Gold Coast is a Microcosm of Early Alameda History

The Alameda Post’s first September walk will take us through the western edge of Alameda’s Gold Coast. As we explore the streets in this neighborhood, we will see how part of this property developed from a section of 155 acres of land sold to Henry Fitch and William Sharon in 1852. We’ll also see how the Chipman family returned to Alameda from San Francisco, settled on, and had a hand in building homes on a pair of streets on our walk—one of which was named for the matriarch of the family, the other for her favorite composer.

Teutonia Park Homestead is centered on today’s Hawthorne Street. San Francisco wine merchant Jacob Remmel invested some of the profits from his business here. He invited his fellow Germans to join him. They pooled their money and created a homestead, an organization that eliminated the need for a broker when purchasing real estate.

They acquired two parcels of land in Alameda. We will be walking through one of them. We’ll learn why this land took on the appearance of a slice of pie and how, at first, it blocked Caroline Street’s access to the San Francisco Bay. Jacob Remmel’s son Julius teamed up with Felix Marcuse to form a successful homebuilding team . We’ll see some of those homes on our walk, including one that they built for the Chipman family.

William Farragut Chipman, known to all as “Will,” played a key role in developing the second section of land on our walk. Will’s roots run deep in Alameda’s soil. His parents, Caroline McLean and William Worthington Chipman , married in 1857. His father and his partner, Gideon Aughinbaugh , founded a town across San Francisco Bay and named it Alameda. His mother’s presence in the new town no doubt filled a void, as Gideon had lost his wife, Elizabeth, two years earlier. They laid Elizabeth to rest somewhere in Alameda, but her resting place is lost to us.

“The light of the house went into everlasting darkness,” Will’s father wrote in his diary. “We have been so long as one family. Aughinbaugh’s heart is nearly broken,” Will’s parents settled into the “knock-down” house—one assembled elsewhere, likely in San Francisco, and put back together in the new town—on Peach Street.

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Join Alameda Post Historian Dennis Evanosky as he shows off the Gold Coast’s “West End” this month. We’ll check out some magnificent homes on Caroline, Weber, and Hawthorne streets. When we visit Weber Street, Dennis will present a live and in-person then-and-now moment with a large photograph of Caroline Dwinelle’s impressive home and gardens. And, yes, Caroline Street bears Caroline’s name. She was the widow of town founder William Worthington Chipman and wife of John J. Dwinelle when the home was built.  Did you know that Hawthorne Street was first named for a woman? We’ll learn the name and speculate who it might be.

Tours meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Central Avenue on Sunday, September 8 , and Saturday, September 14, 2024. Tickets are $20. More tour information .

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Things never seemed to go right. The founders had once ordered fruit trees to produce some income. Gideon and William ambitiously paid—upfront—for 1,000 trees that would produce various types of fruit. When William went to pick up the trees in San Francisco, he learned that someone had stolen 400 of them. He and Gideon also had trouble selling land on their newly acquired peninsula. Worse yet, squatters arrived and simply stole their land. William, who was an attorney, started taking these land thieves to court. All he had to show for his efforts in the end, however, were reams and reams of blue folders, each representing a case tied up in court.

Their dreams soured and they soon had had enough. Gideon decided to leave. He took his daughter Ella with him to the Central Valley, where they settled in Visalia for a time. William and Caroline returned to San Francisco. Both the 1860 and 1870 census records show them living there with their growing family. Will was born in San Francisco in 1862. Three sisters, Lizzie, Alice and Fannie, were there to welcome him into the world. Their brother, Sheridan, joined them in 1865. Sadly, they lost their father on November 19, 1873.

Caroline mourned her loss. Her children, parents, and sisters helped her rebound. She met John Whipple Dwinelle; they married in 1877. Her new husband had served as the mayor of Oakland, and sat in the California Assembly for a time. We remember him today as the Assemblymember who introduced the “Organic Act,” the bill that created the University of California. He served as one of the university’s first regents.

On January 31, 1881, Caroline received news that John had drowned in the Carquinez Straits. He had run off the Port Costa ferry pier into the water while trying to catch the ferryboat Solano to Benicia. His body was not found until February 17, when a group of men saw it floating near the pier where he had fallen into the water. Dwinelle Annex, built in 1920 on the UC Berkeley campus, was named for him. The university renamed that building and it’s still in use. In 1952, the 300,000-square-foot Dwinelle Hall rose up. It still serves the students and administration.

After his stepfather’s death, Will began to learn the real estate trade. He had a hand in building homes on the family’s property just west of the Teutonia Homestead in a tract called “Kings Avenue Opening.” Kings Avenue became a part of San Antonio Avenue in 1892 when the Alameda, Oakland, and Piedmont Railway Company “opened” the street for its new electric streetcars.

Will named one street in King’s Opening for his mother, and let her choose the name of the second street. She picked the name of her favorite composer, Karl Maria von Weber. Will developed a second tract to the north. Her mother chose to name the streets for two more of her favorites, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi. Caroline knew that Mozart and von Weber were related. They were cousins by marriage.

We at the Post can never resist engaging in a “no-it’s-not” moment in this type of situation. Chapin Street meets Lincoln Avenue across from Mozart and Verdi streets. Some say that Caroline named this street for Frédéric Chopin and the City misspelled the composer’s name. Not so. That street is in the Mastick Tract. Samuel Austin Chapin was a merchant and Edwin Mastick’s friend. The Mastick family named the street for him.

Caroline died at her Weber Street home on April 16, 1912. The house met the wrecking ball, but the Alameda Museum has a wonderful picture of the home with Caroline and her family in the front yard. The Post has a copy of the photo, which we will share during our walk—at the very spot where the home stood—rather than include it with this article. Like Caroline, Gideon and Ella returned to Alameda. He built a home for himself and his daughter on Taylor Avenue. He added a workshop to the back of the property. He was working on an improved bicycle wheel when he passed in 1898. A plaque on the sidewalk at 611 Taylor Avenue marks the spot where Gideon and Ella lived.

Alameda Post contributing writer Steve Gorman adds some very interesting details to this story, along with more about Gideon’s life, in his story that begins with Today’s Alameda Treasure – 611 Taylor Ave., Part 1 .

Dennis Evanosky is the award-winning Historian of the Alameda Post . Reach him at dennis@alamedapost.com . His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Dennis-Evanosky .

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