The Evening News. October 2, 1916.

10. San Jose As A Child.

As a child, according to the few photographs of her in existence, San Jose was physically not lovely. She gave little promise of her beautiful womanhood. The first houses in San Jose were built without architects. Very simple they were at the time George Washington was President of the United States.

The method of building a house by a colonist was this. He selected a raised spot near running water and placed thereon four logs perpendicularly, forming the frame of the house. Upon these logs smaller ones were laid. To these were tied a roof of tule leaves made waterproof. Then a foundation of large stones was made on the ground from post to post. With mortar small stones were placed upon the large ones. These were added until the wall of the house reached the roof. The house was divided into two or three rooms. Finally an attic was built.

Wooden doors, whitewashed walls inside and out, were a social distinction among the thrifty, early colonists. Plain, indolent people had doors of hides. The doors were seen quite late in the last century in San Jose in the district known as the "Pocket," the old Mexican quarter, formally in San Pedro street, between San Fernando and Post.

The furniture of the colonists consisted of a cot and three or four chairs covered with skins. Some stools, coarse crockery, blankets and a table completed the furnishing of the average house.

On the ranches the corral was on a level spot in front of the house. Fresh bull hides were nailed to each post which was anointed with bull's blood. Hundreds of cattle could be driven into the corral by two vaqueros.

Although colonists came continually from Los Angeles where the conditions for strangers were not favorable, in 1819 the population of the Pueblo was not more than 188. Half the men had joined the army.

In those days one of the most distinguished visitors was Kotzebue, the Russian traveler, for whom Kotzebue Sound was named. In 1824 Kotzebue wrote of San Jose as a "beautiful spot, unburdened with taxes." Kotzebue probably did not consider as a tax a payment of one-third of the tallow from the cattle to the Spanish Governor at Monterey. He speaks of the simple life of the Spanish land-owners, and he dwells upon their cordiality, and Castellian grace.

Beachey, another visitor in the early Pueblo days, wrote of San Jose as the "largest settlement of the kind in upper California. It consists of mud houses, miserably provided in every respect."

Captain Duhant-Cilly of the French navy, who at the same time left his ship at Monterey for a visit to San Jose, describes it as a "town of eighty houses, and not prosperous." Another traveler speaks of San Jose as a "row of adobe houses around the Plaza festooned with red peppers." In 1830 Robinson wrote of San Jose as possessing a "church, a court house, a jail and a grist mill." Real estate decidedly had no boom. In 1828 a lot of fifty by three hundred feet sold for $100 and a pot of soap.

However, in 1834 great changes came with the coming of the Dons.

Transcribed by Claire Martin, for the Santa Clara Co. CAGenWeb Project. 2007.

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