From the Richard Schellen Collection
A force of men are at work at Point New Year on the Ano Nuevo fog signal. The action of the waves last winter undermined a portion of the ground where the signal house stnads, which necessitated the building of a breakwater. Some 300 barrels of cement will be used in constructing this wall.
Permalink Comments off
By John Vonderlin
Email John (benloudman@sbcglobal.net)
To view The Sunken Cathedral, Act I, click here
Permalink Comments off
From the Coastside Cultural Resources, 1980
Point Ano Nuevo
“A number of features combine to make Point Ano Nuevo the most remarkable and spectacular area on the entire Coastside. Punta del Ano Nuevo was one of the first landforms in California to receive a Spanish name. From his ship in January 1603, Captain Sebastian Viscaino saw the point and its island while exploring for Spain.
“The first contact between Europeans and the natives of this land, the Ramaytush or San Francisco Costanoan Indians occurred here in 1769 when the Portola expedition entered what is today San Mateo County one mile to the south.
“A Spanish engineering officer returned later to survey the area and an outpost of Mission Santa Cruz was established after 1798. The first American settlers came in the decade after the Gold Rush, building a wooden railroad for lumbering and introducing large scale dairy farming.”
——
Ano Nuevo Island
“This small island, once the tip of a peninsula, is one of the most important pinniped breeding grounds in Northern California, including the elephant seal. This animal has returned to the island in the past decade after virtual extinction around the turn of the century.
“The island has been the site of a light station since 1890, when a light was added to the warning of the foghorn installed in 1872. The light station was abandoned in 1848 and today is occuped by seals and sea lions.”
Permalink Comments off
John Vonderlin (JV): Here are some pages from Harvey Mowry’s book that concern the Fog Whistle. He gave me permission to use his book for educational purposes when I called him a month or so ago to track down a copy of his book for Robin Caldwell. The San Mateo Historical Society had four, apparently the last four left at that time. Meg just bought herself another copy, so I could dogear this one I borrowed from her. And now there are only two left. I wish my responsibilities didn’t prevent me from driving up to Pioneer to sit down and talk with him about his books and his memories of the Gazos area early in the last century. Enjoy.
Russell Towle (RT): I gather the crossing to the Island was hazardous even back then.
The pier on the Island is exactly where we used to beach the Zodiac raft.
I believe the one photo misidentifies the fog whistle building as
being behind the residence. As the first photo correctly states, the
fog whistle building was on the northwest corner of the island. In the
incorrectly-labeled photo, the fog whistle would have been on the
southwest corner. I can’t rule it out, but the two captions are
inconsistent, either one is wrong, or the other.
To me that fog-whistle building must be the same one which was in such
great shape even in 1970. It was on the northwest end of things, as
seen in your Google aerial photo. I don’t recall any trace of the
small steam engine. The picture shows it before those cement walls
were built, with their extensive slabs.
Those cement slabs near what I think is the true fog-whistle building
were not favored by the sea lions; they and the sea elephants stayed
off them. Hence not covered with feces. But they loved the house.
R
June: When the Pigeon Point lighthouse was built in 1872, it was not the first fog whistle on the South Coast. There was already one at Ano Nuevo, and the locals grumbled that the ships passing by could get confused–because the whistles were timed differently.
Email John Vonderlin (benloudman@sbcglobal.net)
Email Russell Towle (russelltowle@gmail.com)
Email June (june@halfmoonbaymemories.com)
Permalink Comments off
June says: Russell, I remember meeting Merrill. He’s the man I met at AN, near the big sculpture with his address on it. There were numbers carved in it.
Russell Towle says: Cool.
So you met Merrill!
He was amazing. He had an old Willys 4WD station wagon. When it came
time to lift the 6X12 rafters and 12X12 ridgepoles into place, just a
month or two before those photos were taken, Merrill contrived a
bizarre thing out of driftwood and weird old stuff he’d bought at
junkyards. Let’s see. A funky trailer made from an old pickup truck
bed. To that attach a 5-horsepower gasoline engine. To that attach a
winch with a hundred feet of cable. To the funky trailer attach long
beams spliced together by overlapping them and bolting them together,
to make a boom. Attach an old pulley to the top of the boom, and run
the cable through it.
Then winch the heavy 6X12’s into the air. However, the boom canted so
far aft of the trailer that at the slightest provocation the weight
would overbalance, and first the trailer itself with engine, winch,
and all would lift into the air, and then the back of the Willys would
lift into the air.
What was required was to drive the thing in low range, first gear, and
never ever turn at all sharply. We’d hoist those big beams up just a
few feet, the rafters, and then drive them around to the side of the
house they belonged to. Then, temporarily brace the boom, and winch
them higher. Higher. Nerve-wracking. Each one weighed hundreds of
pounds. Plus each 6X12 rafter had a very precise “birdsmouth” cut
(Merrill called it) to fit around the 12X12 ridgepole, which was on a
45-degree angle like a diamond. So the rafters were cut to fit around
that corner of the 12X12. Once in place, a few spikes would secure
them long enough for me to climb up on top of the ridge and drill long
holes with a 3/4-inch augur bit eighteen inches long, through both
6X12 rafter and 12X12 ridgepole. Then I would run a long bolt through,
galvanized, which Merrill had picked up at some junkyard, used PG&E bolts I believe, and add a big washer and nut and tighten it all up.
So the framing of the Big House was quite an adventure.
R
Permalink Comments off
Captions/Photos by Russell Towle
email Russell (russelltowle@gmail.com)
The picture “cabin north” is just inside my tiny cabin looking north.
My kitchen had a Corona hand mill I had bought via the Whole Earth
Catalog. I ground up my own cream of rice from brown rice, things like
that.
The Big House, now a ranger residence, was framed from huge old
redwood bridge timbers. Then we filled in with adobe bricks to make
the walls. You can see the palettes of big adobe bricks.
Janet Creelman, I always thought of her, although at this time she was
married to Merrill Bickford aka Stuart Harwood. An amazing person.
Merrill Bickford. The building contractor cum sculptor who won a
Fulbright scholarship to study bronze casting in Italy back in the
1950s. Quite an unusual man, very gifted. Prone to rants about Art.
R
Permalink Comments off
Photos/captions by Russell Towle
email Russell (russelltowle@gmail.com)
Hi June and John,
I thought you might like to see some pictures of my cabin. These are
from the fall of 1970. I’ll send some more later.
R
email Russell Towle (russelltowle@gmail.com)
The Cabin at Ano Nuevo
Bigfoot***
Cabin Seaward
***Bigfoot
June: Is there a story behind Bigfoot’s moniker?
Russell: Yes, he was somewhat tall, around 6′3″, and had spectacularly big
feet. He and I both went barefoot all the time so our feet were always
out there. Our feet were so damn tough after a year of no shoes …
Permalink Comments off
Story by John Vonderlin
email John (benloudman@sbcglobal.net)
email Russell Towle (russelltowle@gmail.com)
You’ve got a wonderful piece of history, that you can proud that you went to the trouble to save. Just getting back from the Island without breaking it must have been a challenge.
“Other improvements to the island consisted of a water catchment
basin, together with a cistern and a tank.”
OK, I am sane after all.
The buildings more to the seaward side of the Island would have been
the fog whistle buildings. Apparently there were three different fog
horns or whistles installed over the years.
You know, John, interesting historical resources include, around 1880,
various official California country histories, often published by
Thompson & West. I believe there is a T & W History of San Mateo
County which I used to consult in the early 1970s.
Then there are the General Land Office maps, made over a period of
decades. Around here these begin around 1866. Each map showed a
“township” of thirty-six sections. That is, a township is six miles on
a side. Ideally. These “cadastral” surveys form the basis for all
legal property descriptions in CA. First they laid in the township
boundaries, then the section lines. And the surveyors took notes. So
you can not only consult various generations of the maps but for each
map are the survey notes.
So you might read something like, “Beginning at the SW corner of the
township I go north five chains thirteen links, cross Farmer Jones’
fence, fifteen chains three links find blazed fir witness corner to SE
corner of Rancho Cañada Grande, … .” And so on. All in longhand. The
Bureau of Land Management is the official custodian of these maps and
notes. Most people call them “GLO” maps.
————–
June: Moore & Depue published The Illustrated History of San Mateo County in the 1870s; the book was reproduced 100 years later, and is filled with clean illustrations of ranches and public buildings and includes the town of Pescadero (but not Half Moon Bay) and one of the Steele’s homes.
Permalink Comments off
Story & Photos by Russell Towle
email Russell (russelltowle@gmail.com)
John, June, an example of one of my hewn timbers from Green Oaks Creek (one end still has its tenon); a picture of my Año Nuevo Lighthouse window, made in 1971 for a little cabin I lived in in Grass Valley, now just leaning against my back wall and gathering dust; and a picture of my one “Japanese” glass fishing float, near a chunk of fossiliferous Pliocene siltstone from south of the Point on the old Coastways Ranch beach, where one can see lenses of shells in the brown siltstone of the cliffs. Hank Bradley always used to joke that those lenses of shell fragments must surely be in the way of being coprolites, masses of whale shit as it were.
R
Permalink Comments off
