Prelude to Fernside
By Dennis Evanosky
The story of your neighborhood once hinged on one of those “moments” in history. This one involved a deputy sheriff rousting a man from the hold of a steamship and arresting him. The man the deputy escorted off the ship in handcuffs was Alfred A. Cohen, a respected and trusted financier and banker in San Francisco. He rubbed elbows with—and on at least one occasion clashed with—banker William Tecumseh Sherman. The respect and trust that some felt for Cohen vanished in 1855, however, when rumors spread that he played a role in what his contemporaries called "Black Friday."
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On February 22, 1855, news arrived that a major bank Page, Bacon & Co. had serious financial problems. This news precipitated a run-on San Francisco banks. Depositors stormed the major bank Adams & Co., demanding their money in gold. Many found themselves penniless in the streets, however.
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Before Adams & Co. opened its doors that morning, the board of directors declared bankruptcy. The courts, in the person of Judge Delos Lake, appointed Alfred Cohen as the bank’s receiver. This made Cohen responsible for Adam & Co.’s deposits.
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When he took on this responsibility, he discovered that Adams & Co. directors had not only cooked the bank’s books but had made a “quiet run” on its deposits and withdrawn $250,000. Andrew and Emilie Cohen waited nervously for consequences. Their son William was born in San Francisco on May 21, 1855, just three months after Black Friday.
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The 1872 mansion
In August, Cohen received permission from Judge Delos Lake to travel to New York with Emilie and William. They went on from there to Emilie’s hometown, Wilmington, Delaware. Cohen decided to return to San Francisco without Emilie and William. When he arrived in December 1855, he learned that not only had the courts replaced Judge Lake with Judge John S. Hager but that Lake had left town for Peru. Hager fired Cohen, appointed another receiver, and issued a warrant for his arrest as party to a $269,000 judgement. (The amount had grown from $250,000)
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The suspect absconds (or tries to)
Cohen attempted to follow Judge Lake’s example by fleeing San Francisco. On January 5, 1856, he booked passage for New York aboard the Nicaragua-bound steamer Uncle Sam. Cohen’s life continued to unravel. ​​
The Daily Alta California reported on January 6, 1856, that “the Uncle Sam … attempted to leave about 2 p.m., but was detained in consequence of the ship being aground, which delayed her until seven o'clock in the evening.” San Francisco County Deputy Sheriff John Harrison was looking for Cohen. He came aboard the Uncle Sam with an arrest warrant. Then “the moment” arrived. Cohen closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Harrison had found him. He surrendered and spent the rest of 1856 in the San Francisco jail awaiting trial. Emilie and William returned to California on their own. He was found guilty of embezzlement; the amount had grown $269,000 to $400,000. This was an unimaginable sum of money at the time.
The verdict
While he was sitting in jail, Cohen studied the law. He and his attorneys appealed. On July 1, 1857, the California Supreme Court overturned the verdict, calling the accusation vague.
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“How can the defendant know what he is charged with? Or how prepare for his defense?” Chief Justice Hugh Murray wrote in his opinion. “How much money, what goods, and what chattels?”
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If you would like to read the decision, you’ll find it here:
$1.50 Yesterday and Today
Recently, my wife and I decided to have BLTs for dinner. Pauline mentioned a small problem: we didn’t have any “Ts.” I stopped by the produce market on Oak Street near Central Avenue and picked up a nice juicy “T.” The cost? $1.50.
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Let’s go back to 1856. Here’s a family man with $1.50 in his pocket. Should he go to the saloon? Not a good idea.
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Instead, he took the money to the grocer and did something quite common in the 19th century. He gave the grocer his $1.50 and asked him to run a tab. For that 1856 $1.50 he was able to buy, over time: (Are you sitting down?) 3 pounds of bacon, 3 pounds of butter and 3 dozen eggs. All that and 6 cents change. Remember all I got was a single tomato for my $1.50.
At Fernside 1857 to 1925
Alfred and Emilie moved to Alameda, where they built a home on a 109-acre estate they called “Fernside.” His time spent studying the law paid off. He stood for and passed the state bar exam. He ran for and was elected one of Alameda County’s justices of the peace.
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He and Emilie began farming. When the census taker (enumerator) came calling in 1860, Alfred told him that he was a horticulturalist, not a farmer, mind you, but a horticulturalist. They raised four of their seven children on Fernside: William, Emilie, Edgar, Mabel, and Alfred.
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Alfred created the San Francisco & Alameda Railroad in 1864. His uncle Rodman Gibbons had built the San Francisco & Oakland Railroad a year earlier. These railroads merged and carried the first transcontinental railroad trains on Alfred’s tracks. Alfred sold them to the Central Pacific for $268,000 in 1868. He built an impressive mansion with that money. Alfred passed away in Kansas aboard his train in 1887. The mansion burned in 1897. Emilie lived in the bowling alley on the property until her death in 1924.
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Questions arise:
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What if the Uncle Sam had not run aground and departed on time, ahead of Deputy Harrison’s arrival with the arrest warrant?
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What if Cohen had not emerged from the Uncle Sam’s hold and surrendered to Deputy Harrison?
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What if the Uncle Sam had made it Nicaragua with Cohen on board set to travel on to New York?
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Would Alfred have returned to California to face these charges? Probably not. He and Emilie would very likely have settled in Wilmington, Delaware, where Emilie’s relatives lived.
That moment when Deputy Harrison rousted Cohen from the Uncle Sam’s hold and arrested him determined that life would unfold as we know it today.
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The family’s 1857 home, used as a playhouse after the mansion was built, notice the children and the “rocker” on the porch.
The mansion after the 1898 fire
Had the Uncle Sam not run aground or had Cohen remained hidden, there would have been no transcontinental railroad in Alameda or Oakland (the trains would have run to San Francisco, instead) and no Fernside. You would not be living in Fernside today.
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The family lived on the estate until Emilie’s death in 1925. The children sold the estate to the developers.
Waterside Terrace
Emilie’s brother, Henry Gibbons, owned the property bounded by High Street, Fairview Avenue, and Fernside Drive. Developers purchased the real estate and created Waterside Terrace.
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The street names raise a question for me: Monte Vista, Bayo Vista, and Fairview, a translation of Buena Vista. When we’re on our walks, I’ll show you how you can draw an (almost) straight line from Fairview at High Street to Buena Vista at Versailles Avenue.
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The 1926 developer did run Fairview west from High Street, however. He did something interesting: He ran Gibbons Drive (named for Emilie’s family) as a curve from Central Avenue to Fernside Boulevard.
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He nicely defined this curve (and interrupted the flow of Fairview to Buena Vista) with a pair of streets, an oval, at center of Gibbons Drive. He named those streets “Northwood” and “Southwood.” His name? Fred Wood. And notice that none of the streets in your neighborhood bears the Cohen family name.
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This is how it all started. We’ll go on our walk and see how it developed. Talk about the styles Wood’s architects and builders chose, especially the Storybook style. Of special interest will be the map that my friend, the late Dick Rutter, produced. It shows exactly were all the estate buildings stood in relation to the streets and homes today.
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Special thanks to Dennis Evanosky for his contribution to the Fernside HOA website with this installment.
Developer Fred Wood standing inside the Fremont Oak