Tag Archives: mystery

Cadwallader Avenue Bridge

IMG_0007signpostPat Loomis once wrote about Cadwallader Avenue’s driving bridge over Thompson Creek that had been washed away in a flood in January 1893 in her series of Sign Posts published in the San Jose News Newspaper in the 1970’s.  Today, we all remember the walking paths connecting these neighborhoods.  We rode our bikes over wooden planks and metal rails with lush creek beds beneath us as children.  I went poking around in the old Dry Creek looking for remnants of the Cadwallader Avenue bridge because I’d been there recently researching San Felipe Road with Judge Jerry Kettmann.  Maybe he assumed I knew about the bridge, but I couldn’t envision a bridge in this “S” curved portion of Dry Creek.

P1310185 (2)The intersection here at Cadwallader Avenue and San Felipe Road is really ground zero for Evergreen.  This was downtown Evergreen.  The first residents’ homes still stand near ground zero.  Keaton Loop, cuddled up next to Thompson Creek, was once part of San Felipe Road. Cadwallader Avenue, however, once met San Felipe Road before 1893.  Here, in the map to the right, you can see the “C” of Cadwallader on top of San Felipe Road as it crosses Dry Creek, known as Thompson Creek today.

Here, the Women’s Relief Corps, Evergreen School house and Evergreen’s first dense home development grew off Cadwallader Aveunue.  Mr. Cadwallader is fascinating as well.  Though he never would call Evergreen home, he was certainly generous towards the Community of Evergreen.  Cadwallader Avenue’s lost bridge was a new revelation along the research.  It’s neat now when I learn brand new things about Evergreen.  This Cadwallader Community seems so secreted away when it used to be at the heart of everything.  It’s certainly the second smallest parcels on the map above, a precursor to what Evergreen would eventually become.

IMG_0021Here, I found deer frolicking.  I found sun ripened wild berries.  I found really old trees.  I found the end of Fowler Creek here now under San Felipe Road and graffiti.  There is a foot bridge now.  This new bridge is the straightest line down the Avenue itself.  Today’s foot crossing is certainly very permanent and wide, but a direct line down which didn’t feel true to my materials.  I wouldn’t be too sure that’s all it was or created from what was left of the old crossing.

IMG_0018These sand bags would have been from any number of floods through the 1900’s.  Sadly, I wouldn’t expect sandbags or burlap to stand up to 120 years of moisture, deterioration, rainfall and overflow.  I could be wrong, though.  These would’ve had to be treated with some sort of plastic to have survived this long.   These bags protect the creek’s fragile lining at this pipe’s opening.  Over saturation would result in things beginning to slip into the creek, like the old bridge did.  This area was prone to flooding with a huge events as recent as 1969.  I do however see lots of rock, thanks to all the unsightly graffiti highlighting them.

IMG_0013This large, metal pole is so random, and literally in the middle of the way creeks crossing.  Its placement is so odd that this must be evidence of some sort.  But what?  Also, observe all the rock around it.  That’s weird too.  It caught my eye as we were taking cute photos of me gathering research.  I took these in street clothes on a return visit because I just couldn’t stop thinking about this pole sticking out in the middle of the creek bed and that driving bridge.

P1100123 (2)1850 - bridgeCome to think of it, I was jumping over rocks taking those pictures that day; so much so, I forwent the heels on rocks concept because it was unsafe.    It felt like Cottle’s Cobble Stone all over again, starring me right in the face.  This pole would support a cobble stone bridge like the one my imagination conjured up.  Cadwallader Avenue began with a slight bend, when today’s Cadwallader Avenue crossing is flush with the avenue’s direction, as it reaches Keaton Loop.    What would convince me absolutely that this was the collapsed bridge?  Another support pole or more cobble stone would prove it to me.

IMG_0020Done and done.

Sadly, the second pole I found also epitomizes the great need for the Evergreen Mural Walk.  The general public doesn’t know the history of Evergreen and therefore doesn’t respect the land.  It’s so sad to see the vandalism and destruction on school campuses and private properly.  It’s a dang shame, but okay.  Second pole, in the right place to support the San Felipe Road side of the bridge.  Check.

IMG_0015Then as I was leaving, I stopped to admire some giant hundreds year old oaks and enormous 150+ year old eucalyptus trees when I noticed this congregation of rocks.  This would’ve outlined San Felipe Road, now Keaton Loop, and protect horses and vehicles from running too close to the creeks’ edge, which often flooded in the early days.  This cobble stone also though lines portions of San Felipe Road in from of L. C. Smith’s historic residence and several Cadwallader Avenue properties in the same pattern.  This was a connected network of well traveled streets in the heart of Evergreen as one point.  This bridge’s significance was bringing South Silver Creek to Downtown Evergreen and further connecting it with Norwood neighborhood and San Felipe Valley.  Nearby Fowler Road would’ve also been a popular turn for the interior of Evergreen, as would Quimby Road.

IMG_0022This cobble stone street lining would end where a pump station currently sits, accommodating the flows of the creeks so as not to flood Evergreen.  It is my belief this structure, not the current foot path from today’s Cadwallader Avenue, takes advantage of the previous Cadwallader Avenue bridge’s construction.  Or at least near the opening of the bridge on the southeast corner of the three way crossing with San Felipe Road.

Jerry Kettmann would explain to me that patrons of his uncle’s bar on San Felipe Road would kiss under the bridge.  That makes a lot more sense if the bridge in within view and reach of the watering hole.  Down in the creek bed would’ve been a perfect place to hideaway and canoodle.

The sandbags I found are probably a precaution from the bridge having been swept away and ongoing flooding.  Cobble Stone is definitely a thing in Evergreen, then and now.  It’s too heavy to really haul away and its so quaint.  Why bother?  I am so glad I took a second look at this crossing.  It was really starting to bother me.

 

 

RIP – Louis Pellier

CEM47024782_124197784496When I went down to Oak Hill Cemetery on Fathers’ Day, because people lessen the likelihood of zombie apocalypse.  I was totally interested in anything Evergreen but they were scattered all over the place.  The only way to do this is wander around for a long time or check in the records people.  I’m going to have to dissect things into lawns and comb through records to find everyone.

That having been said, I knew there were some Pelliers buried here.  I forgot who initially was there, knowing it wasn’t the entire family.  In looking into the Pellier family originally, I also heard about this awesome grave discovery.  There was something fishy with the Louis Pellier headstones, but it looks weird to google on your phone and tip toe through a crowded graveyard.  Truth is Louis would and wouldn’t be here at Oak Hill Cemetery.

12314282_198416020500512_5584157587879954674_oSo, let’s start with our three Pellier brothers, the first generation to come to America.  The elder Pelliers were Louis, Pierre and Jean.  Louis A. Pellier was the brother who first came to America during the Gold Rush and first thought to bring the Prune and other fruit varietals to California soil.  His idea contributed to the California Fruit Industry we still enjoy today.  Louis Pellier would die in 1872, age the age of 55.  The eldest Louis Pellier wouldn’t be found at Oak Hill.  For a long while, his remains wouldn’t be found at all.

120013655_138395571327Interior-FirstGeneration-PierrePellierPierre would buy Pellier Ranch in Evergreen from his older brother, Louis, in 1863 after running someone else’s vineyards successfully near Mission San Jose.  Pierre and Henrietta Pellier raised their son and three daughters on their Evergreen ranch,  Although initially buried with his other relatives, Pierre Pellier would be buried at Oak Hill Cemetry.  I found he and his wife, Henrietta!  Wait. That’s a weird thing to get excited about.  I think this monument is stellar, though.  Again, weird thing to get excited about.

9ee89fc729d94679e4a4e7792a02a795Pellier’s son, Louis P. Pellier, would have been the patriarch once Pierre and Jean died.  Louis P. was being groomed to groom the vines and run the lucrative family business.  Louis P. Pellier would died at the age of 15 in 1873.  Passing a year after his uncle, the Pellier family was devastated.  They had no scions in the way of male heirs.  That having been said, his sisters stepped up and carried on the tradition of French Winemaking in the Evergreen hillside that eventually became the Mirassou Wine Dynasty.  The teenage

PelliWait, how did that happen?  They can’t get up and walk away.  Well, these Pelliers were laid to rest at Holy Cross or Kell Cemetery, opposite Communication Hill, on the outskirts of Willow Glen.  Here, for the most part patrons of St. Joseph’s Basilica were buried.  This included many notable Evergreenians.  Holy Cross Cemetery was sanctioned by the Catholic Church and operated from 1871-1890.  It was later replaced by a larger Catholic cemetery in 1882 which was closer to both Catholic churches.  Oak Hill Cemetery, close by, and Santa Clara Mission Cemetery was also available for Catholics.  In fact, many moved their loved ones to these other cemeteries.  The burial ground wasn’t maintained in the meantime and things got ran down.  Kids would play with things.  Earth would move.  Kell Cemetery was forgotten.  Today, it’s a source of Socio-Historic information for Archeologists.

In 1930, the unmoved graves would be bulldozed through and cleared for grazing land.  I spoke to the gentlemen who united the monuments with the remains, Ralph Pearce and Judge Paul Bernal.  For some reason the elder Louis’s headstone would go missing 80 years, rescued by Clyde Arbuckle, San Jose Historian.  Judge Paul Bernal describes its discovery by Clyde.

129607541_1399786781“Around 1941 historian Clyde Arbuckle was at the Holy Cross Cemetery with his two children Jim and Susan.    As Jim and Susan chased a jackrabbit across the once cemetery, Clyde discovered the broken headstone of Louis Pellier lying face-down in the brush.   There are photos of Clyde and Helen Abuckle with the headstone propped back up in the cemetery in 1948/1949.  Between 1948/1949 and 1951, Arbuckle removed the headstone for safekeeping.”

arbuckleClyde Arbuckle would realize the treasure he had found.  The grand headstone was used as a prop for a documentary on Sunsweet Prunes in 1951.  Arbuckle’s collection was just underway.  He would be San Jose’s prevailing historian for many years.  The Prune King’s monument would be a piece of a vast collection which became the awesome organization History San Jose.  I’ve visited these guys.  Wow.  If you’re looking to get your nerd on, you can do it here.  But the collection was so broad, even this large piece was able to be overlooked for some time.  It was kept too safe.

129607434_1399786458Some years later, an orchardist and rancher would happen upon the headstone of Louis P. Pellier.  Farmer Lee Lester bought the property next door to the former cemetery.  Lester knew his prune history and thought he had found the most valuable piece of memorabilia, the Prune King’s headstone.  The monument was a little worse for wear, but it would be preserved as well by another San Jose history buff.  The gravestone would come back to Lester’s Baily Avenue farm for safekeeping and lean up against his barn exposed to the elements.

So, fast forward almost 100 years after its abandonment, Kell Cemetery was in the path of a proposed highway into the heart of Downtown.  That highway was the 87.  In 1984, these remains were moved to nearby Oak Hill with family or to the Catholic Cavalry Cemetery off of Alum Rock, its replacement, in a Pioneer Section.  All the remains moved.  Not all of the gravestones were located.  Many were in disrepair.  Both Louis Pellier’s remains would move to Alum Rock.

Jim%20Ralph%20Tim
Photo Courtesy of Ralph Pearce

Pioneer of Santa Clara County would often end up at the San Jose Public Library, like I have, in the California Room, in the midst of librarian Ralph Pearce.  In August 2011, Ralph let a member know that he thought he heard someone had a Louis Pellier headstone laying around.  The group having found the younger Louis’s monument in their possession, the search for the Prune King was on.  History San Jose confirmed it in archive databases, but the collection was so massive, it was housed in many multiple warehouses.  They opened their doors to the Pioneers of Santa Clara and Ralph Pearce, together creating the “In Grave Danger Gang”.

The “In Grave Danger Gang” would commemorate the reuniting of the Pellier Monuments on November 2, 2011 with Lester family, Pellier Family and the Pioneer Society members.

IMG_4028 [2794442]So, when I popped up at Oak Hill and asked for Louis Pellier, I wasn’t expecting the helpful lady to call me back with this little curve ball.  A two year old curve ball too young to be either first or second generation Louis.  Who’s this little guy?

Ralph Pearce and the Santa Clara Pioneers Society helped me figure it out!  It was buried deep in census statistics from the 1870’s and figuring out who was in the household who was old enough to father this child.  This little guy Louis belongs to another Louis Pellier, son of Jean Pellier.  This is the fourth generation of Louis Pellier, here who passed as a boy.  Jean’s son Louis A. was born in France in 1852, moved to the States with his family and married Christina Frances Alvarez.  They would have a son and also name him Louis A.  Whoa.  Those family names.  You could certain understand the confusion was all had.  Which brings up a whole new question.  Where’s the other L. A. Pellier located now?