When Gideon and Elizabeth Aughinbaugh arrived in San Francisco in 1850, Gideon had already decided not to pursue his trade as a carpenter. Instead, the couple went into the more lucrative grocery business, opening a store near today’s First and Mission streets.
As they sold foodstuffs to their neighbors, the Aughinbaughs discovered a vein of gold that they hoped to mine. This gold was not in the far-away Sierra Nevada, but the fresh fruit right in front of them on their shelves. Gideon and Elizabeth were astonished at how much money people were willing to pay for peaches, apples, and cherries. They dreamed of a way to raise their own fruit, but knew they needed land to do this.
It’s likely that Gideon and Elizabeth visited the reading room and “intelligence office” on Clay Street just a block down from Portsmouth Plaza. There, they could keep up on news in the East by reading the newspapers. They struck up a friendship with Vermont native William Worthington Chipman, who also arrived in the city in 1850. Chipman had headed west early in life, first to Ohio where he worked as a school principal and studied law. Historian Imelda Merlin tells us that the Aughinbaughs would have found “newspapers from the chief towns in the United States and a ‘Miners’ and Strangers’ Register’” at Chipman’s office.
The Aughinbaughs told Chipman of their dreams. The men decided to visit some property across the Bay, a peninsula. At first, Aughinbaugh and Chipman subleased 160 acres fronting on San Francisco Bay from Joseph Depassier and Balthazar Maitre, who, in turn, had leased a larger portion of this property from Don Antonio Peralta.
The men told Elizabeth that they liked what they saw and hoped to purchase the entire peninsula. Elizabeth agreed they could sell their store. The timing was also right for William. His business partner had decided to move to Sacramento, and they also sold their business.
Gideon and William approached the Don at his home about two miles away. Peralta told them that the land could be theirs for $14,000 in gold coin. The pair turned to friends, investors, and banks to be assured they could sign a note for that money, worth about $325,000 in 2024 money; or even more when you consider gold was changing hands. On October 22, 1851, they signed that note, and the Don gave them the deed to the peninsula he called “Bolsa de Encinal.”
The deal did not include any of the marshlands. It also did not involve the uplands to the southwest surrounded by more marsh. Don Antonio was likely not aware of the land that Ohlones often visited to gather eggs from the rookery there. They called the place “Wind Whistle Island;” we know it as “Bay Farm Island.”
Join Alameda Post’s Dennis Evanosky and Adam Gillitt this Saturday, March 23, or the following Sunday, March 31, for a walking tour of the Original Town of Alameda. Meet them at the fountain at Encinal Avenue and High Street at 10 a.m. Tickets are $20 and available online. We will also hold a one-hour Zoom lecture on the topic on Thursday March 21 at 7 p.m. More information is available on our Tours page.
Aughinbaugh later told the Alameda Argus how they ordered 1,000 fruit trees, which arrived in May 1852 in an express shipment. By July the partners had their first peaches; in September they were ready to bring fruit to market.
The partners sold portions of their land to other enterprising Yankees but kept the East End for themselves. They hired J. F. Stratton to survey the Town of Alameda and lay out streets on the East end of the peninsula. They named the first byways running east-west for the three men whose efforts created the state of California: Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster. The presidents came next in running order: George Washington to James Monroe to Martin Van Buren.
Names for the north-south streets reflected the pair’s enterprises: Peach, Market, and Park to name just three. Chipman and Aughinbaugh set up a prefabricated home near today’s Park and Adams streets. Almost 20 years later, the merging of the Town of Alameda with two other towns brought about change that included renaming streets: Park became Post Street. Webster was renamed for President Millard Fillmore. The train and streetcar brought two more changes: Monroe Street became Encinal Avenue and Jefferson Street, San Jose Avenue.
Imelda Merlin relates that in 1909, Mr. M. W. Peck, a master sailor from Rhode Island, told the Oakland Tribune that he remembered the first home in Alameda near Madison and Mound streets. Peck had lived in the town since its inception. He made his living ferrying passengers and freight around San Francisco Bay.
Peck described the dwelling as an “adobe pile” belonging to “a French fisherman named ‘Parfé’ (Peter Parfait) and his Indian wife.” Merlin says that Parfait built his home sometime in 1848. He had Don Antonio Maria Peralta’s permission to live there, “keep a garden, cut firewood for his own use, and kill such livestock as he could use himself.” Parfait died in 1865, his wife, whose name we do not know “buried (him) on the island (and) thereafter disappeared.”
Chipman and Aughinbaugh lived in what Merlin described as a “knocked-down house brought around the Horn,” a two-story, seven-room affair near present-day Peach and Washington Streets.
As they settled in, Gideon decided to turn to farming ground crops, especially berries. William turned his attention to incorporating the town. They had plans to entice the voters to bring the County Seat to their peninsula. We’ll learn how all that turned out next week.
Dennis Evanosky is the award-winning Historian of the Alameda Post. Reach him at [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Dennis-Evanosky.
