Photograph courtesy of the archives of the California Province, Society of Jesus.
Los Gatos pioneer Harvey Wilcox sold the property that became the Sacred Heart Novitiate, shown here in an early photograph.
Last week we told of the local land auction of 1887 during which orchardist Harvey Wilcox sold 121 lots out of 170 up for sale. The town of Los Gatos had incorporated earlier that year.
Many of these lots were in an almond orchard that stretched from Bean Avenue to Saratoga Avenue and was flanked on the east by what today is Santa Cruz Avenue and on the west by Glen Ridge.
Here are some of the pioneers active in those formative years:
John Bean--Call him Mr. Inventor. His fame is greater than the street that bears his name. It was the spray pump he invented that rescued California's fruit industry when there was no weaponry to battle the deadly tree scale. From the Bean Spray Co., Bean's son-in-law, James D. Crummey, went on to found Food Machinery Corp. (FMC).
Bean's Victorian mansion stood at the northwest corner of Bean and N. Santa Cruz avenues, immediately south of the Cosgrove home, later the George Place Funeral Home and now the Chart House restaurant.
Harvey Wilcox--Call him Mr. Gavel and Mr. Hotel. No street bears his name, but the much traveled Wilcox brought a colorful Mississippi River past and considerable know-how to Los Gatos. He was obviously an effective auctioneer. He built a hotel that bore his name.
Born in 1822 in New York, he was a self-employed merchant in Illinois when the Mexican War broke out.
In 1849 he was in California for the Gold Rush, went right back to Illinois and returned to the Sierra in 1855-56, digging for gold and later getting into business. In 1876 he came to the Santa Clara Valley and five years later found his way to Los Gatos, where he bought land and sold some 40 mountainside acres to Santa Clara College of Jesuits for a branch that became the Sacred Heart Novitiate.
By 1887 Wilcox had built the 35-room Wilcox Hotel near the depot, presently the site of the Town Plaza.
Magnus Tait--Call him Mr. Planner. Tait, a Yankee Civil War veteran, was one of several midwives presiding at the birth of Los Gatos. By 1889 Tait had joined the board of the Los Gatos Building and Loan Association.
A.E. Wilder--Call him Mr. Hospitality. It was Wilder, an officer in the Los Gatos Bank, who loaned his office to the town trustees for their first meetings. He had a hand in deciding the town boundaries.
Wilder's greatest contribution to local history may have been his faith in young J. D. Crummey.
It was J. D. who had the vision to go big time with the Bean Company. But he needed money, and part of that capital came from Wilder. He was impressed with young Crummey's modest bank account that was built from his small salary.
Augustine Nicholson--You might call him Mr. Generous or Mr. Cats Hill. Born in Ohio of Irish stock, he saw Kansas and Texas before marrying and coming to Los Gatos in 1882. He offered 17 1/2 acres for one of the town's first cemeteries in the Wheeler and Whiney Avenue area. He sold off some lots in the Almond Grove auction of '89.
Today, the annual May "Cats Hill Bicycle Race" winds through part of the Almond Grove and includes the tortuous Nicholson Avenue hill up to Glen Ridge Avenue.
Benjamin Franklyn Bachman--He had lived a lifetime by the time he reached Los Gatos at the age of 50. Call him Mr. Traveler, Mr. Discover or Mr. Orchardist. He was born in 1829 in Pennsylvania and sailed around Cape Horn to Monterey in 1850, when gold fever was in the air. Bachman and other young men hired mules and a guide and headed for the gold fields of Mariposa, where he lived for 30 years.
Arriving in the Santa Clara Valley in 1880, he purchased 50 acres in and about Los Gatos when the town was a village of only a dozen houses.
His property, partly west of Glen Ridge, was planted in a variety of fruit trees. He never married.
Fen Massol--Call him Mr. Subdivision. A 40-acre hunk of Massol's 160-acre holding was subdivided and became part of the Almond Grove District. Massol served as a town trustee from 1890 to 1897. He was secretary of the Johnson Opera House, which was built in 1892 and burned in 1894. The project was under financial strain from the outset but did bring "notable performances to town," the press recorded.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, April 16, 1997.
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