Dear GSSCC members, in an effort to showcase the genealogical research needed to support local history, I am dedicating this message to Deborah Osterberg, who has just written a book titled, Historic Tales of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park-Big Trees Grove, which debuts March 9, 2020. Proceeds from sales will be shared with the Mountain Parks Foundation to help support programs at Henry Cowell State Park. We are fortunate to count Deborah as a vital member of our Society!
Deborah has also written a short account of her research starting out with the following introduction of the park:
Visiting the redwoods in 19th century California meant coming to Big Trees Grove, now part of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. This forest of giants in the Santa Cruz Mountains attained fame through the 1846 exploits of explorer John Charles Frémont, whose namesake tree still stands. Saved from the logger’s ax by Joseph Warren Welch in 1867, these were the first coastal redwoods preserved for public recreation. As a world-renown resort for sixty years, Big Trees Grove hosted thousands of visitors— from picnickers to presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt.
As a dedicated researcher, Deborah exhausted every possible avenue to include as many photographs and articles in support of the grove’s story. She started with Joseph Warren Welch and followed up with the resort managers. Along the way she included historical newspaper accounts about the grove itself.
When I began research on the history of Big Trees Grove, I had very little information on the resort owners or managers. The descendants of the Welch family did not have any family papers. Even more suprisingly they did not possess any photographs of their ancestors… One lead came from the best article on the grove’s history, to date, written by Traci Bliss and Randall Brown and which appeared in the 2014 Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History Journal Number #7 Redwood Logging and Conservation in the Santa Cruz Mountains – A Split History. Their article entitled “Two Trees for General Fremont,” featured a circa 1876 photograph of the hotel built by the Welch family’s first resort manager, John Hooper. The photograph was from the Romanzo E. Wood Collection at my alma mater, Chico State. I was pleased that when I checked online that this collection included a couple of additional images of the grove. Two in particular sparked my interest. They showed several well dressed people standing proudly in front of the grove’s most famous tree, the Giant. The images were rather poor quality, both streaked and warped. Neither image gave the names of the individuals shown but an idea struck me when I noticed the apparent ages of the four men in one of the images. I was intrigued by the very proud stance of the older gentleman. He stood with his chest out and his left arm tucked in his vest pocket as if saying, “These are my boys and this is my place.” In 1875 Joseph Warren Welch was 59 years old, his sons were Joseph Jr. 20, Herman 18, and Stanly 10. Fellow Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park docent Ken Lande previously gave me a copy of a newspaper image of Joseph Welch Jr. as an older man. When I compared the son’s image to the group image side by side, it appeared to me that they were the same man. I believed I located the only known image of Joseph Warren Welch and his sons.
Next came the genealogical research, using US Federal Census Records, Mortality Schedules, California Voter Registers, Ancestry.com, Find-A-Grave and other resources, Deborah was able to provide accurate information to the Big Trees Grove history.
I located two obituaries about Joseph Warren Welch who passed away in November 1875. The same obituary appeared in the November 15, Sacramento Daily Union and the November 23, Los Angeles Herald… Welch came to California in 1849 for the Gold Rush but didn’t spend long in the mines. He settled in San Francisco where he spent 25 years as a carrier for the Alta California newspaper. The obituary also revealed his sucess in business by giving the value of his estate. He was worth $100,000 which is eqivalent in today’s money to approximately 2 million dollars. The January 8, 1876, Santa Cruz Weekly Sentinel… stated that Welch left all his property to his wife Anna for the support of his five children…This article revealed that Welch’s estate was filed for probate in San Francisco. Due to the later destruction of court documents during the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, this clue would prove to be a dead end… When Anna Welch passed away at the age of 80 in 1905 she was described in the Santa Cruz Morning Sentinel "as one of the few owners of magnificent redwood forests who preferred to protect, rather than cut them down, and her property near Santa Cruz has in consequence been for many years one of the show places of the State".
Deborah located many newspaper articles on the grove itself and used genealogical resources to research the Big Trees Grove managers: John Mackintire Hooper, who managed from 1876-1881, David Metcalf Aldrich, 1882-1885, and Joseph Ball, 1885-1901. She found the resources in our genealogy room helpful, especially when combined with the materials in the Californiana and microfilm collections. Deborah was also aided by a fellow GSSCC member who provided valuable contact information
I located invaluable information on Big Trees Grove as a tourist destination including firsthand visitor accounts through my research on an assortment of online newspaper collections; Newspapers.com, the California Digital Newspaper Collection, the Library of Congress Chronicling America, Utah Digital Newspapers and the New York State Historic Newspapers. Of particular value to my research was the 19th century custom of California travel accounts being published in hometown newspapers across the country. In addition, I also used local Santa Cruz newspapers on microfilm and other rare local history documents found within the invaluable collections of the Genealogical Society’s Research Room at the downtown Santa Cruz Public Library. These irreplaceable resources provided detailed information on the management of the resort by its first three managers from 1876 through 1901, the heyday of the resort. At first, I knew virtually nothing about the personal background of these managers. Thanks to Genealogical Society member Sean Conley, I was put in touch with the Glass family, descendants of the resort manager Joseph Ball. I obtained images from the Glass family, some of which showed other San Lorenzo Valley locales. The family wished to donate the images and I was pleased to put them in touch with the San Lorenzo Valley Museum, which accepted the donation.
The last avenue of research that Deborah used was information provided by an historical society.
David Aldrich’s 1911 obituary in the Stockton Daily Evening Record, revealed that Pennsylvania born Aldrich lived for a time in Calaveras County, California. This tidbit allowed me to locate another great biographical source. When I contacted the Calaveras County Historical Society, I learned of a 2017 locally published book entitled, Brands of Calaveras County, California 1854-1880. This volume included biographies of everyone who owned a cattle brand in the county, including David Aldrich. It showed he had multiple careers from miner to tax collector before coming to the Santa Cruz Mountains. In 1850, he journeyed overland to California with his mother and two sisters. By the 1870s, he traveled to DuPage County, Illinois to try his hand at farming but soon returned to California, ending up for a time as manager of Big Trees Grove. All this information is thanks to the fact that, when he resided in Calaveras County by 1858, Aldrich owned a single cow and one calf.
The most successful manager of Big Trees Grove was Joseph Ball. The California Voter Register revealed that he was not only a Canadian who was naturalized in Santa Cruz County on March 5, 1874, but also provided a physical description of him…The 1921 Find-a-Grave.com obituary for Joseph Ball was quite detailed, showing that he hailed from Toronto and was a prominent hotel keeper, managing multiple hotels in the Santa Cruz region for many years, including the Grand Central Hotel in Felton. He also organized numerous picnics at Sunset Park at Glenwood and up in Niles Canyon in Alameda County. He was involved in local politics, including serving as the Supervisor of the San Lorenzo District starting in 1900. Travelers along the mountain roads of the San Lorenzo Valley owe a debt to Ball due to his many years of work building and improving the original routes.
Thank you, Deborah, for sending me your research story. Unfortunately, I had to shorten it for the newsletter. I hope to feature some more research projects and/or activities that other GSSCC members are involved with in future newsletters. Meanwhile I am looking forward to reading your book!
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