philip.

With the discovery of the books written by Lisi Cecilla Cipriani, this morning, I have found a fellow author and scholar to ground all my writing – and the art of two Presco siblings, who got sober, and thus were like to the Nazarites, who are sometimes mistaken as the Nazarenes, and thus the Pre-Raphaelite artists let their hair grow long, after the Nazarene artists. The co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelites, Dante Gabrielle Rossetti, was named after Dante who Lisi says mentioned her family that came to live in Belmont in a portable home that my great grandfather, William Stuttmeister married Augustus Janke. From this couple would spring a world famous woman artist who signed her work, Rosamond, and myself, the owner of Royal Rosamond Press, a newspaper for the arts, modeled after The Germ published by Michael Rossetti, whose sister, Christina, contributed her poetry. Lisi and her siblings were knowledgeable of the gods, and acted out in Olympic dramas as children. I am about to do a portrait of Lara Roozemond who has the perfect Pre-Raphaelite Cherub Mouth. I want her to play Victoria Rosamond Bond.

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti | Poetry Foundation

That I was accosted by a hostile Belmont Historical Society, who are not kin to anyone associated with Belmont, is an outrage, because they can now pilfer my arduous study, and take it home to their Harpie Nest. I have raised up the City Belmont, and for doing this I am mentally and emotionally tortured as an artist, poet, and historian. This is proof I have the goods – and they do not!

I have been planning for weeks to do a Biblical painting of King David’s walk to the Mount of Olives – with narrative as I paint. I want to paint more spiritual and religious themes like the one Schadow did of the angel above. I might put wings on Roozemond.

John Presco

President: Royal Rosamond Press

The Windsor Labyrinth at Belmont | Rosamond Press

“Malaspini mentions our family sometimes as Cipriani, and sometimes as Delia Pressa, a name which, by the way, is also given us in the modern Annuary. The Cipriani were staunch Ghibellines and good fighters. Dante, under the name of Delia Pressa, in the Sixteenth Canto of the Paradiso, mentions us where he says: “The Delia Pressa already knew how it behooves to rule and in Galigaio’s house the hilt and the pommel were already gilt.” This passage, because it was in Dante, we, of course, knew.

I have forgotten to mention, in telling the family history, that Malaspini states that one of my ancestors married a grand-daughter of Octavian, the Emperor. Now follows my childish reasoning. If we descended from Octavian, the Emperor, through him we went back to Julius Caesar; from Julius Caesar we went back to Æneas; from Æneas evidently we went back to Venus; from Venus we went back to Saturn! When the Greek gods loom large again we, who actually had descended from them, would come into our own; and they that ruled us had kept us ignorant of this, just as they had kept us ignorant of other things concerning our family that we might justly be proud of. “

In Rome, Schadow was given one of his first major commissions when the Prussian Consul-General, General Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, befriended the young painter, and asked him and three young compatriots (Peter von Cornelius, Johann Friedrich Overbeck and Philipp Veit) to decorate in fresco a room in his house on the Pincian Hill. The overall theme selected was the story of Joseph and his brethren, and two scenes, the Bloody Coat and Joseph in Prison, were conferred on Schadow. In 1819, Schadow was appointed professor in the prestigious Berlin Academy of the Arts, and his ability and thorough training gained many devoted disciples.

Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow – Wikipedia

(14) Gun salutes planned across UK in tribute to Prince Philip @BBC News live BBC – YouTube

Prince Philip, Husband of Queen Elizabeth II, Is Dead at 99 – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

A Tuscan Childhood: Cipriani, Lisi Cecilia: 9781358949715: Amazon.com: Books

The Cry of Defeat… by Lisi Cecilia Cipriani – 9781277137293 – Dymocks

A Tuscan Childhood: Leaves in the Storm | TOTA

Nazarite or Nazarene? | Rosamond Press

Nazarene movement – Wikipedia

The epithet Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th-century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive spirituality in art. The name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of a biblical manner of clothing and hair style.

Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

“Leaves in the Storm” from A Tuscan Childhood by Lisi Cecilia Cipriani, 1907.

Victor Hugo, in writing of himself as a child, says:

When the north-wind strikes the throbbing waves
The convulsive ocean tosses at one time
The three-decked ship thundering with the storm
And the leaf escaped from the tree on the shore.

We, too, were leaves in the great storm, the storm of the religious and political up-heaval in Italy, for our life began but a short while after Italy had been made one, while the country was still suffering in the efforts to adjust the old with the new.

The religious phase of our life was most affected by this unsettled condition of our environment. It is here that the direct influence of historical events shows most clearly. A brief account of our family history is necessary for a full understanding of the situation and certain incidents that I am going to relate. This history is not without poetical interest. I may add. however, that whatever is known to me on the subject I have found out for myself. The reserve about anything that would have led us to be proud of our race and our position was almost ostentatious.

The famous chronicles of Malaspini mentions the Cipriani among the sixteen families who founded Florence. Five of these families, including our own. were all agnates, and descended from Galigaio, a Roman patrician, who the chronicles tell us, was a companion-in-arms of Julius Cesar, and assisted him in the Siege of Fiesole.

The names of these five branches lend some probability to this Roman origin, though we, of course, know that during the Middle Ages the nobility of central Italy took pride in descending from the Romans, whereas the nobles of northern Italy preferred to trace their descent back to the twelve peers of Charlemagne. We found out this presumed Roman origin by ourselves, and the fact that it was almost forbidden knowledge made us particularly delight in our discovery.

Malaspini mentions our family sometimes as Cipriani, and sometimes as Delia Pressa, a name which, by the way, is also given us in the modern Annuary. The Cipriani were staunch Ghibellines and good fighters. Dante, under the name of Delia Pressa, in the Sixteenth Canto of the Paradiso, mentions us where he says: “The Delia Pressa already knew how it behooves to rule and in Galigaio’s house the hilt and the pommel were already gilt.” This passage, because it was in Dante, we, of course, knew.

When the Ghibellines were defeated by the Guelphs, the Cipriani were among those who preferred exile to humiliation. They would neither renounce their prerogatives and enroll in a Guild, nor change their name.

Thirteen Cipriani, history tells us, were captured by the Guelphs and condemned to death. Twelve of these escaped, and only one, Capaccio, remained in their hands. Perhaps the name (Capaccio means bad head) was fatal. He was beheaded on the Canto di Capaccio, that to this day bears his name, and is opposite the beautiful balcony of Palazzo dell Arte della Seta, designed by Vasari.

Then my grim Ghibelline fathers went into exile. One branch settled in France, but died out. The other settled on the Northern promontory of Corsica, Capo Corso, where our branch of the family remained till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when my grandfather, Matteo Cipriani, came back to Italy. It was he who bought the villa at Leghorn, where we spent the happiest days of our childhood.

To this Corsican influence I trace certain pronounced family characteristics, principally tenacity and endurance. The environment under which our race developed during these centuries was, I think, a distinctly desirable one. We never be-came court nobility, and we were thus saved from the excesses to which the European nobles gave themselves up from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. Moreover, it endowed us with exceptionally good physical constitutions, for the development of the body was in every way favored by the rough out-of-door Corsican life.

The life we led during all these years in Corsica was no doubt primitive compared to the luxury that reigned at the French and Italian courts, and we remained very-near the Middle Ages. I can almost say that in our family we skipped the Renaissance.

When my grandfather returned to Italy the family, in spite of its long absence from Florence, resumed its place at once among the Florentine patricians. Moreover, the marriages contracted by my aunts, and the daughters of another Cipriani, who had returned to Italy at the same time my grandfather did, connected us by close family ties with Italians of our own rank. I do not think that my father ever realized that his family had just returned to Italy after an absence not of years, but of centuries. We children, of course, never felt this at all, though we were very proud of our Corsican connections.Communal fight in Bologna (Sercambi).

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

My Ghibelline fathers went into voluntary exile. When they came back the struggle of the country against the church and the rulers the Roman Church supported, had not ended. It is true that the Guelph and Ghibelline parties had long disappeared. It is true that no German emperor was upheld against the head of the church. But the ideal of Dante, of an Italian strong and free, untrammeled by the selfish bonds of the church and petty rulers, had lived on.

It seems only poetic justice that when, after their long exile, these Ghibellines returned to the cradle of their race, they should successfully finish the task their fathers had begun. My uncles and my father all fought bravely and unselfishly for the freedom of Italy, and their party finally conquered. Italy became one. And the man who, as governor, first ruled the provinces wrenched from the Pope, the very provinces that a thousand years ago Pepin had granted, thus establishing the temporal power of the church—the man was my uncle.

Am I not justified in seeing a grim poetry in this? The Guelphs conquered us; they pulled down our palaces, and leveled them to the ground, strewing salt over them; they drove us into exile, so that even women and children faced every hardship; and at last, after hundreds of years had passed, we came back and in turn conquered our conquerors.

In 1859 my uncle was Governor of the Romagne. It was then, I think, that he and my father seceded from the Roman Catholic Church. In my father’s case this was much more marked, because he married a Protestant, and decided to have his children brought up in their mother’s faith, though curiously enough we were all christened in the Catholic Church. Personally I have always regretted this secession, for I think that we would have been much happier if we had grown up in the same religion as our friends and relatives.

The religious question was, therefore, a burning one in my childhood. Relatives, friends, servants, all were Catholics. My mother was a Protestant, it is true, but with her exception we met few Protestants, except the governesses and the tutors, and I confess that I antagonistically associated Protestantism with them.

Our religious training was a curious one. They did not try to teach us what to believe, but rather instructed us carefully as to what we ought not to believe. We were told not to believe in saints, miracles, and relics. We were told that Catholicism stands for ignorance. This last statement, however, soon aroused grave doubts in my mind, since many of the persons I esteemed and admired most were Catholics. We were told that it was absurd for a priest to give absolution; that confession was an evil thing. And we listened in silence.

I was the skeptic of the family. After having been told how many things I was not to believe, I learned to be ready to disbelieve any one and anything, even what my mother told me; not that I thought she lied, but I simply took it for granted that she considered it best to tell us just that, and I did not dispute her right to do so.

I remember distinctly that one morning, when I was barely five years old, my mother sent for Ritchie and me. After having had our faces well scrubbed and clean pinafores put on, we were taken to her morning-room. Then she formally began our religious instruction. Up to this time I had only been made to learn the Lord’s Prayer in English; and I rattled it off with very little concern as to what it meant. This morning my mother told us that there was a God. She also told us that this God was perfect, all-powerful, and everywhere at once. This last seemed incredible to me, and so she explained that he was everywhere, and could see everything. No matter where a thing happened he knew about it. This information she considered enough for the first lesson, and we were sent back to the nursery.

It happened that this very day I saw Ritchie throw a little embroidered waist on the top of the mosquito-netting that hung around our little beds, and when the nurses were looking for the jacket and Ritchie vouchsafed no information, having perhaps forgotten what he had done, I thought the time had come for a conclusive experiment. I thought I had my chance to prove whether this Protestant God they told me about was any better than the scorned saints painted on the walls.

I spoke no word while the nurses were hunting. I did not cry out, as I should have at any other time, “Ritchie hid it.” No, indeed; I waited for the good Lord to tell. At night on drawing out the mosquito-netting the little jacket was found. Then I informed the nurses I knew it was there. This led to the belief that I had hidden it there myself. I occasionally did hide things, and their suspicion was not altogether unjustified. But this time I declared that I had not put it there; Ritchie had done so, and it was unfair to punish me. They took me to my mother to be punished, for she inflicted all punishments herself, and there I burst into tears, and tried in vain to explain that I thought God, who saw everything, and could do anything he wanted, should have told the nurses himself.

My mother and the nurses did not understand the situation at all. I was severely punished, and left to my thoughts. As I have mentioned already, it was my habit to boil inside, so after having wiped my eyes, I took my punishment bravely, but I remained a skeptic in the bottom of my heart.

This skepticism was all the more profound as I never expressed it, and it remained unsuspected and uncorrected. In a thoroughly skeptical spirit did I begin the regular study of Bible history when I was not yet eight years old. But there were complications.

I had a governess then, the only one among many of whom I have an absolutely pleasant recollection, Fraeulein Anna, a charming girl of about twenty, who must have been an exceptionally good teacher. But—fate willed it—she was the daughter of a well-known German socialist, who was an atheist. Though I heard the details about her life and her family only much later, when I was almost grown up, yet even at the time I knew that her father was something terrible, a socialist who did not believe in God, and that she had been baptized with champagne. This did not shock me. Indeed, I connected it in my mind with the launching of a ship, a frequent festive event in the ship-yards at Leghorn, and I liked her all the better for not having been baptized with plain water like other common mortals.

Again you might say, “How could your mother, if she wished you to have any religion at all, trust you to the daughter of an atheist?” And I can answer, to begin with my mother’s religion was a passive one. She did not want us to be Catholics, but her real interest in religious questions seemed to end there. Besides, Fraeulein Anna did not profess atheism herself, and she had been put in our house by the German Protestant clergyman at Leghorn. He was a fine old man and my mother had great confidence in him.

Fraeulein Anna was perhaps the only governess who did not attack Catholicism, but she did not go beyond this. She carefully made me learn the Bible history. She made sure that I knew the names of the patriarchs and their sons, and that I did not confuse the deluge with the Tower of Babel. She was, in fact, the first one who taught me how to study, something for which I am grateful to this day. If I asked any questions, she answered the practical ones, and dismissed any that would have led to a theological discussion. With prompt kindness she would get a map, and, at my desire, show me the exact position of the Red Sea, but she had nothing to say when I wanted to know why Eve should be punished for eating the apple before she had been taught to distinguish between right and wrong—a simple question, one which has puzzled many besides myself.

Some points troubled me much. How could God make the world out of nothing? If he had even had a little grain of dust, he might have made it grow, but to make something out of nothing, and be everywhere at the same time; these were things I could not understand. With Eve I deeply sympathized. I reasoned that it was not fair play. If she knew what was right and what was wrong, she might be punished, but before she really knew that a thing was wrong, she did not deserve to be punished. This, of course, was in accordance with our own nursery rules, for if we did anything we had been forbidden to do, the punishment was severe, but a first offense, when we could honestly say we did not know it was wrong, was always at least half- forgiven.

If I dwell upon these details, it is not because I consider myself particularly interesting as an individual, but because I am convinced that my experience is that of many children who grow up in a religion different from that of the people around them, especially if, for any reason, their religious interest is keen. Mine was great, and continued intense for many years. I do not think that my brothers and sisters troubled about religious questions the way I did. They all, I think, found it easier to obey in the spirit and in the word. They were told that it was best for them not to be Catholics, and to be Protestants, and that sufficed.

Three years passed after Fraeulein Anna first taught me Bible history. The governess whom I have already mentioned with particular dislike was with us then. As I have explained, she was always arbitrary and often unreasonable. Moreover, she lacked even elementary tact. I did not respect her. Her attitude toward religious questions was such that in telling about them now I must expect to be accused of exaggeration.

She encouraged my brother Alick to make fun of the priests. This was and is only too common in Italy among a certain set of people, and particularly among the men of the lower classes. To Fraeulein it may have seemed funny and new, but I thought then, and I think now, that it was absolutely inexcusable.Pisa. Il duomo.

Courtesy of Library of Congress. Public Domain.

She used to like to go to the Duomo at Pisa to listen to the beautiful music at vesper services. We children were not particularly musical, and in order to keep us from being bored, she had taught us to nickname the canons as they sat in their seats in the altar circle. This, it seems to me, was all the worse, because we as Protestants should have been taught to respect the ministers of another religion. And, besides, merely the respect due old age made it wrong for us to nickname them according to their resemblance to a horse, or a dog, or a rabbit, or a fox, etc.

So well trained were we not to complain of our governesses, that my mother did not know of this till years later.

It was with this governess, Fraeulein Helene, that the climax for me came, and that I cast off both Catholicism and Protestantism, turning to the older faith that the Christians had crushed. One day I found an old piece of newspaper that contained the following item:—”Last night, under the influence of Bacchus, some soldiers changed a temple of Venus into a temple of Mars. The police promptly interfered.”

When a young reporter expressed in this flowery way the drunken brawl of some soldiers, he surely had no conception of how it would for years affect the inner life of a little Florentine patrician.

Greek mythology was perfectly familiar to us. In fact, playing the gods was one of our common games. We all had been given a name of some Greek god or goddess. An older boy, who occasionally used to play with us, was Jove; my sister Totty was Minerva; Ritchie was Mercury, because he was constantly sent on errands; and I, to my bitter sorrow, was Proserpina. I protested with tears against this, because they had called a boy whom I detested Pluto, and even in a game I did not want to be considered his wife. But, as I have already remarked, childhood is cruel. “The children,” being the oldest, had taken upon themselves the right of distributing the parts, and did not care whether they spoiled my pleasure or not. When I appealed to my mother, her decision was: “Why, your not liking your husband makes your part all the more natural.” And so I had to keep my name.

Of course, we had been told that the Greek gods were no longer worshiped; yet the statement in print was absolute. I knew the words by heart—”Under the influence of Bacchus, some soldiers changed a temple of Venus into a temple of Mars.” The police had interfered because—because, no doubt, the police did not wish the soldiers to worship the Greek gods any more than our governesses wished us to pray to the saints. The thing was perfectly clear to me. I realized that once again knowledge had been withheld from us. The Greek gods still had their worshipers.

As I thought the matter over my eagerness to have the worship of the Greek gods openly established and not interfered with by the police grew greater and greater.

I longed for the time when I should be grown up, and could bring about the open worship of the Olympians.

For a long time my interest in this was keen, but as I never spoke about it to any one, finally I almost forgot the whole story. It only came back to me when many, many years after I came across the same trite expression in referring to some drunken soldiers’ brawl.

But I have not waited for the gods in vain. They have come to me in all their classical splendor, though not as I had looked forward to them as a child. In art and literature I have finally come to my own. They have opened a glorious new world to me, where I can find refuge whenever the modern, Protestant world seems too cold, too barren, too hard.

Cipriani, Lisi Cecilia. A Tuscan Childhood, The Century Co., 1907.

The Royal Crockett Gallery

Posted on February 21, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press

Capturing Beauty

John Presco

They say the best way to describe a dysfunctional family, is to describe a functional one. There are several books and movies scripts about my late sister, Christine Rosamond Benton, but, they are dwelling in the problem – to say the least.

405 Rolph Ave, Crockett, CA 94525 | MLS #40937458 | Zillow

Yesterday I saw the solution on Zillow. I wanted to be an architect when I was twelve, and am one as a hobby. I search for homes that appeal to me, and get to tour the inside. After Mary Ann Tharaldsen and I got married, we looked at the old bakery in Crockett that was up for sale. We were thinking of remodeling it and founding a art association with gallery and living places for artists. This structure is perfect for a gallery, and the home of Royal Rosamond Press. Since I was a young child I was told my father’s father lived in a tarpaper shack under the Carquiniz bridge. Does this dead end road lead to the encampment where hobos, gamblers, and Bohemians dwelt, for free!

In the last two days I bought $300 dollars worth of art supplies – that were half off. I have been working on my proposals for several grants. I have some great ideas that I will be sending out.

Belmont Legacy of Carl Janke

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Royal Rosamond Press

Months after my sister’s death I went to the Sacramento Library and looked at microfish about a legal battle between the heirs of Carl Janke’s estate in Belmont that appeared in the San Francisco Call. I lost the copy I made of that article that I am certain mentioned William O. Stuttmeister, and the sisters of Augusta Stuttmeister-Janke. Carl’s sons did not want Minni and Cornillia, to have anything, and one brother (or cousin) took their side, and was cut out. This has to be William, or W. JANKE.

“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.”

When Victor Presco turned twenty-one, the the Janke spinsters offered him a moving company in San Francesco. Apparently they saw him as the heir to the Stuttmiester legacy, and the Hope of a return to former glory because they had no children. How about their brother, William? Rosemary said this; “Your father was a made man.”

Two days ago, in an e-mail, my cousin Daryl Bulkley confirmed my suspicions that ‘Stuttmeister’ was not the original name of the folks from Berlin. I suspect they were a branch of the Glucksburg family who became Calvinist Evangelicals, and perhaps Rosicrucians. In the top photo we see Minni and Corniallia Janke in the family vault that William Stuttmeister purchased for $10,000 dollars to put the reains of the Jankes and Stuttmeisters in after they were evicted from the Oddfellow cemetery. That William Ralston was a Oddfellow that put up a large sum of money to establish the Oddfellows in Germany – and perhaps elsewhere – makes me wonder about his alleged suicide by plunging into the bay. I am reading articles on the internet about the Oddfellows being the founders of the Welfare State in America, where being charitable to the poor, the infirmed, and the widows, was paramount. They also paid much attention to burying their dead, which suggests they believed in a different hereafter. As a theologian I have pointed out the strange raising of the dead in Matthew 27:53 at the very moment of Jesus’ alleged death.

Daryl pointed out in her research that we knew next to nothing about the Stuttmeisters, whose tomb was lost until seven years ago, tells me William Stuttmeister retired to the Geronimo Valley a disillusioned man, who played a rare violin, and left his Stuttmeister-Janke legacy to his housekeeper. And then he is dead, his remains put in the vault that I went to visit with my daughter and grandson. Before I left for California I told my friend Joy Gall, that I wanted a AA coin to put in this tomb in honor of Christine Rosamond Benton whose funeral fell on he first sober birthday in AA. As I lined up to view my sister in her casket, I did consider the Nazarite Vow I took in 1989. As fate would have it, I ended up putting this coin in William Oltman Stuttmeisters crypt because there was an opening made by the earthquake of 1989.

On this coin is an Angel. In 1992 I began a biography of my family called ‘Bonds With Angels’. It begins with an account of the Blue Angel that appear at the foot of Christine’s bed that woke her and Vicki, who crawled into Christine’s bed and beheld her. Vicki was six years of age, and is clean and sober this day. The Nazarite Vow bids one to not ingest alcohol, not get drunk, so that the Holy Spirit may speak through you, use you as a Horn of Power to broadcast the Word of God. When I entered the tomb of my ancestors and sat down on the marble bench, I noticed the letter A made of brass lying behind the faux fern plant. I picked it up. It was the A in JANKE that had come lose in the earthquake. I looked up at the stained glass window and read; “In loving memory of my beloved wife, Augusta Stutteister,” Was Augusta the Angel that came to visit my sisters? May our bonds with Angels continue – forever more! Amen!

Jon Presco

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,
1842, 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.

http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/daughters-of-the-americanrevolution- california-s/records-from-tombstones-in-laurel-hill-cemetery- 1853-1927-gua/page-6-records-from-tombstones-in-laurel-hillcemetery- 1853-1927-gua.shtml Copyright 2011

Janke Park, Hall, And Stagecoach Line

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Royal Rosamond Press

Very few families can say their kindred owned a Stagecoach Line, Theme Park, and a Turnverein Hall, or two. Carl Janke was half owner of the Belmont Accommodation Company that ran between Belmont ‘Beautiful Mountain’, and Halfmoon Bay. Mrs. Walter E. Janke was the President of the Cap and Bells Club that employed the cap of the Jester in its emblem. Consider the Merry Pranksters. Musicals, plays, and “Jinks” were performed. Consider the Hi-jinks of the all male Bohemian Club. Is this a feminists answer? It appears the Cap and Bells founded an art gallery. Was this the formation of the Outdoor Art League?

The Bohemian Club of Crockett

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Royal Rosamond Press

I am a Journalist. I own my own newspaper that is registered in Lane County. The Bohemian Club of San Francisco was founded by Journalists who soon admitted Artists. I am also an Artist and Poet. I am not famous. To be famous, or, become famous, defeats the idea of being a Bohemian – a True Bohemian! For this reason, on this day, May 24, 2016, I found the Bohemian Club of Crockett California, the BCCC. Soon I will make available Certificates of Bohemian Authenticity, and present them to those who pass the test. This will include a portrait and brief biography.

It is my intent to move to Crockett and set up Royal Rosamond Press in a Gallery and History Room. In 1980, Mary Ann Tharaldsen, the sister-in-law of Christine Rosamond Benton, and I, looked at the old Crockett Bakery as the potential site for an Art Gallery with studio space for artists. I predicted this city would become the new Bohemian Colony. Hence, it has become an Art Colony. I will be the Curator of this Gallery-Museum, and Caretaker of my creative family history, as well as the history of Crockett. I will stroll about my Art Colony as Captain Gregory. Gregory is my full middle name. I will get the latest scoop. I will be the premiere Crockett character. I will make a Virtual Crockett and promote this town and my newspaper. My biography is now on hold. Our Bohemian Tales are too big to be confined to a book.

Here is a photograph of the house my father’s father, Hugo Victor Presco, was living in when my father, Victor William Presco, was born. For awhile, my grandfather lived in San Francisco and was a business partner of his brother, Oscar. They remodeled houses and built cabinets. Hugo is listed as a house painter on Vic’s birth certificate. Rosemary told me, after the brothers went their own way, Hugo ended up living in a tar paper shack under the Carquiniz Bridge in Crockett, where Hugo made a living gambling. I had a talk with the old curator of the Crockett Museum who knew my grandfather. He told me he was one hell of a nice guy. Rosemary said 5,000 people came to his funeral, including the Mayor of San Francisco. The curator told me there were scores of gambling joints and whore houses. This is the City of the Golden Setting Sun. Hugo also gambled in the Barbary Coast in San Francisco.

When Vic was delivering produce to Crockett one day, he took his two sons down to the wharf to meet his father who lived in a houseboat. When Hugo answered the door, in a gruff voice my father introduced his sons to the man who had abandoned him, and walked away, we never to see this man again.

Rosemary told me Vic took the money Hugo’s friends had given him to buy a headstone and got drunk. What he did with the body, is a mystery. I would not put it past my father to have weighted his father down with rusty chains and dumped him in the bay. Captain Vic never paid a Vet bill if he could help it.

Victor’s father, Wensel Anton Prescowitz, came from Bohemia Germany. My father’s lineage is true Bohemian that took root in the city by the bay that would become world famous for its Bohemian flavor. The name Victor Hugo suggests Wensel was an intellectual. His history blends with that of Jessie Benton, Bret Harte, Jack London, George Sterling, and Joaquin Miller who established Oakland, Carmel, San Francisco, as Bohemian Meccas. Add Crockett to this list.

Captain Gregory

President: Royal Rosamond Press

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Bohemia

http://www.apartments.com/1471-15th-st-san-francisco-ca/yfe5rqs/

Wensel Braskewitz

Born in Bohemia on 1851. Wensel married Christine Marie Roth and had 3 children. He passed away on 1921.

Children

Christine Marie Roth1861-1937

Wensel Braskewitz

Born in Bohemia on 1851. Wensel married Christine Marie Roth and had 3 children. He passed away on 1921.

Gregory Roth

Born on 1824. Gregory married Kristine Krause and had a child. He passed away on 1894.

http://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/christine-marie-roth_127637820

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Club

The Bohemian Club was originally formed in April 1872 by and for journalists who wished to promote a fraternal connection among men who enjoyed the arts. Michael Henry de Young, proprietor of the San Francisco Chronicle, provided this description of its formation in a 1915 interview:

The Bohemian Club was organized in the Chronicle office by Tommy Newcombe, Sutherland, Dan O’Connell, Harry Dam and others who were members of the staff. The boys wanted a place where they could get together after work, and they took a room on Sacramento street below Kearny. That was the start of the Bohemian Club, and it was not an unmixed blessing for the Chronicle because the boys would go there sometimes when they should have reported at the office. Very often when Dan O’Connell sat down to a good dinner there he would forget that he had a pocketful of notes for an important story.[6]

Journalists were to be regular members; artists and musicians were to be honorary members.[7] The group quickly relaxed its rules for membership to permit some people to join who had little artistic talent, but enjoyed the arts and had greater financial resources. Eventually, the original “bohemian” members were in the minority and the wealthy and powerful controlled the club.[8][9] Club members who were established and successful, respectable family men, defined for themselves their own form of bohemianism which included men who were bons vivants, sometime outdoorsmen, and appreciators of the arts.[5] Club member and poet George Sterlingresponded to this redefinition:

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Life-in-the-slow-lane-In-I-80-s-shadow-2786413.php

Small and seemingly timeless, Crockett has a thriving artist community, is rich in early California history, and is surrounded by thousands of acres of scenic parkland. Yet, it has managed to remain a secret in the bustling Bay Area.

According to Rita Szeto, who recently moved to Crockett, the town’s 3,100 residents move at their own pace, and nobody is in such a hurry they can’t stop and chat for a little while.

“Even the pumps at the local gas station are the slowest ever,” she said. “One day, I asked the attendant why, and she just shrugged and said, ‘This is Crockett.’ “

“It’s very picturesque here, but more importantly it’s affordable, and that’s always important to artists,” she said.

Over the years, the presence of artists has resulted in a number of galleries, photography studios and woodworking shops concentrated on Pomona Street, the town’s main drag.

A good place to begin a gallery-and-shop tour is the three-story Epperson Building, a former car dealership that now houses the Epperson Gallery, a gift shop and showcase for regional painters, sculptors and potters. The Nash Gallery specializes in custom framing and the Peel Edgerton Gallery features fine sliver jewelry and American Indian art.

Farther down the street is the 1314 = 9 photography studio that specializes is photos of Crockett, and next door is solYluna, a gift shop that features authentic folk art from Mexico and South America.

The Valona Market and Deli, besides serving a good breakfast and excellent sandwiches, acts as an unofficial community center and performance space. Every Sunday evening, the deli transforms into a jazz club and patrons nosh on sandwiches and sip wine while listening to local musicians.

Springfield Augurs Ken Kesey

Victor Hugo – Last Bohemian

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Royal Rosamond Press

Raymond Chandler wrote about the people my grandfather hung around with, and did business with. The fact my mother made porno movies and was a prostitute for Big Bones Remmer, put’s me in the Black Mask revival, and put’s my fictional character, Smoky, on the Bohemian Gangster map.

John Presco

Elmer ‘Big Bones’ Remmer

https://www.cocohistory.org/essays-ccnavy.html

“Big Bones” of Scowtown

The Petticoat Navy of Contra Costa County

By William Mero

During the early 20th century, Martinez gained a colorful reputation for its unique fleet of floating brothels anchored in the middle of the river. Some of the most famous “boats of ill repute” were Wanda’s Scow, Margaret’s Scow and “Old Lady” Miller’s Scow. Police raids were regularly made but timely warnings always allowed their clients to be absent. Fines for running houses of prostitution provided significant revenue to the county for many years and became a practical method of taxing the profits of these illegal enterprises. Rumors suggest that some of the best customers of these watery “entertainment” boats were the local politicians, lawyers and judges. Their patronage may have provided protection for the illegal operations. Drinks were also sold allowing clients to socialize with the soiled Martinez mermaids before and after services rendered. According to court records, Margaret Bantz and Millie Landt were some of the most notorious water loving madams on the river.

During the 1920’s the floating pleasure palaces found that local objections and difficulty with access forced their closing. Among the ordinary citizens of Martinez the biggest complaint to the local police was the frequent ringing of various ship bells on the shore announcing that a client wished to be ferried out to a particular barge for an evening’s entertainment. It was one of the first recorded instance of a county noise pollution problem.

Open prostitution had been an accepted fact of life during the settling of Contra Costa County. Many county brothels masqueraded as “boarding houses” whose guests were exclusively young women. Many had interesting names. One famous house in western Contra Costa was called The Artists’ Tea Room. Of course, a request for tea would have been greeted with astonishment.

Women were always in short supply in this thinly settled, largely rural county. The early vaqueros, sheep headers and field hands led lonely lives without much opportunity to meet available women or, even more importantly, the financial ability to marry. Consequently brothels were widely tolerated or viewed as a necessary evil. In fact, it wasn’t until the early 1900’s in California that the ratio of women to men became nearly equal. Women were initially so scarce that during the 1850’s in San Francisco several madams were accepted as valued members of normal society. They often made large contributions to local charities out of their profits of sin. Mammy Pleasant, a famous Black madam, was a major donor to early African-American civil rights groups.

Romanticizing the brothels of the pioneer west can easily be carried too far. While providing a service valued by at least the male portion of the population, they also had a serious downside. Disease and violent crime were not uncommon where prostitution flourished. In the Chinese community many young Asian girls were sold by their families into prostitution and shipped off to the cribs of San Francisco. Many prostitutes used alcohol and drugs to excess. That combined with disease, often made for short, tragic lives. Some women did marry and leave the sporting life but this was comparatively rare.

Eventually Contra Costa outgrew its pioneer past and traditions. By 1952 the public tolerance of openly functioning brothels in Contra Costa County had worn thin. Under the urging of Attorney General Earl Warren, the remaining historic brothels were finally closed. One of the most famous houses shuttered at that time was located near Crockett under the Carquinez Bridge close to the old railroad tracks. The site was notorious for a establishment called the Golden Horseshoe, famous for its spicy selection of a dozen accommodating women who for many years entertained the local factory workers and longshoremen.

Court records and Sheriff Veale’s personal papers preserved in the Contra Costa County History Center offer unique insights into this colorful facet of Contra Costa’s social history.

Rosamond Press

https://cocohistory.org/essays-ccnavy.html

My Historic Grandfather

Victor Hugo Presco

John Presco

After writing and posting about the Dashiell Hammett archive, and reading how this great writer’s grandchildren looked foreword to the paltry check Lillian Hellman sent them on Christmas, I went in search of more information on my grandfather, Victor Hugo Presco, the Bohemian Gambler. I wanted to find what was Authentic. There is too much Fool’s Gold in the Nation. We are on the verge of another Civil War over who has the right stuff, and who does not. I wanted to own something that was free and clear of the grabby hands of the Claim Jumpers. I struck pay dirt! I found this essay by Bill Mero that records the floating Houses of Ill Repute that bobbed in the water near Martinez and Crocket, where I saw my father’s father, just once.

Sterling became a significant figure in Bohemian literary circles in northern California in the first quarter of the 20th century, and in the development of the artists’ colony in Carmel. He was mentored by a much older Ambrose Bierce, and became close friends with Jack London and Clark Ashton Smith, and later mentor to Robinson Jeffers. He is depicted twice in Jack London’s novels: as Russ Brissenden in the autobiographical Martin Eden (1909) and as Mark Hall in The Valley of the Moon(1913). His association with Charles Rollo Peters may have led to his move to Carmel. The hamlet had been discovered by Charles Warren Stoddard and others, but Sterling made it world famous. His aunt Missus Havens purchased a home for him in Carmel Pines where he lived for six years.

California Views Historical Photo Archives

Sterling, posing with caricatures of himself at the Bohemian Grove, 1907

The California Barrel Company of San Francisco

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Royal Rosamond Press

Bohemian Club Members of the Bohemian Club, including California Gov. Ronald Reagan (centre left) and U.S. Vice Pres. Richard Nixon (centre right), at Bohemian Grove, California, 1967.The California Barrell Company

The California Barrel Company

John Presco: President of Royal Rosamond Press

An idea for a book, movie, and cable series.

William Broderick supervised the loading of two hundred barrels onto the freight car in Dogpatch, and now accompanied them on the barge to the dock in Oakland. He could just make out Joaquin Miller’s white home in the hills that sat as a Bohemian Beacon above the Stuttemeister orchard. Bill had picked a fight with the old curmudgeon and fraud about having his brigades of artistic circus clowns marching up and down the road they shared that was in theory, the Stuttmeister Road, that was later changed to Berlin Way. Now there were Japanese poets coming and going, and this made Bill’s German kindred, nervous. After the great earthquake, the Suttmiesters found sanctuary in Oakland, along with a couple of hundred well to do German Pioneers that had gone to the San Francisco Opera to hear Caruso sing.

When Miller took a keen interest in his daughter, Melba Broderick, who he carried on his knee when they took the trolley Frisco, Bill bought a new Victorian home on 13th. Street in Oakland. To his chagrin, Melba found out Gertrude Stein lived down the street and had known her idol, Isadora Duncan. At ten, Melba was found having tea and scones with literary greats, she helping Gertrude conduct her salon just before it moved to Paris. She was paid to do the dishes. There was no escaping the influence of Joaquin, who Bill had run into at the Bohemian Club, and, had to indure his non-stop bragging about the royalty he met when he went to Europe, and the Pre-Raphaelite artists he had dinner with at Gabriel Rossettis.

Bill celebrated Miller’s death in his own way. When he heard Bohemian Club members had built a funeral pyre and were going to burn the bloated braggard, he notified the authorities. Broderick had complained about the outdoor Japanese barbeques that filled the air with the stench of all kinds of meat, that wafted downhill under certain conditions, and wiped out the beautiful smell of cherry blossoms on the ranch When the cherries were ripe, they were sold for a pretty penny in Jingle Town, a cannery located on the Oakland Estuary where Jack London docked his oyster boat.

Frederick Jacob Koster had invited Bill Broderick to the Bohemian Grove Hijinks. It was while talking to a railroad magnet about how Prohibition was ruining many honest businessmen, that Bill came up with his brilliant plan to provide Bootleggers with barrels, and keep the profits of freightage rolling into the pocket of railroad owners.

“What if we put another product in our barrels that can be consumed. The Feds can not stop us. One is left with an empty barrel – to do with it you please. What if we shipped grapes? We can pack them in sawdust. We got plenty of that!”

“Sounds like a brilliant plan! I know an Italian who has planted a vineyard in Sonoma. Infact, there he is chatting with Frank Buck. You will want to talk to him, too. He’s becoming the biggest grower in California.”

Bill Broderick of Barrel and Box

Posted on February 26, 2019by Royal Rosamond Press

This morning I found an article about Bill Broderick and the California Barrel Company. What an historic account, that I have sent to the Mayor of San Francisco, and the Board of Supervisors. It’s all here, the elements that made San Francisco, and California – great!

William Frederick Broderick is trying to save a successful business, that due to prohibition, is on the ropes. My mother told me Bill traveled across America selling barrels. Bill has stopped in Chicago where Al Capone is making a fortune as a bootlegger, and arrives in Cleveland Ohio. Bill’s boss, Frederick Koster, must be furious to see organized crime families prospering, while he and his five hardworking bothers are desperate to keep their cooperage business afloat. Frederick is a member of the Bohemian Club, and the Law and Order Club. He may be one of the reasons the Mafia never got a foothold in the Bay Area. Frederick is ahead of his time in how he treated those who worked for him. They were like family. He shortened their work day, and paid good wages. Bill and Fred are promoting California Grapes. They made barrels for this billion dollar industry. They are Pioneers!

“One of the disciples of good barrel and service to meet the conditions of their customers, is William Broderick, sales manager of the California Barrel Company, San Francisco, Calif. Mr. Broderick attended the convention, stopping off at Chicago en route. Mr. Broderick is a natural born salesman, and certainly has the creative idea in salesmanship which is demonstrated by the fact not withstanding from the loss of business from wine and whiskey operations, the cooperage shops in the country and the manufactures supplying the same have kept busy even in maximum capacity during the past year and half, since prohibition arrived, which leads us all to do the same kind of constructive salesmanship. Malaga grapes have always been shipped in kegs and packed in ground cork, but in the last years, California has a become a great factor in furnishing the world with Malaga grapes packed in redwood sawdust. The California Barrel Company, as well as other cooperage institutions on the coast, are making kegs to deliver these grapes seasoned without moisture, to various markets of the world. Bill Broderick is one of the fellows who made this possible by demonstrating to our merchants the value of California grapes packed in the right way, in the right kind of packaging!”

Bravo!

I have put forth an idea for a Working Museum that preserves very valuable history, and creates jobs by giving new life to the ancient art of cooperage. I follow in my grandfather’s footsteps. It is my ambition to make the people of San Francisco – Big Winners!

John Presco

President: Royal Rosamond Press

Dear Mayor and Board;

My great grandfather, William F. Broderick, was a salesman and Director for the California Barrel Company that was located near the Portreo Power Plant that was just purchased for Redevelopment. The CBC got started by shipping Spreckels sugar. Claus Spreckels did business with president, Frederick Jacob Koster, and his four brothers. Their businesses were next to each other.

This morning I found an article about William who was interviewed by a reporter for . He speaks about shipping Malaga Grapes to cities across America – in barrels! Here is a merger with California grapes. Prohibition has just begun, and the cooperage industry is in crisis. Frederick Koster has gone abroad to map ut market in the Orient. Barrel and sailing ships go hand in hand. What I am proposing is a cooperage museum that would contribute to San Francisco’s tourist trade, and cooper college at the old site. There is a historic building and facade that could be used for this Trade College. The art of barrel making is coming back.

I have seen beautiful Japanese and Chinese packaging in museum. I saw wondrous labels on crates when I worked as lumper in the produce market in Jack London Square. Packaging is an art form, a craft that can give merchants new ideas.

To help fund this college a museum, I suggest quality prints be made of the amazing machinery invented to make barrels. I put a copyright in this book, but, your people may know how to do this. I have found no cooperage college in America. Meg Whitman purchased the PPP property and founded Qubi. She might want to imitate Alva Spreckels who was give the title ‘The Grandmother of San Francisco. The people around Meg have been selfish with information. Perhaps this is because I copyrighted the CBC name in 2011, and am the owner of californiabarrelcompany.co.

Associate Capital chose this name for a company that is floating around in Business Law World for reasons that are beyond my understanding. I have sent e-mails to several people offering my ideas. I got not response. The way I see it, the People of San Francisco deserve to see their history preserved, and, bring Civic Prosperity – now! Let’s build a dream – today!

https://www.potreropowerstation.com/about/

We Will Soar At Black Point

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Royal Rosamond Press

black-point_sf-peninsula_coast-survey_1869

Those with Free Spirits, who know how to be released, and soar, come to Black Point and Fort Mason. Here we will make a stand for Arts and Culture. Here the Nation of California will be born. The epicenter is here. We will put on a lightshow. They will see our light in the sky, and in the bay, playing with whales and dolphins. They will marvel.

Jessie Benton Fremont held a salon at Black Point. Mark Twain was a frequent guest. Rena gave me permission to install her in ‘The Muse Hall of Fame’. If not for the painting I did of Rena, Christine would never have married Garth Benton. I am the official Benton Historian. There is not other.

I just read Carrie Fisher predicted her own death, as did Mark Twain, and, allegedly my sister. Carrie was hired to do a screenplay about Christine. Debbie died the next day.

Join us!

Jon ‘Master of the Rose’

Blunt said, Fisher also had a scary premonition.

“She put a cardboard cutout of herself as Leia outside my room, with her date of birth and date of death on her forehead,” he told the Times. “I’m trying to remember what the date was, because it was around now — and I remember thinking it was too soon.”

JOELY: I’ve been having an out-of-body experience. The world lost Carrie and Debbie, of course, but– and– and Princess Leia and we lost our hero. We lost– our mirror.”

http://abc7chicago.com/entertainment/carrie-fishers-sisters-open-up-about-her-final-moments/1683949/

https://urbanlifesigns.blogspot.com/2013/01/forgotten-hills-fort-masons-black-point.html

http://www.militarymuseum.org/BlackPointBty.html

”

Our members are to hear much about this Cathedral of the Soul in the near future, and at present I wish merely to announce its name and present to you a brief picture of what it is. This cathedral is that great holy of holies and Cosmic sanctum maintained by the beams of thought waves of thousands of our most advanced members, who have been prepared and trained to direct these beams of thought at certain periods of the day and the week toward one central point, and there becomes a manifest power, a creative force, a health giving and peace giving nucleus far removed from the material trials and problems, limitations and destructive elements of the earth plane.

While men have been busy planning, building, and directing great spires and towers of earthly cathedrals that would reach high into the heavens and become the material abiding place for those in devotion and meditation, we have been creating this cathedral of prayer and illumination, Cosmic joy, and peace high above every material plane and ascent into the Cosmic itself.”

Mark Twain

Twain’s landing place was San Francisco. As Ben Tarnoff explains in his deftly written, wholly absorbing “The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature,” the city was an ideal crucible for an ambitious young writer on the make. It prospered during the Civil War and had a literate population that craved a new kind of writing. Important patrons such as Jessie Benton Fremont and Thomas Starr King nurtured the nascent talents of Charles Warren Stoddard, Ina Coolbrith, and most prominently Harte, a disciplined dandy and a brilliant mentor and editor who founded The Californian, a literary paper where Stoddard published his first poem and Twain refined his style in the fall of 1864.

http://galleryoftherepublic.com/index.php?id_product=29&controller=product

http://www.militarymuseum.org/BlackPointBty.html

Jesse Benton Fremont

by Susan Saperstein

She is thought to be the real author behind the successful writings of John C. Fremont (general, senator, presidential candidate, and the Pathfinder of the West) describing his explorations. Jesse Benton Fremont (1824– 1902), Fremont’s wife, was also the daughter of Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, a leading advocate of Manifest Destiny, a political movement pushing expansion to the West. And in her event-filled life, some of her happiest times were at her house in San Francisco’s Black Point area, now known as Fort Mason.

The Fremonts lived there between 1860 and 1861. The prop- erty included three sides of the point, and Jesse described it “like being on the bow of a ship.” They had a clear view of the Golden Gate, so named by John when he first viewed it in 1846. Alcatraz was so close that Jesse is said to have called the lighthouse on the island her nightlight.

The Spanish called the area Point San Jose and built a battery in 1797. However, cold winds and fog soon made the cannons useless. By the time the Mexicans were ruling in the 1820s, the area was known as Black Point for the dark vegetation on the land.

Their house was one of six on the point. Jesse remodeled the house and added roses, fuchsias, and walkways on the 13 acres. Their home became a salon for San Francisco intellectuals. Thomas Starr King, the newly appointed minister of the Unitarian church, was a fixture for dinner and tea. Young Bret Harte, whose writing Jesse admired, became a Sunday dinner regular, as did photographer Carleton Watkins. She invited literary celebrities when they came to townó including Herman Melville, who was trying to get over the failure of Moby Dick. Conversations in her salon led to early conservation efforts when Jesse and a group including Watkins, Starr King, Fredrick Law Olmsted, and Israel Ward Raymond lobbied Congress and President Lincoln to preserve Yosemite and Mariposa Big Trees. Jesse’s husband, however, often away on business ventures, was not a regular at her gatherings.

Jessie Benton Fremont at Blackpoint

Historical Essay

by Jo Medrano

Mrs. General Fremont on porch at Black Point, 1863.

Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library

Mrs.-General-Fremont-at-her-home-on-Black-Point-now-Fort-Mason,-about-1863.jpg

Mrs. General Fremont on her porch at Black Point, c. 1863.

Photo: Jesse Brown Cook collection, online archive of California

Black Point (now Fort Mason), 1870. Spring Valley Water Co. brought water through the flume that skirts the cliffs. Small farms run down to the shore. Alcatraz is in the distance.

Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA

John C. Fremont bought a farm for his wife Jessie on the north edge of San Francisco, on a small rocky peninsula then known as Blackpoint, about 1860. At the time of purchase, they were living in Bear Valley in the Sierras. In Bear Valley Jessie Fremont developed physical problems due to the intense heat. She wrote that a buried egg would cook in just a few minutes. One account states that it was 106 degrees at sunset–not an uncommon temperature that year. So we can probably imagine her delight when John C. came back from a business trip to San Francisco in 1861, and told her they were moving to the city. Blackpoint was a self-sustaining farm, and Jessie’s favorite home. She had relatives living with her, as well as visits from other relatives in addition to local and national celebrities.

Spring Valley Water Company flume is visible at right; Small farms on the hill above c. 1870

Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA

As a matter of fact, a influential San Franciscan, I.W. Raymond, visited the Fremonts in Bear Valley and traveled with them to see the place that wasn’t yet named Yosemite. He was a key person in the 1864 action of President Lincoln which made Yosemite a protected place.

Black Point is described in “Jesse Fremont: A woman who made history” as “a small headland jutting out into the channel entrance of the harbor, in fact directly opposite the Golden Gate, affording an unbroken view westward to the Pacific and eastward toward the mountains of Contra Costa.” Jessie said she “loved this sea home so much that I had joy even in the tolling of the fogbell”. It was here she planned and built her “sunset beach.”

The federal government took over Black Point soon after Jessie and John Fremont went back east to be involved in the civil war. John fought for compensation for the expropriated house and land until the day he died.

When Thomas Starr King first walked to the pulpit of the San Francisco Unitarian Church in 1860, the eyes of the congregation turned to this small, frail man. Many asked, “Could this youthful person with his beardless, boyish face be the celebrated preacher from Boston?”

King laughed. “Though I weigh only 120 pounds,” he said, “when I’m mad, I weigh a ton.”

That fiery passion would be King’s stock in trade during his years in California, from 1860 to 1864. Abraham Lincoln said he believed the Rev. Thomas Starr King was the person most responsible for keeping California in the Union during the early days of the Civil War.

King’s reputation as a noted orator had led the San Francisco congregation to ask him to come west, with little hope he would agree. During his 11 years as minister of Boston’s Hollis Street Unitarian Church, King increased the congregation to five times its original size and pulled the church out of bankruptcy. Ralph Waldo Emerson, noted essayist and poet, said after hearing one of King’s sermons, “That is preaching!” Churches in Chicago and Brooklyn sought King as their minister, but this popular Boston pastor rejected them. San Francisco, he decided, offered the greatest challenge.

George Sterling posed for an illustration by Adelaide Hanscom Leeson which appeared in a printing of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Kevin Starr (1973) wrote:“The uncrowned King of Bohemia (so his friends called him), Sterling had been at the center of every artistic circle in the San Francisco Bay Area. Celebrated as the embodiment of the local artistic scene, though forgotten today, Sterling had in his lifetime been linked with the immortals, his name carved on the walls of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition next to the great poets of the past.”The Carmel Bohemians
by Stephen LindsleyIt was mid-November, and after a week of perfect weather in Carmel the fog had rolled in to stay. Cold and moisture hung in the air, turning midday into a protracted dusk. Nora May French sat alone on the front porch of George Sterling’s bungalow, listening to the ocean. All she could see through the pine trees between the house and the beach was a few pearly sparkles of water, but the sound of the waves rolling onto the shore, now soft, now booming, was strong and constant.It had been a glorious summer in the little village of Carmel-by-the-Sea in the year of 1907. Yet, only the year before the great San Francisco earthquake had brought tragedy into the lives of thousands. George Sterling was the first poet laureate of San Francisco, a dominant literary figure whose close friend Jack London called him “the Greek.” Sterling was at the center of a small group of artists and writers who frequented the Bohemian Club and trendy cafés such as Coppa’s, exchanging ideas and planning periodic dramatic works and “High Jinks.”When the earthquake struck many of their favorite haunts crumbled and burned. Sterling and his wife had built a cottage in Carmel the year before. Now they were trying to convince friends to abandon the city and forge a rustic community among the cypress trees and eucalyptus groves. Nora May had been among those who accepted. She came not as a wife or a lover, but as a literary peer to these Homeric poets and artists, the last of the classical romantics.At night they gathered on the beach in small groups, roasting abalone and mussels over driftwood fires, drinking wine and singing songs. They could not help but be inspired by the pure spectacle of their surroundings – a place where the perfect commixture of elements reveals nature’s full dynamic grace. Grand romantic epic poems were dreamed in their entirety in those evenings on the beach, and other kinds of romance blossomed as well.The romantic life had been a blessing and a curse for Nora French. She was young and lovely, with a strong nose, piercing blue eyes and wispy blonde hair that seemed to glitter with moonlight, even in the daytime. She loved horses, walking on the beach and strolling the needle-strewn paths that threaded Carmel’s old pine forest. Her poetry reflected her coastal life, but also betrayed a melancholy that few recognized as portentous. She had followed her star where it would take her, and by the time she arrived in Carmel by way of San Francisco, Los Angeles and originally Albany, New York, she had already loved and lost more than once, and seen much that the world could offer. And now she was deeply in love once more, but she knew the man she loved thought of her only as a friend and nothing more. At the age of just 27 years she had the sense that her life was already behind her.She had carried the cyanide with her for some time. Sterling and several of his close friends all had identical vials they carried in little envelopes marked, “Peace.” It sharpened Nora’s senses to know that death was just an impulse away, though she had already seen death in many forms, from the devastation in San Francisco to the termination of her unborn child. In her life and in her writings she celebrated art, drama, literature, the beauty of the land and sea, the wonder of life and the mystery of death. Her poems had been published alongside those of the best of her age, and she had eaten, drunk and slept among many of them.But this afternoon she was wistful. The melancholy had seeped back into her mind, propelled by the fog that had shrouded the Carmel River valley. It left her strangely calm. She had done nothing half way. Her life had been lived to a romantic ideal that could not be matched with words on paper. And now, with love lost once more, Nora May had come to a moment of peace. She knew that at this moment, sitting alone on the edge of the continent in the most beautiful, magical spot imaginable, she was as happy as she was ever likely to be.Ten minutes later she was dead.When they gathered at Point Lobos to scatter her ashes into the sea, emotions ran high. This small group of men had lived their lives by the example of the gods of Olympus. Yet they seemed to have forgotten how much tragedy and destruction the Olympians wrought. They called her “sister,” but failed to treat her as one. Through their hubris and narcissism these men had calmly condemned this young beauty, and also themselves, to a terrible fate. The cries of the seagulls and the sound of waves crashing on rocks below swept past them as they faced the cold November wind. There were sharp words of contention, and a scuffle broke out among them. Nora May’s dust returned to the world in a moment of passion. Her influence remained strong, even then.Caroline Sterling endured her husband’s philandering for another 10 years, and then she left him for good. Soon after, she followed the tragic example of the woman she had most admired and reviled. She was the next one to open her envelope.Eventually George Sterling returned to San Francisco permanently, where the Bohemian Club became his only residence as the years wore on. He continued to publish his writings and the work of others, mostly without notice. By November 1926, when Sterling was to host a dinner at the club for noted author H.L. Mencken, the measured life of the businessman had long supplanted Sterling’s former bacchanalian ethos. In the process he had become marginalized, while more modern authors such as Mencken garnered the favorable reviews.The night of the party Mencken was late in arriving, so Sterling retreated upstairs to his rooms alone. He poured himself a glass of brandy and paced back and forth, thinking back on his career, the life he had led and the people he had known. In a crystalline vision he saw what lay before him – a slow descent into obscurity and death. His hand reached into his pocket to touch the small envelope, now worn with age. The word “Peace” was faded but still legible. Those best acquainted with him knew it was only a matter of the right moment for him to make use of it. They wondered why he had waited so long. His wife and former lovers were now a faded memory, and most of his closest friends had followed them beyond the pall. Ambrose Bierce had drifted alone into Mexico in 1913, perhaps to join the Zapata revolutionaries, but never to be seen or heard from again. Jack London had died a painful death a decade ago at the age of 40; the victim of a life lived in utter disregard for any of his body’s needs, save the most superficial and carnal ones. And Nora May French had shattered her own fragile beauty so many years before, while drawing a fey vapor down upon her entire generation as her light expired.At long last the moment was right. The time had come. Suddenly the brandy tasted sharply of almonds as Sterling sat back in his favorite chair.For a scant few days thereafter, George Sterling was once again foremost in the minds of the San Francisco literati. And as a result, perhaps for the last time, the name Nora May French was once again briefly upon the lips of those few who knew her and cared to remember.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_Benton_Fr%C3%A9mont

https://archive.org/details/reportofexplorin00fr

https://www.loc.gov/item/96688042

A report on an exploration of the country lying between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, on the line of the Kansas and Great Platte rivers [1842].- Catalogue of plants collected by Lieut. Fr{acute}emont in his expedition to the Rocky Mountains. By John Torrey.- A report of the exploring expedition to Oregon and north California, in the years 1843-’44.- App. A. Nature of the geological formations occupying the portion of Oregon and north California included in a geographical survey under the direction of Capt. Fr{acute}emont; by James Hall.- App. B. Descriptions of organic remains collected by Capt. J. C. Fr{acute}emont, in the geographical survey of Oregon and north California; by James Hall.- App. C. Description of some new genera and species of plants, collected in Capt. J. C. Fr{acute}emont’s exploring expeditions to Oregon and north California, in the years 1843-’44; by John Torrey and J. C. Fr{acute}emont.- Astronomical observations made during the expedition of 1843-’44.- Meteorological observations made during the expedition of 1843-’44. Astronomical observations made during the expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the year 1843.- Meteorological observations [1842]

John C. Frémont’s official report on the 1842 expedition he led to the Rocky Mountains reads like a great adventure story. Frémont’s father-in-law, Thomas Hart Benton, a powerful senator from Missouri and strong proponent of western expansion, was a major supporter of the expedition, whose purpose was to survey and map the Oregon Trail to the Rocky Mountains. The senator hoped it would encourage Americans to emigrate and develop commerce along the western trails.

The party that included some twenty Creole and Canadian voyageurs and the legendary Kit Carson, started out just west of the Missouri border, crossed the present-day states of Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming, and ascended what the men believed to be the highest peak in the Wind River region of the Rockies. Frémont’s report provided practical information about the geology, botany, and climate of the West that guided future emigrants along the Oregon Trail; it shattered the misconception of the West as the Great American Desert.

Upon his return home to Washington, DC, Frémont dictated much of the report to his wife, Jessie Benton Frémont, a gifted writer. “The horseback life, the sleep in the open air,” she later recalled, “had unfitted Mr. Frémont for the indoor work of writing,” and so she helped him. Distilled from Frémont’s notes and filtered through the artistic sensibilities of his wife, the report is a practical guide, infused with the romance of the western trail.

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=22

http://www.dsloan.com/ee/auction/25/item/gregg-commerce-1844

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sterling

http://caviews.com/Seacoast.html

The Seacoast of Bohemia, Carmel, California

In 1869, he became good friends with travel writer Theresa Yelverton.[5]

In 1873 he started on a long tour as special correspondent of the San Francisco Chronicle. His roving commission carried no restrictions of any kind. For five years he traveled through Europe and went as far east as Palestine and Egypt. He sent considerable material to his newspaper, much of which it never printed, though some of it was among his best work.

Around 1880, Stoddard served co-editor of the Overland Monthly with Bret Harte and Ina Coolbrith.

Stoddard was homosexual.[9] He praised the South Sea folks’ receptiveness to homosexual liaisons and lived in relationships with men.

From San Francisco, late in 1866, Stoddard sent his newly published Poems to Herman Melville, along with news that in Hawaii he had found no traces of Melville. Having written even more fervently to Walt Whitman, Stoddard had been excited by Typee, finding the Kory-Kory character so stimulating that he wrote a story celebrating the sort of male friendships to which Melville had more than once alluded. From the poems Stoddard sent, Melville may have sensed no homosexual undercurrent, and the extant draft of his reply in January 1867 is noncommittal.

http://www.stillness.com/nora.html

Cipriani and California In Sardinia

La California

Come to Sardinia

Come Home To Beautiful Mountain

Bennett Rosamond Grand Master of Orange Order

The Red Hand of Bond

Red Hand of Ulster

From the Daily Journal archives

Twin Pines Park’s shady past

Victoria’s Orange Parade

Return to the Getty Villa

Tourism in Sardinia

Sardinian Kingdom Founds SF Colony

Cipriani of Roman Times

The Royal Crockett Gallery

Belmont Legacy of Carl Janke

Janke Park, Hall, And Stagecoach Line

The Bohemian Club of Crockett

Wensel Braskewitz

Born in Bohemia on 1851. Wensel married Christine Marie Roth and had 3 children. He passed away on 1921.

Wensel Braskewitz

Born in Bohemia on 1851. Wensel married Christine Marie Roth and had 3 children. He passed away on 1921.

Gregory Roth

Victor Hugo – Last Bohemian

The California Barrel Company of San Francisco

Bill Broderick of Barrel and Box

We Will Soar At Black Point

Jesse Benton Fremont

by Susan Saperstein

Jessie Benton Fremont at Blackpoint

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Cipriani and California In Sardinia

Red Hand of Ulster

From the Daily Journal archives

Twin Pines Park’s shady past

Tourism in Sardinia

Wensel Braskewitz

Born in Bohemia on 1851. Wensel married Christine Marie Roth and had 3 children. He passed away on 1921.

Wensel Braskewitz

Born in Bohemia on 1851. Wensel married Christine Marie Roth and had 3 children. He passed away on 1921.

Gregory Roth

Jesse Benton Fremont

by Susan Saperstein

Jessie Benton Fremont at Blackpoint

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