Bancroftiana, Number 122 Spring 2003: Hazards of the Forests of Watsonville

Hazards of the Forests of Watsonville--as reported by Regent Arthur Rodgers

The family of Arthur Rodgers, a regent of the University from 1883 until his death in 1902, has given The Bancroft Library a fine small collection of materials that reflect life in the early years of the state of California and the speed with which an industrious person could become established here. Seventeen nineteenth-century letters, two certificates from the California Superintendent of Public Instruction, and an 1895 San Francisco Chronicle wedding announcement comprise the collection and make us acquainted with one of our more interesting founding fathers. The wording of the letters and the punctuation of the time give a vivid sense of how quickly style and usage change.

Illustrated History of the University of California by William Carey Jones. Berkeley [CA]: Students' Cooperative Society, 1901.

Letters Arthur wrote and received from members of his family during 1865 refer to relatives left behind in the South and discuss the sadness of the Civil War. To his sister Amanda he wrote, “I love my relatives dearly, but how am I to enjoy their Society unless I return to Tennessee.” Somewhat disingenuously he adds, “But duty to my family would say Stay Here.”

A few months later, he is writing copiously from the Lexington, California area to “Dear Father and Mother” that “Since I wrote to you last I have been about 100 miles down the country in Montara and Santacruz (sic) counties looking at the country with a view to buy land if I liked it as well as [into?] the coast. I am going to start tomorrow back up to Petaluma, Sonoma County to look again at the land that I wrote to you about a short time since I can buy land (unincorporated) in Santaclara county within 5 miles of Gilroy for $20.00 an acre” where “one man can cultivate two acres easier than one at home.”

South of Gilroy, Rodgers found a mountain range, well-watered and came to “the headwaters of the Pathro (Pajaro?) River which at this place is in the high hills back of the coast range mountains affording pasture 6 months of the year for vast herds of stock...extending down the coast to Mexico.” After further exploring, he found a small inland village of stock raisers and Spaniards, called San Juan; then, changing to a westerly direction, he came to the fertile Pathro Valley where 50 to 60 bushels of corn to the acre were produced and 300 to 500 bushels of Irish potatoes.The only town in the valley, he finds, is Watsonville, where fruit also abounds and there is a nearby steamboat landing. Rodgers notes that, “the surplus crop is shipped to San Francisco where it finds a ready market.”

Although land turned out to be more expensive in the Watsonville area, after further research, Arthur and his brothers decided that profits were likely to be more generous as well. By 1867, he writes from Woodside that future letters should be addressed to Watsonville. The Rodgers’ fruit growing and processing interests flourished there, and the family was active in the community until the early 1990s. Among his descendants are two nieces who voted in the first election after women were allowed to vote in California (1919) and noted author John Steinbeck.

In addition to establishing a business, Arthur found time to study for and receive general and secondary certificates from the California Superintendent of Public Instruction, in 1867 and 1870, followed by a degree from the University of California in 1872. The same year, he began reading law with the firm of Wright and Nourse and passed the bar in 1875.

Whether he ever taught school is not clear, but it is evident that he was a person of great energy and wide interests. By 1878, he was writing to his family from Edinburgh and Glasgow; and in 1880 and 1881 from Hong Kong, Beirut, and Bombay, from whence he went on to Constantinople and Vienna on the classic Grand Tour of the well-educated, well-financed young fellow of the period. His letters are interesting and entertaining, and he obviously had been waiting a long time to see the world.

When he first explored the area north of Watsonville, he had written, “the road passed over table land and undulating plains, here I see the finest forests of live oak that I have seen in the country [which] in many places fills the very description that we so often get of the jungles of India, where the wild beasts rove at large and where it will ever be impossible to subdue him until the forest is wiped away by the hand of civilization the huntsman only dares to penetrate the outskirts of the jungle at the hazard of his life.”

Perhaps fruit-growing seemed tame after the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek. Or perhaps his travels were judged to complete the necessary cosmopolitan polish. Whatever, he went on to a distinguished career in the San Francisco law firm of Rodgers & Paterson and as a noted litterateur. He also became interested in public affairs and was appointed a regent of the University of California in 1883 by Governor George C. Perkins.

After many years wedded to his books and his profession, Rodgers surprised his colleagues and friends by marrying the lovely widow, Elizabeth Montgomery, as fully reported in the San Francisco Chronicle for May 16, 1895. The clipping, included in the Rodgers collection, features charming pen-and-ink sketches of the principals by George E. Lyon.

—Gabrielle Morris,
Regional Oral History Office editor, retired