wyattvirgil

NOT THE SAME WYATT EARP

Yes, Wyatt Earp was in Santa Rosa! His brother, Virgil Earp, was too! But, uh, not the ones you think – they were the nephews of the famous lawman and gunslinger. Yet it’s also true their legendary uncle Wyatt passed through town at times.

On one of those occasions the Santa Rosa Democrat interviewed the famed man in 1889 and wrote, “Wyatt Earp is little given to talking about himself. And yet he has a reputation as wide as the continent — a fame made by deeds rather than words.” Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (let’s call him “Wyatt B.” for short) may have been modest, but since his death in 1929 there have been hundreds of books, movies and TV shows about him, Tombstone Arizona and the iconic gunfight at the O.K. Corral. A simple Google search on his name currently returns almost eight million hits.

(Above: Lawmen Wyatt Earp and Virgil Earp, uncles to the Earp men with the same names who lived in and around Santa Rosa)

Just scratch the surface of that enormous canon of work and you’ll find there’s lots of misinformation – a common theme includes authors insisting other authors are lazy, liars, if not bonafide idiots – and one of those false claims is that he owned or managed a stable in Santa Rosa, which you’ll even find in his biographical Wikipedia entry. It’s conceivable one of the nephews did so, although there’s no evidence of that either. Here’s what we know of Wyatt B. Earp in Santa Rosa from the newspapers of the time:

While San Francisco was homebase during most of the 1890s, Wyatt B. and his wife, Josie, were traveling and racing his horses. There are several articles available in the 1895 San Francisco Call that mention Earp then had a stable of trotters. Josie described Santa Rosa being on “the California circuit.” She explicitly mentioned winning in Santa Rosa because Wyatt B. was driving his primary racing horse, “Jim Leach,” and they had expected another of their horses in the same race would win instead.

Besides competing in Santa Rosa, Wyatt Earp had another reason to be here: Buying horseflesh. While Jim Leach came from the huge Rancho Del Paso stud farm near Sacramento, Wyatt was at the Santa Rosa racetrack in August 1889 to watch the races because he was “interested in the ownership of several horses,” as he told the Sonoma Democrat.

In an article in the Dec. 9 1896 Call over a lawsuit against him, Wyatt B. told the judge “he had some race horses, but they were leased by him for three years from a woman who lives in Santa Rosa.” That followed his claim of being penniless and owned only the clothes on his back. (If he thought it might work, I’ll bet he would have plead hardship because his poor wife was a widow.)

That’s the limit of what we know for a fact about Wyatt B. in Sonoma county. So what about those nephews who lived in or around Santa Rosa?

The eldest brother of Wyatt B. Earp was Newton Jasper Earp. He had two sons who he named after his famous siblings: Wyatt Clyde Earp (“Wyatt C.”) and Virgil Edwin Earp. As Newton was a half-brother to Wyatt B. the boys were really half-nephews to the lawman.

Wyatt C. (1872-1937) first appeared in local history living in “Mendocino Township, Sonoma” (Skaggs Springs/Dry Creek) in the 1900 census. He and his new bride were staying with her father and aunt. (The census taker mistakenly identifies Wyatt C. and wife Virginia as the farmer’s nephew and niece.)

In the 1903 county directory, Wyatt C. was a Healdsburg laborer, as he was similarly listed in Geyserville, 1905. (UPDATE: In 1904 he applied for a liquor license to open a saloon on Geyserville Road, next to the Petray Brothers’ Stable. h/t Katherine Rinehart.) As Wyatt C. was in his mid twenties in the years while Wyatt B. was racing, that guy could well have operated a livery stable in Santa Rosa. How he felt about his renowned namesake is unknown, but he usually dropped the Wyatt part of his name and went by Clyde. Make of that what you will.

The 1910 census found Wyatt C. farming in Snake River Wyoming (near Jackson Hole), but from the 1920s onward he was a carpenter living mainly around Sacramento. His was apparently a quiet life.

Not so his brother, Virgil Edwin Earp (1879-1959). He was known as Eddie at times but later embraced his “Virgil Earp-ness” with gusto.

earpadulteryHe seemed unable to settle down and had at least five wives 1902-1946. And that’s not counting the incident in 1905, when he ran off with his cousin’s wife.

Virgil took the Santa Rosa woman and her two daughters to San Francisco – although they left her son behind with his father. As he was still married to someone else, an arrest warrant for adultery was issued by our local constable. The papers in the city had a field day with the scandalous story, but the Santa Rosa papers wrote little. The woman reconciled with her husband a week later and returned, but there was no word of what transpired between Virgil and his wife, or even if he ever returned to Santa Rosa.

After that episode Virgil can be traced to Napa, Fairfield, Vacaville, Cloverdale, Washington state and Nevada. Like his older brother Wyatt C. he hovered mostly around Sacramento, although they did not live together.

Because he was in the Army Quartermaster Corps around the turn of the century, Virgil applied for a military pension in 1932 as an invalid and for Social Security in 1941. He seemed on track to end his days as a forgotten, impoverished, and probably friendless old man feeding pigeons on a park bench.

But then in 1958, fate came calling for Virgil Edwin Earp.

What launched this chain of events is unknown, but in March of that year Virgil and his daughter, Alice, found themselves on an airplane for New York City. He was invited to be a contestant on “The $64,000 Question.”

That was the most popular TV quiz show of them all, and there was plenty of competition. According to its Wikipedia entry it even beat I Love Lucy in the ratings; crime rates dropped when the show was on. And for five Tuesday nights Virgil Earp was the star, winning $32,000 for answering questions about the Wild West. One of those appearances can be viewed below.


Those shows turned Virgil into a celebrity – a real, live, rootin’ tootin’ relic of the Old West, and the press swarmed around him. The Sacramento Bee showed him cradling a .38 Colt that supposedly was the last one owned by uncle Wyatt. He talked some about his life (“I was raised right at the knee of Bat Masterson and poor old Doc Holliday”) and how he was gonna write a book someday.

A news service offered a three-part feature series “The Real Wild West” about his life – “a story of fighting men, of liquor and sporting women, stud poker and revenge.” He said he was born in Tombstone, Arizona inside a covered wagon, that he was named sheriff of Paradise Valley Nevada at 18 and killed three men before he reached age 21. He was part of the posse uncle Wyatt B. formed to ride down to Mexico and avenge the death of Morgan Earp. He operated two gambling halls in Sacramento.

It was all complete bullshit.

In truth, he wasted his life bouncing between nondescript jobs – a laborer when he was young, a carpenter, grocer, salesman (both retail and door-to-door selling sewing machines) and collector for the San Francisco Chronicle. He was born at the family home in Kansas, as were his brothers and sisters. Virgil knew about Paradise Valley because his parents lived there when he was a quartermaster; he wasn’t a sheriff or law enforcement officer there or anywhere else. A researcher has put together more details debunking other lies.

No one questioned his fable then (and very few do now, for that matter) and when he died a year after his quiz show glory, newspapers nationwide ran the Associated Press obituary repeating his tall tales and glorifying him as “the last of the fighting Earps.”

Now almost completely forgotten personally, he happened to die when there was enormous interest in the Old West. It’s doubtless some of the widely-printed nonsense he spewed in 1958 about his uncles, their friends and the Genteel Art of Gunfighting seeped into resources about the Frontier West accepted as fact.

The $64,000 Question was cancelled months after his appearance when it was discovered some of the other quiz shows were rigged. Virgil was asked if he had been coached on the answers and he snorted indignantly: “Who could tell me anything about the West?”

Actually, Virgil, you were really no closer to the West than any other salesman or store clerk who read popular cowboy or “historical” magazines and dreamed of being Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickock or that great lawman, Wyatt Earp. Unfortunately, people believed everything you said because of that famous name.

 

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ELOPES WITH COUSIN’S WIFE

Virgil Earp Runs Away From Santa Rosa With Mrs. W. F. McCombs and Her Children

Special Dispatch to The Call.

SANTA ROSA, Oct. 2. — W. F. McCombs returned here from Sacramento last night to find that his wife, Mrs. Maude McCombs, had left the family home on Thursday with his two daughters in company with his cousin, Virgil E. Earp. Earp left a wife here. The couple went to San Francisco, from where Earp sent back $100 of his wife’s money, which he took with him when he left. In the same letter he said he would send later for her clothing.

This afternoon McCombs and Mrs. Earp appeared before Justice A. J. Atchinson and told their story, after which McCombs swore to a warrant for the arrest of the couple. In speaking of the matter McCombs said:

“I am done with my wife and will never take her back, but I want the children, and will fight for them to the last ditch. She took the two girls and left the boy. One of the girls is 2 years old and the other between 6 and 8.”

Mrs. Earp, who is a slender, delicate looking little blonde, said:

“We have found that Mrs. McCombs and my husband left for Petaluma last Thursday and stayed there all night. They then went to San Francisco. From there my husband sent me the $100 of my money which he took away with him when he left. I would not turn my hand over to stop him, but am willing to do what I can to help Mr. McCombs to get his children. I am done with Earp.”

The warrant was placed in the hands of Constable S. J. Gilliam and he will make every effort to capture the runaway couple.

– San Francisco Call, October 3 1905

 

Has Returned Home

Mrs. Mande McCombs, who eloped from this city last week with Virgil Earp, taking her two children with her, returned home yesterday. Earp is still absent.

– Santa Rosa Republican, October 7 1905

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fittstitle

BAD TO THE BONE


THERE WILL BE PRICES PAID
Series on the 1920 lynchings in Santa Rosa

BAD TO THE BONE
THE WOLVES OF THANKSGIVING
A FORESHADOW OF TERRIBLE DAYS
FATEFUL KNOCK ON A COTTAGE DOOR
MOB SIEGE OF THE JAIL
96 HOURS TO HANGTOWN
VENGEANCE FOR SUNNY JIM
CONSPIRACIES OF SILENCE
    HIDDEN GRAVES
    A WELL-ORDERED MILITIA

Anyone with the slightest interest in local history knows the story: About 100 years ago, a San Francisco gang sexually assaulted some women. Police tracked gang members to Santa Rosa where a shootout killed the Sonoma County sheriff along with two policemen. The gangsters were captured and taken to the county jail. A mob stormed the building and took the men to the Rural Cemetery, where they were lynched from a tree.

But that’s not the whole story – far from it. Parts haven’t been reexamined since events happened in 1920, and many details have never been revealed. And like the twice told tales about the 1906 earthquake in Santa Rosa, too much of what has been written about it over the years is distorted or flat wrong.

It’s also a surprisingly difficult story to tell because it is Rashomon-like, with three quite different ways to frame it. All versions interconnect as their storylines converge around the men who were about to be lynched – but each has people and places which are important to that viewpoint alone.

There’s the San Francisco version, which is mainly about tracking down the Howard Street Gang and prosecuting them. Besides the assorted gangsters the main players are the District Attorney, police and politicians. This story winds up in 1928 with the capture of the last fugitive gang member. To learn more, you can’t do better than “The Fall of San Francisco’s Notorious Howard Street Gang,” which can be downloaded as an e-book for three or four bucks. (The section about Sonoma County has many errors, however.)

The Healdsburg version has a narrow focus on seeking vengeance for the murder of Sheriff James Petray, who was from there and very well liked. Those who raided the jail and hanged the gangsters were not a typical liquored-up lynch mob – they acted with deliberation and precision, leaving many to presume they must have been San Francisco lawmen. Not until 1985 did one of the last surviving vigilantes confirm they were all from Healdsburg and had conducted military-style drills prior to the operation.

And then there’s the Santa Rosa version, which you’re about to read. This story ends abruptly about one o’clock in the rainy morning of Friday, December 10, 1920 when the last of the gangsters twitches and dies in the beams of auto headlights and their bodies are anonymously buried the next day. The main takeaway for this version is that the gangsters hadn’t picked Santa Rosa as their hideout by throwing a dart at a map. One of them – the very worst of the lot – was a hometown boy, who by a quirk of fate just happened to have access to a big empty house here.

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to meet Terry Fitts.

Left to Right: Terrence Fitts in 1906, 1914, 1917 and 1919
Left to Right: Terrence Fitts in 1906, 1914, 1917 and 1919

Had someone written profiles of the three lynched gangsters and asked which of them would most likely become a cop-killer, there’s little doubt that Fitts would be the prime suspect. If he was not a psychopath he certainly did a darn fine job of imitating one.

When Terry was growing up in Santa Rosa he seemed destined to have a comfortable path through life. Born in 1877, he was the only son of Jonathan Perry Fitts who owned the major lumber yard in town, taking up the whole block at the intersection of North and College (where the YMCA complex is now). His dad was also a partner of T. J. Ludwig, the main building contractor in late 19th century Santa Rosa. Terry worked at the yard while growing up and it’s likely the family expected him to inherit the business.

The Fitts were Catholic so he attended the Ursuline “Convent school,” and the first mention of Terry in local newspapers was him being whipped in 1888 by the principal of the Davis street public school for “having an encounter with one of his pupils.” What exactly 11 year-old Terry did was not explained, although the matter came up before the Board of Education and “the various members were of the belief that they would have acted in a similar manner.”

(At that same meeting the Board heard several other charges against that educator, including objections he was teaching pupils Lincoln’s assassination was justified.1 He was also asked to reply to complaints from two parents for whipping their boys as well – although in one case, a 13 year-old “turned the tables on the Professor and whipped him.” Most relevant to our story is the identify of that teacher who whipped Terry Fitts as a child: He was Henry Calvin Petray – the older brother of murdered sheriff James Petray. That has to be the wildest Believe-it-or-Not! coincidence ever to appear in this journal.)

By his early twenties Terry Fitts was regularly getting into trouble. He was mustered out of the National Guard when his regiment’s service in the Spanish–American War ended in 1899, and within days of being back in Santa Rosa he was in front of justice of the peace Judge Brown pleading guilty to…something. We don’t know what he did because the Press Democrat didn’t print the charge against him or the judge’s ruling.

That wasn’t unusual – his crimes were never mentioned in the paper. And he got special treatment by the courts, too; it finally came out in 1906 that he had been arrested 23 times in Santa Rosa and charged with a felony, only to have each crime knocked down to a misdemeanor.

Here were textbook examples of the power of privilege. The Fitts’ were a socially prominent family in town; a search of the PD and its predecessor finds hundreds of items about Terry’s parents and sisters hobnobbing with other names familiar in Santa Rosa’s small town bluebook.

The news blackout ended when Oakland muckrakers took over the Santa Rosa Republican. They published two stories in early 1905 about Fitts trying to break out of the county jail and going on trial for maliciously breaking a restaurant window. Having been in town only a couple of months, the new editors didn’t know they were supposed to tiptoe around the town’s 27 year-old homegrown monster:

Fitts is the son of highly respectable and prominent parents of this city and his frequent appearances in the police court have been causes of great regret to these parents. Every opportunity has been afforded the youth to make something of himself and he has been given opportunities to start life anew many times. Each time he has fallen into dissolute habits and the temination has been in the police or justice court. His parents have thrown about the wayward son every safeguard which could be for his benefit and these have been ruthlessly thrust aside by him and ignored.

fitts1906(RIGHT: Terrence Fitts, 1906 San Quentin mug shot)

Then later in 1905 Terry and another thug got in serious trouble by trying to rob the operator of a railroad drawbridge in Marin. When they found the elderly man had no money on him “the toughs contented themselves with beating him into insensibility and then leaving.” Later the same paper (Sausalito News) reported “one of the men is Terry Fitts, a well known crook of Santa Rosa.”

The attack on the popular old man – dubbed the “Mayor of Greenbrae” – brought him before a judge outside of Sonoma County for the first time. He was sentenced to 14 years in San Quentin.

That conviction led the Press Democrat to finally break their omertà and remark that Fitts was “leader of the Gilhooly gang of thugs and hold-up men which operates in San Francisco and surrounding towns” (nothing more can be found about them, so it’s likely they were just a bunch of street punks).

From that point on he was mostly a fulltime jailbird, sometimes free for only a few weeks before breaking parole or committing new crimes. Out on parole in 1912, then back to jail for burglary in 1914. (In a lesser Believe-it-or-Not! item, he shot a policeman in the shoulder during that arrest – it was Miles Jackson, one of the two San Francisco detectives later gunned down in Santa Rosa. EDIT: This was a mistake that first appeared in the San Francisco Examiner’s 1920 coverage and has been repeated in years since. Fitts was part of a five member gang planning to rob a jewelry store. Fitts and two others were taken into custody without incident, but the leader of the gang and another man were arrested at another location, where “Forty-Year Smith” pulled a gun and wounded Jackson.)

After being paroled and again caught for a San Francisco burglary in 1917, the San Quentin board of governors declared Fitts was incorrigible, sending him to Folsom where he was placed in solitary. Paroled again (he registered for the WWI draft in 1918 stating he was a plumber) he violated parole once more and was back in Folsom until he was discharged in November 1919. The toll all this took on him can be seen in the photo – he appears to be much older than his 42 years.

fittsprofiles(RIGHT: Terrence Fitts in 1906 and 1919)

What Terry was doing in his last year of freedom is unknown, except he was in Santa Rosa at least some of the time. He obviously still consorted with criminals in San Francisco, as three of them followed him back to Santa Rosa when the manhunt was underway.2

Which brings us to the reason why Terry Fitts – a lowlife who rarely had more than two stolen nickels to rub together – found himself with the keys to a nice house large enough to hide a bunch of his criminal chums.

In late September, 1920, his father sold the famous lumber yard. The new owners would also get Terry’s childhood home at the corner of Stewart and College (now gone, part of the YMCA complex) but the deal allowed the 71 year-old man to continue to live there until the end of the year. Where he intended to go after that is unknown, but there was a married daughter in Bennett Valley with the other in Marin’s Mill Valley.

But his future address became a moot point when he died five weeks after the sale. Until January 1 1921, the sprawling Victorian would be unoccupied.

Terry knew none of this at the time. While he had been around earlier that week, his father’s death was unexpected and the family didn’t know how to contact him – career criminals tend not to leave forwarding addresses.

It was several days after the funeral before Terry again swaggered into Santa Rosa and learned of dad’s death. Terry learned something else surprising: His father had written him out of the will. An earlier version divided the estate (worth about $400k today) evenly between him and his two sisters but it was changed in March, 1920 to leave everything to the daughters while not even mentioning Terry.

The Press Democrat expected Terry to challenge the will in court and he probably would have – except things were about to start moving very quickly. A week later the women would be sexually assaulted by the Howard Street Gang. A week after that Terry would be back in Santa Rosa with his friends who were hiding from the police. And a week after that Terry would be swinging from a rope in the old cemetery.

As events in this tragedy played out over those three weeks, Terrance Joseph Fitts would be a key player in every scene except one – he was never actually associated with the so-called Howard Street Gang.

NEXT: THE WOLVES’ THANKSGIVING


1 A popular conspiracy theory among Confederacy apologists was that Booth’s reason for killing Lincoln had nothing to do with the Civil War – that it was a personal vendetta because Lincoln reneged on a promise to spare his friend from execution by granting a pardon. No part of that story was true (MORE).

2 Besides the two gangsters who were lynched with Fitts, Louis Lazarus was with the group but returned to the city just the day before the sheriff and San Francisco officers were slain. Lazarus was also the Howard Street Gang member who was not captured until 1928.

 

sources

 

CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION.
The Investigation of the Charges Against Prof. Petray.

…The writer also accused him of having punished a lad named Fitts, who attended the Convent, for having an encounter with one of his pupils. In endeavoring to administer a whipping to a 13-year-old lad named McGregor, the communication specified, the lad turned the tables on the Professor and whipped him. This part of the communication was very wordy and pictured the scene graphically, if not a little vulgarly. It was further specified that during the last term Professor Petray had delivered a lecture to his class, taking for his thesis the assassination of President Lincoln, justifying the act of Booth by stating that Lincoln had promised to pardon a friend of Booth’s who was to be executed for attempting to wreck a railroad train. The promise was not fulfilled, hence assassination….

[..]

…As the matter stood, it was the word of Professor Petray against that of one of his pupils. There was no difference of opinion concerning Professor Petray’s act in whipping the Fitts boy. The various members were of the belief that they would have acted in a similar manner.

– Daily Democrat 10 January 1888

 

Terry Fitts, who was a member of the San Rafael company of the Eighth regiment stationed at Vancouver barracks, arrived home last night. When the boys left Vancouver, he says, there was plenty of snow there, and the climate was nothing like as nice as it is here.

– Press Democrat, February 8 1899

 

Terry Fitts Pleads Guilty

Terry Fitts in Judge Brown’s court Tuesday pleaded guilty to the charge made against him. His honor will pass sentence this morning at 10 o’clock.

– Press Democrat, February 15 1899

 

Attempts to Escape

Terry Fitts a prisoner in the county jail made an attempt to escape from that institution last night by prying open the bars at the top of the window of the second story cell in which he was confined. The prisoner who is only a youth was arrested Saturday evening by Officer John M. Boyes and while being placed in a cell at the city prison attacked the officer viciously. The latter responded by striking the prisoner a gentle tap on the cranium with his revolver and the one blow sufficed to take the desire to fight out of the prisoner. The youth’s head was cut by contact with the revolver and blood spurted from it freely.

The prisoner was quite unruly when placed in the big cell with other prisoners and his propensity for making trouble began to assert itself. In order to give him a cell in seclusion he was transferred to one of the front rooms on the second floor. In order to effect his escape the prisoner used a portion of an iron bedstead as a pry with which to bend down the iron bars at the window and was provided with some pieces of rope and his blankets with which to lower himself to the ground. The plan was frustrated by Jailor Serafino Piezzi who chanced to learn what was being done by the prisoner and removed him to a cell in solitary confinement on the lower floor.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 2 1905

 

TERRY FITTS IS FOUND GUILTY

Justice Atchinson Will Impose Sentence Tomorrow on Youth of Respectable Parents

Terry Fitts was found guilty of a charge of malicious mischief this morning by a jury in Justice Atchinson’s court. He demanded a jury trial which was given him. The alleged malicious mlchief was in having broken a window in a restaurant to which Fitts entered a plea that a mythical stranger who was with him on the occasion had broken the pane of glass. Fitts made a poor witness for himself and was unable to give an description of the alleged stranger whom he alleged had broken the glass. The jury consumed a couple of minutes in reaching a verdict.

At the instance of District Attorney Charles H. Pond sentence was postponed until tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock. The maximum punishment for the offence of which he has been convicted is six months and owing to his previous record it is believed Justice Atchinson will give him the limit.

Fitts is the son of highly respectable and prominent parents of this city and his frequent appearances in the police court have been causes of great regret to these parents. Every opportunity has been afforded the youth to make something of himself and he has been given opportunities to start life anew many times. Each time he has fallen into dissolute habits and the temination has been in the police or justice court. His parents have thrown about the wayward son every safeguard which could be for his benefit and these have been ruthlessly thrust aside by him and ignored.

When his term of imprisonment is up there are two other warrants waiting for him. One of these is for resisting an officer and the other for threatening the officer’s life. These will be pressed at the proper time.

– Santa Rosa Republican, February 2 1905

 

In the tanks of the County Jail at San Rafael Sheriff Taylor has two tough characters who are supposed to be the thugs who robbed and brutally beat aged Felix Sands, keeper of the Greenbrae drawbridge, two weeks ago. Sands has identified the men as his assailants, and they will be immediately prosecuted for a felony. One of the men is Terry Fitts, a well known crook of Santa Rosa, and the other gives his name as Woods.

– Sausalito News, December 16 1905

 

Grand Jury Will Investigate

Attorney Ross Campbell, who has been retained to defend Tom Fitts, who, with Jack Woods, is being held at San Rafael on a charge of assault with intent to kill as the result of an attack on Felix Sands, “Mayor of Greenbrae,” has received a letter saying that the case had not been acted upon before the Grand Jury, but will come up December 27.

– Press Democrat, December 21 1905

 

Fourteen Years in San Quentin

San Rafael, Feb. 23. Terence Fitts, leader of the Gilhooly gang of thugs and hold-up men which operates in San Francisco and surrounding towns, was sentenced today by Judge Lennon to fourteen years imprisonment in San Quentin. The crime for which Fitts was found guilty was assault to commit robbery against Philip Sand of Greenbrae. John Woods, a companion of Fitts, is undergoing trial for the same offense. Fitts formerly resided in Santa Rosa and is an old offender, having been arrested twenty-three times in his native town, charged with a felony, and escaping on each occasion through a reduction of the charge to a misdemeanor.

– Press Democrat, February 24 1906

 

Fitts Lumber Yard Sold to Newcomers

The sale of the J. P. Fitts lumber yard in College avenue, adjoining the Southern Pacific track, has been completed, and the new owners, George B. Fuller and John E. Columbo, took possession Thursday. The Fitts home goes in the deal, but Mr. Fitts will retain possession until Jan 1.

– Press Democrat, October 1 1920

 

CONTEST LOOMS IN FITTS WILL
Mrs. H. W. Pyburn Jr. Files Document for Probate Which Cuts Off the Son, Terrance

Mrs. Hattie Pyburn, wife of Harry W. Pyburn Jr„ filed the will of her father, the late J. Perry Fitts, for probate Saturday in the superior court. The will in hologaphlc, dated March 20, 1920 [ed. note: it was dated Mar. 7], and leaves the estate to the two daughters, Mrs. Pyburn and Mrs. Cecil Riley. It is stated that the estate, consisting of personal property, including money in bank, bonds, promissory notes, etc., is valued at about $30,000.

It is understood that there is another will which makes a number of small bequests to friends and leaves the bulk of the estate to the two daughters and son, share and share alike. The son, Terrannce [sic] Fitts, has not been located since the death of his father, and when he learns of his father’s death he may return to secure his share of the property and fight any will which leaves him without anything.

– Press Democrat, November 16 1920

 

Terrence Fitts Returns

Terrence Fitts, son of the late J. Perry Fitts, has returned home, not having learned of his father’s death until after the funeral. The young man had left here on Saturday prior to the death of his father on Tuesday night, and not having left any address could not be notified.

– Press Democrat, November 16 1920

 

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YOUNG BRAINERD JONES

If it can be said that there was a renaissance period of American architecture, then it had to be San Francisco in the 1890s. The city was vibrant with possibility; buildings were being designed that had never been imagined before. And in the middle of this was a twenty-something young man from Petaluma who was absorbing it all.

(This is the final part of a presentation made at the Petaluma Historical Library & Museum on October 20, 2018. Part one, “THE MAKING OF BRAINERD JONES,” explained how Queen Anne style and Shingle style architecture came about and became the groundwork for his career, and that his early clients were likely hyper-literate about trends in modern architecture because of the profusion of articles in popular magazines.)

Was Brainerd Jones a genius? A genius is not simply a person with a big grab bag of tricks and techniques. Whether he was a genius or not I can’t say – but he was certainly a very fine architect.

Or can we say any of his work qualifies as a masterpiece? A masterpiece is more than the sum of its parts, checking off items from a list of what’s considered attractive and pleasing – at the time. To weigh the merits of a work of nice architecture, I like to play a game called, “How easy would it be to screw this up?”

Today’s Petaluma Historical Library & Museum

 

Instead of bringing sand-colored stone from the quarry at Stony Point, Jones could have used basalt from McNear’s quarry less than a mile north of town. Besides being locally sourced, the dark gray stone would have matched Santa Rosa’s Carnegie Library, which was built in 1903.

 

Santa Rosa’s 1910 post office (now the Sonoma County Museum) is a Beaux Arts-Neoclassical-Spanish Colonial mashup with a tile roof and a portico with Corinthian columns. (MORE)
Why not a clock tower for an important public building like the town library? In 1907, John Galen Howard, one of the top architects on the West Coast, designed a lovely Beaux Arts building for a bank in downtown Santa Rosa. But the elegant architecture became merely a base for the clock tower that harkened back to the too-busy Second Empire style from about forty years before. (MORE)

 

Brainerd Jones was born in Chicago in 1869, moving to Petaluma at age six after his father died. As a teenager he was recognized at the local fair for his drawing skills and his ability in “netting,” which is a kind of crocheting. He supposedly took art lessons from Max Roth, a marble cutter and monument maker who had a yard on Western ave. The first sighting as an adult (at least, that I can find) is as a carpenter in Tiburon in 1892, and a carpenter in San Mateo the year after that. His first known professional gig was as a draftsman in 1896 for the construction firm McDougall & Son. This was not a prestigious place to work; although their main offices were in San Francisco, between 1894-1897 most of their work was around Bakersfield building hospitals, schools and jails. The successor business, McDougall Brothers, became quite important after 1906 and remained so for the next twenty years. That was long after Jones was gone, however.

 

The San Francisco that Brainerd Jones knew was still a gaudy party town, but by the mid 1890s it was quickly developing a reputation for cultural and intellectual advancement. The 1894 Exposition in Golden Gate Park celebrated the city’s progress and drew 2.5 million visitors.

 

This world’s fair also brought the city its first art museum with this odd, neo-Egyptian building which became the de Young after the fair. It was destroyed int the 1906 quake.

 

This was also a time of heated politics and all kinds of activism. Architecture was no exception; In “the Wave,” the leading local periodical of literature and the arts, Willis Polk savagely attacked the popular Queen Anne style, with photos of “monstrosities” on “Chaos Avenue.” After the 1906 earthquake, Polk would play a key role in the “City Beautiful” reconstruction of San Francisco.

 

The excitement wasn’t contained to San Francisco. Berkeley and Oakland were becoming the intellectual centers of the Bay Area, thanks in part to the growth of UC/Berkeley. Like the wildly inventive Shingle style buildings seen in part one, there were plenty of innovative homes being built in Piedmont and the Berkeley Hills. Although Jones only lived four or so years in San Francisco, imagine being twenty-something and having all this swirling around you – there was probably no better time or place in American history to be studying architecture.

 

Just as the Shingle style had architects arguing over “unity,” the byword in artistic Californian circles was simplicity in all things, and living in surroundings as natural as possible. Poet Charles Keeler, whose Maybeck home was shown in part one, wrote: “The home must suggest the life it is to encompass. The mere architecture and furnishings of the house do not make the man any more than do his clothes, but they certainly have an effect in modifying him.” The popular architecture magazines discussed the philosophy of John Ruskin, with “Ruskin Clubs” in America joining the movement already in England. In this photo c. 1901, the man seated on the far right is Jack London.

 

Jones moved back to Petaluma in 1898, where he registered to vote and gave his profession as “glassman,” which presumably meant someone who worked in leaded and stained glass. This window is from the dining room in a 1901 home designed by Jones. In the 1900 census he’s listed as an architect living on English street.

 

Jones’ first known commissions came from sisters Mary Theresa and Helen Burn in 1900 and 1901 (MORE on the Burn family). They lived in Petaluma from 1900 to 1907, but why they came here is unknown; they previously lived in Chicago and were originally from the Kitchener, Ontario area. Mary – who went by the name, “Miss M. T. Burn” – had a business on Main st. where she taught and sold “fancy work” (embroidery). The four cottages they commissioned were scattered on both east and west side lots. One is definitely lost, one can’t be found (and may not have been built) and one has been heavily modified.

 

The best surviving Burn cottage is at 332 Post street and is firmly in the popular Queen Anne cottage style, using spindlework to frame the porch. This was the last of the four Burn commissions, being built in late 1901.

 

The Byce House at 226 Liberty street also dates to 1901. It’s mostly a conventional Queen Anne with a corner tower and the usual fish scale shingles.

 

The window pediments and ornamental molding around the attic window are neoclassical, but all the finials are gothic, as is the metalwork around them on each gable.

 

Compare the Byce House wit the 1904 Harriet Brown House at 901 D st. They share some similarities, such as the porte-cochère, but this house might be his most conservative design. Victorian neoclassical elements are everywhere, from the widow’s walk at the top to the profusion of finials to garlands on the columns. Of interest is the use of two elements that would become Brainerd Jones’ signatures: The “union jack” pattern (actually classical Roman) and deconstructed Palladian windows. Note the bit of whimsy in the attic gable, which has a broken pediment inside another broken pediment.

 

Jumping back to 1901, a third Queen Anne built that year was the Lumsden House at 727 Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa. Today the front view is obscured by mature foliage

 

The stained glass seen earlier was from the Lumsden House; here is another example.

 

Like the other two homes we’ve seen from 1901, the Lumsden House is firmly American Queen Anne style. This was probably the busiest year of his career, with no fewer than nine houses under construction. At the exact same time this was being built, the Blitz Paxton House was going up next door.

 

Although the building was torn down in 1969, its footprint can be seen on the old fire maps. Guesstimating from the irregular shape, Paxton House was between 6,500 and 7,000 square feet – the largest residence Jones ever designed (MORE). As far as I know, Jones was the only architect who designed in both the popular Queen Anne style and the more artistic Shingle style.

 

In my opinion, this was based on the 1892 Anna Head school seen earlier. They have the same massing – a wider than usual building with a heavy roof. This view of the Paxton House clips off the southern end, but in the previous image it can be seen there was a significant gabled extension projecting out from the main building. Although the face of both buildings is anything but flat, they share deep eaves and a second floor slight overhang which creates a shadow to emphasize the horizontal lines. Both used decorative corbels to lend an illusion of support for projecting walls. Even if all the similarities were coincidental, they shared an unusual design for the entrances, with the front door recessed several feet and steps coming up sideways, from the left. The porch landing is concealed by a parapet, and we know from the family photos the Paxtons used this as part of their main outdoor living area, which was in keeping with the design principles of the artistic shingle architects.

 

Three years later, Jones designed another Shingle style house for Paxton’s friends who lived two doors down on the same block. Now known as Comstock House at 767 Mendocino avenue, the two houses must have made quite a statement. 

 

Seen here just after completion in 1905, the house had an astonishing number of windows and many whimsical features. Almost everything appears off-center; left/right, front/back views of the house are never symmetrical. The right sides of the gambrel gables are uncompleted (but on the east and south side only) and on south end of the porch is a decorative giant corbel that appears to be supporting the top floors. The deconstructed Palladian attic windows are above another set of deconstructed Palladian windows. In his directions to the contractor Jones even embraced the radical ideals of Wills Polk and specified no paint was to be used on any wood, inside or out; architecture, in this view, a house was no different than fine, artisan furniture.

 

But the design also shows Jones was closely following the new architectural ideas appearing in magazines, particularly Stickley’s “The Craftsman.” In 1904, Jones painted this concept shortly after Stickley published the design seen here inset. These designs would have been structurally unstable because the upper portion of the gambrel roof was too broad; the static load would have predominantly pushed outward instead of downward. As a result, Stickley’s design and this one would have probably flung itself apart under stress – such as the 1906 earthquake. That he copied Stickley’s roof profile makes another point: Jones – and most architects of his day – were terrible engineers.

 

This photo from 2006 before restoration began shows Jones also did not understand the physics of water on this type of roof. Note previous owners installed a rainstop at the end of the roof to slow the deluge in a heavy rain. The problem was that over two-thirds of the water would shoot down the small portion of the roof seen here on the left. The solution was to add gutters twice as wide and deep as the original plus a diverter where the angles change.

 

Several houses Jones designed in the 1910s seem derived from Stickley’s Craftsman Homes, but he was very much in touch with other modern trends. His 1908 design for the Saturday Afternoon Club in Santa Rosa (MORE) was in synch with the the Arts and Crafts movement’s cottage style now called “First Bay Tradition.”

 

Let’s end this survey of young Brainerd Jones with the earliest known picture of him. Here he is, age 39, at the groundbreaking for the clubhouse just mentioned. As you can see, he was a short man and was apparently sensitive about that; in the voter registrations his height kept growing from 5′ 6-3/4″ to 5-7 and then 5-8. But at this point in his life he had designed at least 25 homes as well as commercial buildings and a remarkable public library. Should he have retired on this day he would still have left a towering legacy – but he remained working at his drafting table for another 37 years.

 
So let’s ask again the questions I raised at the beginning.

Was he a genius? It’s jaw-dropping that he accomplished this work with his minimal training and education apparently limited to what he read in magazines and saw on the street. Yes, his lack of engineering caused some of his buildings to be flawed, but so were many of the works of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Were his designs architectural masterpieces? I would argue the Petaluma Museum qualifies. It’s neoclassical but also original, with yet another take on deconstructed Palladian windows. And then there’s the stained glass dome – something usually found in upscale hotels and businesses or churches. And that raises another “how easy it is to screw up” test; since this is a library and patrons are supposed to be looking down at books, wouldn’t clear skylights and hanging drop lights be more practical?

I believe every home he designed was considered a masterpiece by its original owner. Each was designed to fit their tastes and lifestyle like a glove. Mrs. Brown obviously wanted an old-fashioned design and Jones gave it to her, yet without larding on Victorian ornamentation. Blitz Paxton wanted the biggest house in town so he and his wife could throw lavish parties. And Jones gave him that, plus an ultra-modern look which dialed it up to bring attention to his ostentatious lifestyle.

That, I think, was Brainerd Jones’ real genius; he listened intensely to his clients so as to fully understand what would make them happy. The design became a collaborative effort.

And this also shows he deeply understood the principles of John Ruskin. When you live in a house that has been put together thoughtfully – even a simple California craftsman cottage – it has an impact on your outlook every day. Coxhead, Polk, Maybeck and other California architects at the time also knew this; it was about something deeper than picturesque street views – it was about creating art someone actually lived in.

 

 

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