VIEWS FROM THE BOAT ON THE BAY
Arrival at Oakland--"Ticket!"--On the Ferryboat--The City of "Live
Oaks"--Mr. Young, a Citizen of Oakland--Distinguished Members of
General Convention--Alameda--Berkeley and Its University--Picturesque
Scenery--Yerba Buena, Alcatraz and Angel Islands--San Francisco at
Last.
It was on the morning of Wednesday, October the second, 1901, when
I had my first view of that Queen City of the Pacific coast, San
Francisco. Our train, fully nine hours late, in our journey from Salt
Lake City, arrived at its destination on the great Oakland pier or
mole at 2:30 A.M. The understanding with the conductor the evening
before, as we were descending the Sierra Nevada Mountains, was that
we would not be disturbed until day break. When the end of our long
journey was reached I was oblivious to the world of matter in midnight
slumber; but as soon as the wheels of the sleeping coach had ceased to
revolve I was aroused with the cry, "Ticket!" First I thought I was
dreaming, as I had heard the phrase, "Show your tickets," so often;
but the light of "a lantern dimly burning" and a stalwart figure
standing before the curtains of my sleeping berth, soon convinced
me that I was in a world of reality. This, I may say, was my only
experience of the kind, in all my travelling over the Southern Pacific
Railway, the Sante Fé, and the Mexican International and Mexican
Central Railways. There was little sleep after the interruption; and
when the morning came with its interest and novelty I was ready to
proceed across the Bay of San Francisco. Our faithful porter, John
Williams, whose name is worthy of mention in these pages, as I stepped
from the Pullman car, said, "Good-bye, Colonel!" He always addressed
me as "Colonel." The porters on all the western roads and on the
Mexican railways are polite and obliging, and a word of commendation
must be said for them as a class.
The Rev. Dr. James W. Ashton, of Olean, N.Y., my fellow-traveller, and
I were soon in the ferry house. We ascended a wide staircase and then
found ourselves in a large waiting room, through whose windows I
looked out on the Bay of San Francisco for the first time. Off in the
distance, in the morning light, I could catch a glimpse of the Golden
City of the West. Near by was a departing ferryboat bound for San
Francisco. Just then a young man, evidently a stranger, accompanied by
a young woman, apparently a bride, accosted me and asked the question,
"Sir, do you think we can get on from up here?" Looking at the
bay-steamer fast receding, I assured him, somewhat pensively, that I
thought we could. In a few moments another steamer appeared in view
and speedily entered the dock. The gates of the ferry house were
opened and we went on board at once. Most of the passengers at this
early hour were those who had come across the Sierras, but there were
a few persons from Oakland going over to their places of business in
San Francisco. Oakland, so named from the abundance of its live-oaks,
has been styled the "Brooklyn" of San Francisco. It is largely a place
of residence for business men, and from fifteen to twenty thousand
cross the Bay daily in pursuit of their avocations. It is pleasantly
situated on the east side of the Bay, gradually rising up to the
terraced hills which skirt it on the east. The streets are regularly
laid out and lined with shade trees of tropical luxuriance as well as
the live-oaks. Pretty lawns, green and well kept, are in front of many
of the houses in the residence part of the city, and here the eye has
a continual feast in gazing on flowers in bloom, fuschias, verbenas,
geraniums and roses especially. At a later day I visited Oakland, and
found it just as beautiful and attractive as it looked in the distance
from the deck of the ferry boat. It has several banks, numerous
churches, five of our own faith, with some twelve hundred
communicants, also good schools, and some fine business blocks.
Trolley cars conduct you through its main streets in all directions.
Landing at the Oakland pier, one of the largest in the world, and
extending out into the Bay some two miles from the shore, the Southern
Pacific Railway will soon carry you to the station within the city
limits. As you wander hither and thither you see on all sides tokens
of prosperity. There is an air of refinement about the place, and you
find the atmosphere clear and stimulating. There is not a very marked
difference in the temperature of the climate between summer and
winter. Frosts are unknown. It is no disparagement to San Francisco
to say that Oakland for delicate persons is more desirable. The trade
winds as they blow from the Pacific ocean, and make one robust and
hardy in San Francisco, when there is vitality to resist them, are
tempered as they blow across the Bay some fourteen miles or more,
while the fogs, so noted, as they rush in through the Golden Gate and
speed onward, are greatly modified as they reach the further shore. As
it has such a splendid climate and natural advantages, and enjoys the
distinction of being at the terminus of the great overland railway
systems, it is constantly attracting to itself population and capital.
Ten years ago it had 48,682 inhabitants; to-day it numbers 66,960.
Its people are very hospitable and are glad to welcome the traveller
from the east to their comfortable homes. On the ferry boat I was
accosted by a ruddy-faced and genial gentleman, a Mr. Young, a
resident of Oakland, who was proceeding to his place of business in
San Francisco. He gave me some valuable information, and pointed out
objects and places of interest. He seemed to be well informed about
the General Convention appointed to meet on the day of my arrival, in
Trinity church, San Francisco. He spoke with intelligence about its
character and purpose, and with enthusiasm concerning its members whom
he had met as they were crossing the Bay. The names of Bishop Doane,
of Albany, Bishop Potter, of New York, and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan,
were as household words on his lips, and there was a gleam of delight
in his eye as he pictured to us the pleasures and surprises in store
for us during our sojourn in the Capital of the Golden West.
"That town," said he, "which you see to the south of Oakland, with
its long mole, is Alameda. It is a great place of resort, a kind of
pleasure grove. Alameda in the Spanish language means 'Poplar Avenue.'
Many people go there on excursions and picnic parties from San
Francisco, and other places along the Bay. It is, as you see, a very
pretty spot. In time it will become a part of Oakland. It has to-day
a population of over sixteen thousand people." When I asked him if it
had an Episcopal Church, he said, "Yes. Its name is Christ Church, and
there are in it four hundred communicants. Do you know its rector?
He is the Rev. Thomas James Lacey." Mr. Young, who was a native of
Massachusetts and just as proud of California as he was of his old
home in the east, turned with considerable elation to Berkeley,
the University town. "There," said he, "to the north of Oakland is
Berkeley, with a population of thirteen thousand. It is, as you see,
situated at the foot of the San Pablo hills, and is about eleven miles
from the Market street ferry in San Francisco. To reach it you go
by ferry to the Oakland pier and then take the cars on the Southern
Pacific road." As I gazed northward, there, as a right arm of Oakland,
was the classic town with its aristocratic name, nestling at the foot
of the hills in the midst of trees and flowers. It was like a dainty
picture with the Bay in the foreground. A nearer view or a visit to it
brings the traveller into line with the Golden Gate, through which his
eye wanders straight out into the Pacific ocean with all its mystery
and grandeur. The University of California was organised by an act
of the Legislature in 1868. A law passed then set apart for its work
$200,000, proceeds from the sale of tide lands. To this endowment was
added the sum of $100,000, from a "Seminary and Public Building Fund."
There was also applied to the new university another fund of $120,000,
realised from the old college of California, which had been organised
in 1855. Then by an act of Congress appropriating 150,000 acres of
land for an Agricultural College, which is a part of the equipment of
the University, it became still richer. It embraces 250 acres
within the area of its beautiful grounds, and so has ample room for
expansion. It has departments of Letters, Science, Agriculture,
Mechanics, Engineering, Chemistry, Mining, Medicine, Dentistry,
Pharmacy, Astronomy and Law. The famous Lick Observatory, stationed
on Mount Hamilton near San Jose, is a part of the institution. It has
prospered greatly under its present efficient President, Benjamin Ide
Wheeler, LL.D.; and it now has three hundred instructors, with over
three thousand students. Tuition is free to all students except in the
professional departments. It has a splendid library of seventy-three
thousand volumes. It will be readily seen that with such an
institution of learning, and with the Leland Stanford Jr. University,
at Palo Alto, the State of California is giving diligent attention to
matters of education. While also there are the various schools and
academies and seminaries of the different denominations, it may be
said that the church is not backward in this respect. St. Margaret's
School for girls, and St. Matthew's School for boys, as well as the
Church Divinity School of the Pacific, at San Mateo, where Bishop
Nichols resides, and the Irving Institute for girls, and Trinity
School in San Francisco, are an evidence of what she is doing for
the welfare of the people intellectually, aside from her spiritual
ministrations in the dioceses of California and Los Angeles and the
Missionary Jurisdiction of Sacramento. Mr. Young was forward to
mention the fact that in Berkeley there is the large and influential
parish of Saint Mark with a list of nearly four hundred communicants;
and this is a great factor for good in the life of such a unique
University town. As my eyes turned away from Berkeley, I naturally
recalled the great Bishop of Cloyne, after whom the place is named;
and as I took into view the wider range of the coast lands, and the
blue waters of the magnificent Bay, some fifty miles in length, and,
on an average, eight miles wide, and reflected on the significance
which attaches to this favoured region, and the influences which
go out from this seat of power, and fountain head of riches, I
instinctively recalled the noble lines which the eighteenth century
prophet wrote when he mused, "On the Prospect of Planting Arts and
Learning in America:"
"Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time's noblest offspring is the last."
East of us, in picturesqueness, as in a panorama spread out, were the
counties of Alameda and Contra Costa, with their receding hills, and
Mount Diablo, 3,855 feet in height, lifting up its head proudly.
Farther to the south was the rich and beautiful valley of Santa Clara,
with its orchards and vineyards. On the west across the Bay were the
counties of San Mateo, and San Francisco, with their teeming life,
covering a Peninsula twenty-six miles long, and extending up to the
Golden Gate; while off to the north, and bordering on the ocean was
Marin in its grandeur, crowned with Tamalpais, 2,606 feet above the
sea;--and skirting San Pablo Bay was Sonoma with its vine-clad vale.
There were the islands of the Bay also, which attracted our attention.
Not far from the Oakland pier is Goat Island rising to the height of
340 feet out of the waters, and consisting of 300 acres. It was brown
on that October morning when I first saw it, but when the rains come
with refreshment in November the islands and all the surrounding
country are invested with a robe of emerald green, and flowers spring
up to gladden the eyes. Goat Island was so named because goats which
were brought in ships from southern ports to San Francisco, for fresh
meat, were turned loose here for pasturage for a time; and as these
creatures multiplied the island took their name. But it formerly bore
the more euphonious title, Yerba Buena, which means in Spanish
"Good Herbs." Later in my journeyings to and fro I overheard a lady
instructing another person as to the proper way in which to pronounce
it, and she made sad work of it. She gave the "B" the sound of the
letter G. It also had another name, as you may learn from an old
Spanish map of Miguel Costanso, where it is called--Ysla de Mal
Abrigo, which means that it afforded poor shelter. It is a government
possession, as also the other islands, Alcatraz and Angel. Alcatraz,
which Costanso styles, White Island, is smaller than Yerba Buena. In
its greatest elevation it is 135 feet above the Bay, and it embraces
in its surface about thirty-five acres, about the same area as the
Haram Esh-Sherîf, or sacred enclosure of the Temple Hill in Jerusalem,
with the Mosque of Omar and the Mosque el-Aksa. On its top is a
lighthouse, which, on a clear night, sailors can see twelve miles
outside of the Golden Gate. Nature, with her wise forethought, seems
indeed to have formed this island opposite the Golden Gate, far
inside, in the Bay, as a sentinel to watch that pass into the Pacific,
and to guide the returning voyager after his perilous journeyings to
safe moorings in a land-locked haven. Farther to the north is Ysla de
los Angeles, Angel Island, with a varied landscape of hill and plain,
comprising some 800 acres of land.
Here are natural springs of water, and in the early days it was well
wooded with live-oak trees. To the eyes of Drake and other early
navigators and explorers it must have been a vision of beauty, lifting
itself out of the waters. Not many trees are seen here now, however,
but you may behold instead in harvest time fields of grain. It is
especially noted for its stone quarries, and out of these were taken
the materials for the fortifications of Alcatraz and Fort Point--as
well as the California bank building. It was my privilege at a later
day, in company with many of the members of the General Convention
to sail over the Bay and around these islands, which one can never
forget. The steamer "Berkeley" was courteously placed at the service
of the members of the Convention by the officers of the Southern
Pacific Railway; and it was indeed a most enjoyable afternoon under
clear and balmy skies as we rode along the shores of the Peninsula,
and up the eastern side of the Bay, and northward towards San Pablo,
and then around Angel Island and Alcatraz strongly fortified, a
distance altogether of forty miles. But now on the first morning,
veiled partly with clouds, San Francisco rises on the view, that city
of so many memories by the waters of the Pacific, where many a one has
been wrecked in body and soul as well as in fortune, while others have
grown rich and have led useful lives. Yes, it is San Francisco at
last! And while it looms upon the view with its varied landscape, its
hills and towered buildings, I am reminded of another October morning
when I first saw Constantinople, when old Stamboul with its Seraglio
Point, and Galata with its tower, and Pera on the heights above,
and Yildiz to the east, and Scutari across the Bosphorus, all were
revealed gradually as the mists rolled away. So the Golden City of
the West is disclosed to view as the shadows disappear and the clouds
break and flee away and the morning sun hastening across the lofty
Sierras gilds the homes of the rich and poor alike, and bathes water
and land in beauty. There is another city on the shore of a tideless
sea, and it will be the joyful morning of eternal life, when, earthly
journeys ended, we walk over its golden streets!