Object Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
Black Lace Shawl, 1800 |
Object Name |
Shawl |
Description |
Black Lace Shawl, 1800. Hand appliqué shawl is made of black lace. Comprised of solid satiny fabric and tulle openwork, it has leaf/floral motifs throughout the inside and outside of the shawl and a scalloped edge. |
Date |
1800 |
Catalog Number |
0002.227.007 |
Collection |
3D - Clothing |
Creator |
Unknown |
Role |
Fiber Artist |
Inscription Text |
none |
Provenance |
Belonged to Mrs. J.H. Poett (Sarah Poett) in Chile, 1800 |
Notes |
"A shawl... is a simple item of clothing, loosely worn over the shoulders, upper body and arms, and sometimes also over the head. It is usually a rectangular or square piece of cloth, that is often folded to make a triangle but can also be triangular in shape. Other shapes include oblong shawls…" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaw 3/13/2017] "The origin of shawls in the world can be traced back more than 700 years. However it has not been confirmed as to when and where the first shawl was made and in fact by whom. It was Zain-Ul-Ahadin in mid 14th century who introduced the art of weaving in the Kashmir valley. The Embroidered shawl was the creation of a peasant called Ali Baba. Allegedly Ali Baba once noticed the imprint of a fowl's feet left on a white sheet and he proceeded to embroider the outline with coloured thread to enhance the effect and that is how the embroidered shawls were introduced. Silk and cotton thread is used for embroidery. The artisan has to twist the raw silk until it fits the eye of the needle. The workmanship is so intricate and time consuming that some embroidered shawls take 2 to 4 years time to complete. The first record comes from the Mughals period. By the 16th Century the Kashmir shawl industry was an old and well-established one. King Akbar encouraged and promoted the manufacture of shawls in Kashmir. He also presented a gift of Kashmir jamawar shawl to the Queen of England. Fabrics Bernier description of shawls in the late 17th Century, leaves us in no doubt that he is referring to the same pashmina shawls that became famous as Kashmir (Cashmere) Shawls. It became a highly fashionable and stylish garment when Empress Josephine famously received Kashmir shawls as gifts from Napoleon. The shawls became a favoured item in the wardrobe of every fashionable woman in Europe, particularly in France. The Industry flourished during this period. The Industry suffered through the reign of Afghan and then Sikh rule. This was a period in Kashmir history where there was a marked decline in crafts. However, in the late 18th Century during the reign of Maharaja Ranbir Singh, the trade picked up. In the early 19th Century the shawl exhibitions in the European market helped to create awareness and promote Kashmir shawls again throughout the world. Pashmina refers to a type of cashmere wool made from it. The name comes from Pasmineh originate from the Persian word for wool pashm . This wool comes from changthangi or ladakh or pashmina goat, a special breed of goat indigenous to high altitude of the Himalayas. The high Himalayas has a harsh, cold climate and the goats , who have developed an exceptionally warm fine light fibre coat, shed their winter coat every spring and the fleece is caught on thorn bushes. Villagers would scour the mountainside for the finest fleece to be used. The pashmina goat in that freezing environment grows a unique, incredibly soft coat called pashm, which is six times finer than human hair. It is so fine that it cannot be spun by machines, so the wool is hand-woven into cashmere products including shawls, scarves, wraps, throws, stoles etc. for export worldwide. Cashmere shawls have been manufactured in Kashmir for hundreds of years. Cashmere used for pashmina shawls was claimed to be of a superior quality. One distinct difference between Pashmina and Cashmere is the diameter of the fibre. Pashmina fibres are finer and thinner than cashmere fibres, therefore it is ideal for making light weight garments like fine scarves. In the fashion world, pashmina shawls were redefined as a shawl/wrap with cashmere and silk, (known as silk pashmina), while maintaining the actual meaning of pashmina. Today, however, the word PASHMINA has been used too liberally. Some shawls marketed as pashmina shawls contain wool, while other companies have marketed the man-made fabric viscose or polyester as "pashmina" with deceptive marketing statements such as "authentic viscose pashmina", thus creating confusion in the market. One of the most beautiful traditional Kashmir shawls is the traditional kani, that requires a whole year to complete. The word pashmina is not a labelling term recognized by law in the United States. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission: "Some manufacturers use the term pashmina to describe an ultra fine cashmere fibre; others use the term to describe a blend of cashmere and silk. The FTC encourages manufacturers and sellers of products described as pashmina to explain to consumers, on a quality label, what they mean by the term. As with all other wool products, the fibre content of a shawl, scarf or other item marketed as pashmina must be accurately disclosed. For example, a blend of cashmere and silk might be labelled 50% Cashmere/50% Silk or 70% Cashmere/30% Silk, depending upon the actual cashmere and silk content. If the item contains only cashmere, it should be labelled 100% Cashmere or All Cashmere. The label cannot say 100% Pashmina, as pashmina is not a fibre recognized by the Wool Act or regulations."[ http://www.greenelephantcollection.com/index.php?route=articles/article&article_id=1 3/13/2017] "As the first family to build a large estate on the mid-Peninsula, the Howards laid the foundation for local social life and philanthropy. Today, the Howard family’s most enduring legacy is the lush landscaping for which the area is known. The stately eucalyptus, redwood, Monterey pine and other mature trees one sees throughout San Mateo Park, Hillsborough and Burlingame were all planted under the direction of the Howard family and their Scottish gardener John McLaren.1 Another important Howard legacy is the founding of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, an important community asset—then and now. At the end of the nineteenth century, the second generation of Howards left their own legacy: The Burlingame Country Club and the stylish train station at the foot of Burlingame Avenue that was built to serve the club’s members. The property on which the station sits and the station’s unique design were both supplied by Howard family members.2 Two of the area’s other architectural icons—the Kohl Mansion and the building that now houses the Hillsborough police department—are also Howard designs. Howard Avenue, named after this family, is located in downtown Burlingame. (The Howard family that is described in this exhibit is not related to Charles Howard, the owner of the racehorse Seabiscuit. Charles Howard moved to Burlingame-Hillsborough in the 1920s). The Howards’ original Peninsula property, the 6,500-acre Rancho San Mateo, stretched from Sanchez Creek in the north (near Sanchez Avenue in modern-day Burlingame) to San Mateo Creek in the south (near modern-day Mills Hospital in San Mateo) and from the San Francisco Bay through the hills of Hillsborough to the modern-day 280 freeway. In June of 1849, William Davis Merry ("W.D.M.") Howard, a tall, handsome, dynamic man, stood on the San Francisco bay front eagerly awaiting a ship from Valparaiso, Chile. A merchant mariner, 30-year-old W.D.M. had been trading cowhides and other goods between the California coast, then a province of Mexico, and his hometown of Boston for over a decade. Suspecting that California would become an important trading center as the United States continued to expand westward, W.D.M. invested much of his profit in real estate. By the summer of 1849, at the start of California’s Gold Rush, he was already a well-to-do man. W.D.M. liked to meet the incoming ships, ever alert for new business opportunities. However, when he first saw 16-year-old Agnes Poett step off the ship from Valparaiso, Chile, he saw opportunity of another sort. Within one month, W.D.M. and Agnes married and within one year Agnes gave birth to their first son. At least that is the story that has been handed down through the Howard and Poett families for generations.1 Others believe that the marriage was an arranged one, uniting the eligible 16-year-old Chilean beauty with the 30-year-old lonely, but energetic and successful, widower in a city where women—at least the ones whom respectable men would consider bringing home to mother—were scarce. Regardless of why they married, once they did join in holy matrimony, the new couple contributed extensively to virtually every one of San Francisco’s nascent civic institutions, including the beginnings of police and fire departments, schools, hospitals and a church—enough so that a major San Francisco street south of Market was named after them. Already present and trading in San Francisco in 1847, W.D.M. was one of the first to learn of the discovery of gold. On June 11, 1848, he wrote to his trading partner in Boston and requested that he fill a ship bound for San Francisco immediately. With great excitement, W.D.M. described: "[I]t is about six weeks since the discovery . . . People here are perfectly crazy. This town has been almost deserted . . . they have paid as high as $30 for a ¼ of beef rather than go 20 miles to obtain it for $3 & $4 . . . Crews are leaving their vessels . . . we shall be famished this year if produce is not brought from foreign ports . . . I recommend your fitting out an expedition immediately . . ."2 Entrepreneurs like W.D.M. who were already resident in San Francisco before the Gold Rush had inside knowledge that instantly elevated their status in the community and made them well-positioned to benefit from the influx of fortune seekers. Before gold was discovered in 1848, San Francisco’s population was estimated to be a mere 800 people; by the following year the population had swelled to over 25,000.3 W.D.M. knew where to get provisions of all sorts, knew the best travel routes, knew where to find accommodations. An extremely energetic and industrious man, one can imagine W.D.M. directing traffic at the waterfront while barking buy and sell orders from his big barrel chest. When the U.S. Senator’s daughter and socialite Jesse Benton Frémont arrived by ship in June of 1849, several weeks ahead of her explorer husband, it was W.D.M. who sent his private launch to her ship to greet her and welcome her to San Francisco.4 When half the population was estimated to be living in tents in June of 1849, W.D.M. knew how and where to order prefabricated houses to be sent to San Francisco "ASAP" to meet the growing need. By 1850, one gets the sense that W.D.M. and other early residents of San Francisco wanted a "badge" by which to identify themselves to newcomers: In that year they formed the Society of California Pioneers, a club that requires, as a condition of membership, that members prove they (or their ancestors) were living in California prior to January 1, 1850. W.D.M. served as the Society’s first president.5 The one thing this vigorous man did not have in the summer of 1849, while he paced the waterfront waiting for the ship from Valparaiso, was a wife. His first wife, Mary Warren, had died in childbirth in Honolulu during the winter of 1848. Women suitable as wives were rare in Gold Rush California. When W.D.M. married his second wife Agnes, he was protective and solicitous of her. Not long after young Agnes disembarked from her ship in June of 1849, W.D.M. bought her a home in San Francisco, perhaps in an effort to assuage any doubts she may have harbored about the desirability of her new city, where most people were living in tents or abandoned ships. The home was undoubtedly purchased at great expense, since Jessie Benton Frémont, who arrived in San Francisco the same month that Agnes did, reported that in June of 1849 there were only "three or four regularly built houses in San Francisco . . . the rest were canvas and blanket tents." One year later, in 1850, the same year that their first son William H. Howard was born, W.D.M. and Agnes added to their real estate holdings: They became the sole owners of 6,500-acre Rancho San Mateo, some 20 miles south of San Francisco.6 The Howards probably did not spend a lot of time at the San Mateo ranch at first. After all, W.D.M’s businesses and civic responsibilities were in San Francisco. As early as 1847, W.D.M. had assumed a leadership role in the small hamlet, serving on an early town council. After the Gold Rush, he continued to serve the public, first on a force of "special constables" to combat The Hounds7 and later as a Vigilante.8 He was also a commander in the California Guards.9 After statehood, there were also legal matters that needed attention. W.D.M. served as a supernumerary delegate to the state constitutional convention. He was called as a witness to testify in numerous court cases brought to clear title to the old Spanish land grants. He also served as the executor of the estate of another well-known merchant, William Leidesdorff. A San Francisco fire in the early 1850s nearly wiped out W.D.M.’s numerous residential and business properties and this crisis demanded his attention.10 Lastly, W.D.M.’s social life, and to the extent Agnes had one in the rough and tumble Gold Rush days, then hers as well, were in San Francisco. A grand ball thrown by the Society of California Pioneers to celebrate California’s admission to the United States was so grand it was said to have "put most of the members in bed for a week and bankrupted the society’s treasury."11 The Society also elected a board that met in San Francisco to conduct its business. In honor of its first President, Henry Kull, a well-known musician at that time, wrote a "Pioneer March" and dedicated the piece to Captain W.D.M. Howard. By late 1852, the formerly robust W.D.M. began to suffer from poor health. The family, which by that time had grown to include two young boys, took an extended trip in 1853 and 1854 to his family’s home in the Boston area to nurse his health. Not long after they returned to the Bay Area, he died, on January 19, 1856. The Daily Alta California reported the following morning that "Capt. W.D.M. Howard died at his residence in the city this morning at 9 o’clock. He was one of the Pioneers of California and has been one of the most successful businessmen of San Francisco, having amassed a princely fortune since his residence in this State." W.D.M. was 36. Agnes, his widow, was 23. His young son William H. Howard was 6. When 16-year-old Agnes Poett first stepped onto San Francisco soil in June of 1849, San Francisco was a primitive backwater compared to her home port of Valparaiso, Chile. A Chilean of English descent, Agnes had been raised in Concepción, Chile, by her physician father Dr. Joseph Henry Poett and her mother Sarah, who had died the year before. Valparaiso was a cosmopolitan city for its time. After Chile broke free from the Spanish empire and its restrictive trade policies, Valparaiso became an international port, with a substantial English-speaking population. It was an important stop for all trading ships traveling through the Straits of Magellan from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Agnes’s future husband, W.D.M. Howard, and his business associates knew the port well. Another ex-Bostonian trader, with whom Howard was acquainted, Faxon Dean Atherton, made his home in Valparaiso in 1843, after marrying a daughter from one of Chile’s finest families. Agnes spoke three languages: English, Spanish and French. Like other well-bred girls of her time, she played the piano and was an equestrian. She was also beautiful: Thick brown hair, big brown eyes, and a button nose topped her petite and shapely figure. When Agnes and W.D.M. married on July 9, 1849, they could not have foreseen the sorrows that were to come. By the time their second son was born—just two and one-half years after their marriage—the family had endured both the tumult and lawlessness of early Gold Rush San Francisco and the great fire of 1851. Then, W.D.M.’s health began to fail. In late 1852, the family sailed for W.D.M.’s native Boston for a holiday with his extended family. While there, the young couple left their two toddler boys in the care of a nurse while they went to a seaside resort. When they returned to their hotel, to the horror of all, they found that the nurse had reportedly drunk cologne, gone crazy and beaten the younger son, Freddy, to death by holding him by his skirts and banging his head against the wall. The older boy, 3-year-old Willie, was also badly beaten but managed to escape from the woman and hide.1 After the horrific murder of their child, Agnes, with young William in tow, left for Paris accompanied by her father and sisters. The apparent purpose of the trip was recuperative after the awful events in Massachusetts. Too sick to go with the group, however, W.D.M. stayed in the Boston area, nursing his undiagnosed illness. W.D.M. wroteseveral tender letters to Agnes while she was in Paris, describing his health issues, his daily life in Massachusetts, his concern about her and little Willie, and his eagerness to return to San Mateo. In one letter, W.D.M. described a bouquet of flowers that were sent to his home while he was having tea and he wrote: "among them were some sweet pea. I send enclosed two or three to remind you of California where I wish we were." A few weeks later, W.D.M. wrote: "Kiss Willie a hundred times for me and tell him to be a good boy and as soon as he gets back to San Mateo he shall have a pony with a saddle and a bridle." The cause of W.D.M.’s poor health is unknown. Some have speculated that W.D.M. suffered from liver damage caused by excessive drinking; some have thought that he contracted malaria and/or yellow fever on one of his trips across the Isthmus. Whatever the cause of his poor health, the Howards eventually returned to California. They spent most of 1855 nursing W.D.M.’s health, with country visits to their San Mateo ranch home, which they named El Cerrito. When W.D.M. eventually succumbed to his illness in January 1856 at the age of 36, he left Agnes a widow at the age of 23, with one six-year old son and the haunting memories of another son, now deceased. Agnes did not remain a widow for long.2 On Saturday, October 17, 1857, George Henry Howard married Agnes Poett Howard, the widow of his older brother W.D.M., in a 9 a.m. ceremony. The couple went to Napa Springs for their honeymoon. W.D.M. had been dead for less than two years. Whereas W.D.M. and Agnes were separated by 14 years of age, W.D.M.’s brother George was only six years older than Agnes. He, too, had already lost a spouse, so it was a second marriage for both of them. Although the marriage was widely viewed at the time as a "marriage of convenience," it lasted 21 years—until George’s death in 1878—and resulted in Agnes giving birth to four additional children. During their marriage, George was engaged in a number of business interests—managing the real estate and other business interests that his brother had created, importing and breeding cattle, and serving on the boards of several companies. The Howards also traveled. In 1862, while Civil War raged in the United States, the Daily Alta newspaper reported Mr. and Mrs. George H. Howard in Paris, where they were being presented to Emperor Napoleon III and his wife, Eugenie. Historians differ as to whether W.D.M. or George was the person who imported to California the pre-fabricated gingerbread wooden home that was erected on Rancho San Mateo. The most likely scenario is that W.D.M. may have had a small cottage on the San Mateo property and that George and Agnes added to it later. The home was named El Cerrito because it sat near a high mound (near modern-day El Cerrito Avenue). It became a primary residence for George and Agnes Howard beginning around 1864—not long after train service began between San Francisco and San Jose, with a stop in San Mateo. That same year —1864—the newly organized St. Matthew’s Episcopal church began to hold services in a San Mateo schoolhouse. The first recorded baptism in the newly organized church was that of George and Agnes’s first son George Henry Howard on St. Matthew’s Day, September 21, 1864. Little George was a late arrival, coming almost six years after his parents’ first child, Julia Poett Howard. However, he was quickly joined by two more siblings—a sister, Agnes, and a brother, Joseph Henry Poett Howard. In 1865, George and Agnes donated two acres of their estate as the site for St. Matthew’s sanctuary. The stone for the church, which was completed in May 1866, was quarried on the Howard estate.1 Near the entrance to the church, which then faced north, a massive stone monument was erected in memory of W.D.M. Howard, by his son William and his widow Agnes. This monument still stands in St. Matthew’s current building, which was constructed after the 1906 earthquake destroyed the original structure. On another trip to Europe in the early 1870s, the Howards made a decision that would dramatically change the landscape of both San Francisco and the mid-Peninsula: They hired John McLaren. McLaren was 26 when he moved to the Howards’ El Cerrito estate in 1873 to begin his career as their chief gardener. For nearly 15 years, McLaren worked with the Howards to "create a landscape similar to those seen in Europe."2 He transformed dusty, dry land into cool, shaded lawns. He built roads and bridges, redirected streams and laid pipeline. In one year, he lined nine roads with over 25,000 trees, most of them gums. Enlisting the help of Chinese and Irish work crews, McLaren covered the Howards’ Coyote Point with 70,000 trees (1,000 per acre). He also lined the County Road (also called El Camino Real) with trees. The trees continue to this day to provide the mid-Peninsula with a distinctive state highway. After McLaren, San Francisco’s Peninsula would never be the same. Unfortunately, George was not able to see all the fruits of McLaren’s work. George died on April 29, 1878.3 Agnes buried him at St. Matthew’s Episcopal, near their El Cerrito home. He was 51; Agnes was 45. Once again, she did not remain a widow for long.4 William Henry Howard (1850-1901) was 29 when his mother Agnes married for a third time in 1879. Her new husband Henry P. Bowie was 31 years old. Agnes was 46. At the time of his mother’s new marriage, William had been married for seven years. He and his wife Anna Dwight Whiting, from a prominent Boston family, had been living in Paris. Their son Edward W. Howard was born in Paris in 1878. Both William and Anna were raised with a sense of their families’ importance in the development of America. Anna’s family roots in Massachusetts predated the American Revolution.1 William was the firstborn child of the first President of the Society of California Pioneers. Near his sixteenth birthday, young William was given a leather-encased topographical and railroad map of central California with his name embossed in gold. William’s uncle, Alfred Poett, an engineer for the Central Pacific Railroad project—the monumental project that opened up the West for development by linking America’s coasts by rail in 1869—co-published the map. The gift carried an implicit message to the youth as he was about to enter adulthood: You are from a line of men who have achieved great things for this country; go and do likewise. William and Anna lived an opulent life. While in Paris, they had china commissioned for them with their entwined initials. In San Mateo, they commissioned a huge brownstone home, designed by New York architect Bruce Price (Emily Post’s father), to be built near the property that William inherited from his father, W.D.M. The home, which the Howards called Uplands, was designed to impress. It included elaborate woodwork and stone masonry.2 After William’s mother Agnes married Henry Bowie in 1879, the Bowies went abroad with Agnes’s four younger children in tow. The one-year honeymoon turned into two and the Bowies remained in Europe. During this time, William helped manage El Cerrito for his mother and her new husband. In addition to San Francisco real estate, the family business interests included a farming, dairy, and cattle business in San Mateo. William worked with his mother’s chief gardener, John McLaren, to continue to improve the Howard property. At that time, Coyote Point was almost an island, surrounded on the south and west by marshland. Howard worked to fill in the marsh to make the land more saleable in the future. McLaren, supervising large crews of Irish and Chinese workers, planted 70,000 trees on Coyote Point. William Howard was a prominent member of the growing community of affluent landowners on the mid-Peninsula. In the early 1890s, another second-generation wealthy peer, Francis Newlands, suggested that the mid-Peninsula needed a country club to cater to local residents’ needs and to promote real estate sales. Howard agreed. William H. Howard was one of the founding members of the Burlingame Country Club, formed in 1893. When the club decided that they needed a stylish train station where they could greet their incoming San Francisco guests, Howard stepped forward and donated the land. The club chose Howard’s younger half-brother, George, then 30 years of age, to be the architect. The station, completed in 1894, is the design of George H. Howard and his partner Joachim Mathiesen.3 Unfortunately, the Howards’ mother Agnes was never able to see the train station her son designed. She died in 1893 at the age of 60. Because Agnes’s third husband Henry P. Bowie was Catholic, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church did not allow her to be interred in the church next to her first and second husbands, W.D.M. and George Howard. Her widower Henry Bowie and her children instead arranged to have a large mausoleum built for her at St. John’s Cemetery. The classical columns and style of the mausoleum suggest that her son George, the budding architect who was deeply influenced by the Grand Tour of Europe that the family took when he was 15, may have had a role in the design of her tomb. Her husband Henry was 45 at her death. Her son William was 43 and son George was 29. Perhaps to meet the expenses of his opulent lifestyle, William began to sell some of his property in the 1890s. As early as 1889, he began subdividing his inherited portion of Rancho San Mateo. The first subdivision was on a narrow sliver of land in San Mateo just east of the railroad tracks and north of downtown.4 Later, that subdivision would be expanded both to the east and west.5 In 1894, Howard sold his beloved home Uplands to another second-generation Peninsula man, Charles Frederick Crocker, the namesake and oldest son of one of the "Big Four" California railroad men.6 Then in 1896, Howard created Burlingame’s first subdivision, which extended from Burlingame Avenue on the north to Peninsular (as it was then known) in the south and from El Camino Real to Dwight Road. By the time Howard subdivided his property in 1896 in what is now Burlingame it was clear that he was overextended and experiencing cash flow problems. His Burlingame lots did not sell fast enough to prevent a foreclosure action on San Francisco property. On August 27, 1896, a San Francisco Call headline blared "The Hibernia Savings and Loan Society Sues W.H. Howard: Over $150,000 involved." Howard’s financial troubles must have been a source of embarrassment for him: The Hibernia bank was owned and operated by the Tobins, fellow Burlingame Country Club members and mid-Peninsula country homeowners. As if to indicate that the legal action was not taken lightly or prematurely, the article went on to say that Howard had been in default on the loan for more than seventeen months. The financial problems must have added to fissures in Howard’s marriage. By 1900, Howard’s wife, Anna Dwight Whiting Howard, had moved back to Boston and was living at 209 Beacon Street with two of their children, Frances Sargent Howard and John Kenneth Howard (both unmarried at the time) and her mother, Rebecca Bullard Whiting. On October 20, 1901, the San Francisco Call reported that William H. Howard had died that morning, after a long illness with Bright’s disease.7 He was 51. Less than a week after Howard’s death, his will was filed for probate. The San Francisco Call reported that the bulk of the estate was left to Howard’s four surviving children, with his widow getting only one-fifth. The headline was: "Widow is dissatisfied with the bequest in her favor and may contest." Eventually a compromise was reached. Anna agreed to split the estate equally with her children, although there were later lawsuits over the details of the split. The estate was rumored to be substantial—as much as $500,000. Meanwhile, William’s closest half-sibling, George H. Howard, was also making headlines. While the star of his older half-brother William H. Howard was apparently falling, young George’s was rising. In April of 1888, when George was 24 years old, he wed Antoinette ("Nettie") Schmiedell, the only daughter of wealthy San Francisco businessman Henry Schmiedell and his wife Fronie Warren Schmiedell. Henry Schmiedell was a charter member of the San Francisco Stock and Exchange Board and its treasurer for over twenty years. One thousand guests were invited to witness what the Daily Alta called "the most prominent wedding" in months on a Wednesday evening at 8:30 p.m. at Trinity (Episcopal) Church in San Francisco. The flower arrangements were so grand that they "seemed to suggest that every hothouse and garden in the city and environs had been despoiled of their treasures." George’s mother, Agnes—still a beauty at 55—wore a low-cut cream-colored satin gown, covered with lace, with a court train. In her hair she wore a reseda of egret feathers and carried a large fan of cream-colored ostrich feathers. Her "ornaments were diamonds." The young couple went to Europe for over a year on their honeymoon. By October of 1890, George and Nettie had returned to San Francisco and settled into their home at 1812 Gough Street—not far from Trinity Church where they were married. The Howards "received guests" at their home on Wednesdays and began to build their life together. Young George also began to build his career as an architect. One of George’s earliest architectural projects was the Burlingame train station (California Historical Landmark No. 836). Unfortunately, both his father-in-law and his mother died before he completed the train station in 1894, the architectural project for which he is probably best known. Accordingly, they did not share in the pride of 30-year-old George’s accomplishment. On the other hand, George and his wife Nettie benefited greatly from her father’s accomplishments. When Nettie’s father Henry Schmiedell died in August of 1894, he left the young couple a third of his estimated one-million-dollar fortune. George never had to work again. He devoted his life to architecture, travel and public service. George made numerous architectural contributions to the mid-Peninsula in addition to the train station, most of which were residential projects for wealthy friends or family members. Before his mother died in 1893, George helped Agnes and her third husband Henry P. Bowie with the design of their new Peninsula home, Severn Lodge.1 Around the turn of the century, George and Nettie built a "country home" of their own, dubbed Howard House, in what is now Hillsborough. The home had classic design elements and a large formal garden, reflecting the deep impression that the family’s Grand Tour of Europe made upon the then-teenaged George. In fact, Howard called the gardens surrounding his home Versailles Park. In total, George designed approximately 75 homes on the Peninsula, including the Kohl Mansion.2 He also designed a few public buildings, such as the third clubhouse for the Burlingame Country Club. Built in 1899, it was located near El Camino Real just south of today’s St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. In 1907, he designed a clubhouse for the new San Mateo Polo Club, which is still in use today as the Hillsborough Racquet Club. He also designed the building that currently serves as headquarters for the Hillsborough police department. George’s civic contributions were also numerous. When George’s cousin, attorney Arthur H. Redington, led the charge in 1910 to incorporate the Town of Hillsborough—rather than allowing Hillsborough to be annexed by neighboring cities San Mateo or Burlingame—George stepped forward to serve as a police commissioner. Keeping up with their social commitments and travel schedule was nearly a full-time job for George and Nettie Howard. The social columns in the 1890s newspapers have frequent accounts of social luncheons and trips made by George and Nettie and Nettie’s mother Fronie to the Del Monte Hotel in Monterey and other destinations. Frequently, George’s architectural commissions overlapped with his social commitments: When Jennie Crocker (daughter of Jennie M. Easton and Charles Frederick Crocker) married Malcolm Douglas Whitman in 1912, George was called upon to design a reception pavilion for the lawn of Jennie’s estate, Home Place.3 Typical of the social columns around the turn of the century is this glowing report from the July 18, 1892, San Francisco Call: "No more charming hostess can be found in San Mateo than Mrs. George H. Howard who last Tuesday gave one of her characteristically delightful luncheons at her summer residence."4 By the mid-1920s, George and Nettie had moved to France, where both of their grown sons, George Howard, Jr. (sometimes referred to as George III) and Henry S.P. Howard, were also living. In 1932, George and Nettie’s son, George Jr., died at the age of 41. George accompanied George, Jr.’s ashes back to San Mateo for burial. In a tender letter to Nettie—still in France with Henry—George describes bringing his firstborn son’s ashes back to his childhood room at Howard House where outside the room the "mimosa is in full bloom now, being a riot of golden yellow. I wish you could see it. The place is quiet, peaceful and surely beautiful. I would not exchange it for the principality of Monaco, or change places with the prince either." On the same trip, George, who had been living for a number of years in Paris, described his impressions of America in 1933, shortly after Roosevelt’s election. Traveling across the heartland by train from New York City, George wrote: "I did not realize what America was really like until I commenced my trip from ocean to ocean. I feel as if I am in a strange country, amongst a strange people." In 1935, George died in Paris. He was 71. Antoinette ("Nettie") lived another six years, until 1942. Their sole surviving son, Henry Schmiedell Poett Howard died in 1968. George, the architect of Burlingame’s train station and Kohl Mansion, is buried at St. Matthew’s Episcopal church together with his father, also named George H. and his son, George H., Jr.5 When his father, William H. Howard, died in 1901, young Edward (then 23 and the oldest surviving son of five children) was appointed executor of his father’s estate, which included a large cattle ranch. The Howard family had introduced the first short-horn cattle into California in 1857 and, through young Edward, the family continued to be known for their cattle operations well into the twentieth century. From the time he was 26 until his death, Edward (also known as "Ted") served on the California State Board of Agriculture. In 1905, Ted formed the Howard Cattle Company. The St. Paul’s-and-Harvard-educated Edward Whiting Howard became the head of a number of corporations in his brief lifetime, but he had two main loves in life: polo and cattle ranching. In 1905, Edward married Olivia Lansdale of Philadelphia. The couple had five children in rapid succession: Olivia, William Henry, Anne, Gertrude and Marion. The young Howard family spent much of their time at their 46,000-acre ranch, called Quinto Ranch, located on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley.1 The ranch was a lucrative operation and Ted Howard became known as the "Cattle King of the Pacific Slope." The Howard short-horn cattle won numerous prizes. In 1913, Ted and a few other business associates expanded their cattle business by purchasing an additional 66,000 acres of ranchland near Merced for an estimated price of $2.5 million. In addition to cattle ranching, Edward, whose father William was a founding member of the equestrian-oriented Burlingame Country Club, was an avid and accomplished polo player. Ted bred polo ponies and was on the board of the San Mateo Polo Club, whose clubhouse on El Cerrito Avenue in modern-day Hillsborough was designed by his uncle George. Ted’s well-regarded polo ponies were shipped throughout the world. Edward died in January 1915 from injuries he sustained in an elevator accident in San Francisco, where the Howard Cattle Company offices were located.2 He was 36 years old. He is buried in the Howard mausoleum, built in his honor, at St. John’s Cemetery in San Mateo, not far from the mausoleum built for his grandmother Agnes.3 The sole surviving son of George and Antoinette Schmiedell Howard, Henry Schmiedell Poett Howard lived a privileged life. Thrice married—the first time to a Belgian countess, the second time to the former Mrs. Ogden Chapple and the third time to San Mateo schoolteacher Leta Woods—Henry Howard died in May 1968 at the age of 69. His death notice mentioned that he had suffered a heart attack the previous December that "had limited his activity as an avid horseman and yachtsman." The only son of Edward W. Howard, William H. Howard (1907-1991) was the last of the direct descendants of W.D.M. and Agnes Howard to make Hillsborough his home. Young William was only seven when his father died in January 1915. His mother, Olivia Lansdale Howard, remarried Robert Frazer, an American diplomat. Frazer served in London and numerous other locations throughout the world, including Brazil, Switzerland, India, Mexico and El Salvador. The pre-WWII era in which young William and his four sisters grew up was the end of the aristocratic era in Hillsborough. After the war, due to labor shortages and changing lifestyles, many of Hillsborough’s great estates were broken up and subdivided. In the place of the great estates, more modest homes, suitable for professionals such as doctors, dentists and lawyers, were built, although the builders frequently left the large gates of the former estates in place. Today, those gates serve as a reminder of a past era. William, like many of his ancestors, engaged in real estate development. One of his real estate holdings was the Alister MacKenzie-designed Pasatiempo Golf Club in Santa Cruz. William and his wife, Virginia Wilson, had two daughters, Virginia and Marion, both of whom were raised in Hillsborough but moved to other communities after they reached adulthood. FOOTNOTES: 1For nearly 15 years, from 1873 until 1887, the Howards employed John McLaren (later the park superintendent of Golden Gate Park) as their personal gardener. McLaren and his staff planted thousands of trees on the Howards’ huge property, as well as on the Ralston, Easton, and Mills estates. In the mid-1870s, these estate holders jointly hired McLaren to line the County Road (also called El Camino Real) with trees that provided both shade and a windbreak. 2William H. Howard was a founder of the Burlingame Country Club. When the club members decided they needed a suitable train station to welcome their guests to the club in proper fashion, William stepped forward and donated the land. His half-brother, architect George H. Howard, provided the distinctive mission revival design for the new train station. 1 Poett, Rancho San Julian, 81-82; Whitwell, "William Davis Merry Howard," California Historical Society Quarterly 27 (1948): 249. 2 The letter, addressed to Boston resident B.T. Reed, Esq., was the sixth in a series Letters of the Gold Discovery, published monthly during 1948 for its members by The Book Club of California to honor the 100th anniversary of the discovery of gold in California. A copy of the publication is part of the collection of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, California. 3 Richards, Mud, Blood and Gold, 5, 22. 4 Richards, Mud, Blood and Gold, 32. Jessie Benton Frémont grew up in Washington, D.C., as a senator’s daughter. She married the explorer John Charles Frémont in 1841. Her firsthand impressions of Gold Rush California are recorded in her book A Year of American Travel: Narrative of Personal Experience. 5 The Society of California Pioneers is still an active organization, with an important archive and a small museum located at 300 Fourth Street, San Francisco. 6 W.D.M.’s business partner Henry Mellus had shared ownership of Rancho San Mateo with W.D.M. from 1848-1850, but W.D.M. bought Mellus’s share in 1850. 7 The "Hounds" were American thugs who targeted and terrorized Chileans and other Latin Americans at the start of the Gold Rush and sought to drive them out of San Francisco. (Chileans were among the first to arrive at the Gold Rush fields because their busy port cities like Valparaiso allowed them to receive the news first and their geographic proximity to California meant they had less distance to travel than did Americans from the East Coast). Just one week after W.D.M. and Agnes were married, the Hounds attacked a group of Spanish-speaking men, robbing and killing a few. Howard, who spoke Spanish, and had traded with Spanish-speaking groups for decades, was quick to rise to the defense of the Chileans. The fact that his new wife was from Chile may have increased his determination to resist The Hounds. 8 Vigilantes were citizens who banded together to form the rudiments of an early police force, or militia, to maintain order. A formal declaration establishing the First Committee of Vigilance was made in June 1851. 9 The First California Guard was mustered in July of 1849 in response to the Hounds attack mentioned in footnote 9. W.D.M. Howard was elected a captain in May 1851. 10 Whitwell, "William Davis Merry Howard," California Historical Society Quarterly 27 (1948): 106. 11 Moffat, Dancing on the Brink of the World, 23. 1 Whitwell, "William Davis Merry Howard," California Historical Society Quarterly 27 (1948): 250. 2 To preserve the flow of this narrative for readers who might be reading this website in the order in which the material is presented, other portions of Agnes’s story have been included in later sections of this exhibit. Stories of Agnes have been interspersed with stories of her second husband George H. Howard, her first-born son William H. Howard, her architect son George H. Howard, her grandson Edward W. Howard, her father Dr. Joseph Henry Poett, and her brother Alfred Poett. Agnes’s third husband Henry Pike Bowie is described in a footnote in the section dedicated to George H. Howard, Agnes’s second husband. 1 The Rt. Rev. William I. Kip, Bishop of California, who was present for St. Matthew’s consecration service, later noted in his journal, "This is the only stone church in the Diocese and has the air of an old English parish church. For much of the funds necessary for its erection, we are indebted to Mr. George Howard." Semes, Of These Stones, 2. 2 Aikman, Boss Gardener, 40. 3 The Daily Alta reported that Howard had been sick about ten days and his friends "were hopeful of his recovery until about 1 hour before his death. His illness was the result of an affection of the heart." 4 More information about Agnes, including her burial site, is contained in the following section, William H. Howard. 1 The ancestors of Anna’s mother Rebecca Bullard settled in Massachusetts in the mid-seventeenth century. The family property, The Bullard Memorial Farm, is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places. 2 Uplands is still standing in Hillsborough, although it is in a substantially altered state. The story of the mansion and its renovations is told later in the Jennie M. Easton section of this exhibit. 3 Burlingame’s train station is California State Historical Landmark No. 846. It is designated a landmark primarily because of its architectural significance as the first permanent example of Mission Revival architecture. The station was inspired by A. Page Brown’s mission-style California Pavilion built for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. 4 The subdivision extended east from the railroad tracks to modern-day Delaware Avenue and from modern-day Poplar Avenue in the north to Second Avenue in the south. Postel, San Mateo: A Centennial History, 97. 5 The next subdivision included land west of the railroad tracks to El Camino Real and east of Delaware to what is now Humboldt Avenue. Ibid. 6 Whitwell, "William Davis Merry Howard," California Historical Society Quarterly 27 (1948): 319. The "Big Four" were Leland Stanford, Collin Potter Huntington, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins. The firstborn son and namesake of Charles Crocker, Charles Frederick ("C. Frederick") Crocker, married Jennie M. Easton. She was also a second-generation Peninsulan. Her parents were Ansel I. and Adeline Easton and her aunt and uncle were D.O. and Jane Mills. More about the Easton and Mills families can be found in other sections of this exhibit. 7 The term "Bright’s disease" is no longer in use. It referred to various kidney-related diseases. Ironically, C. Frederick Crocker, who purchased Howard’s Uplands home, also died from Bright’s disease. 1 The Bowies’ Hillsborough estate Severn Lodge was demolished in 1985; it formerly occupied the tract bordered by Severn Lane, Santa Inez and Roblar Avenues. After Agnes died in 1893, her third husband Henry P. Bowie began spending a large portion of his time in Japan. He became a Japanese language scholar, as well as an artist. His book On The Laws of Japanese Painting is still held in high regard. Bowie remarried while living in Japan and fathered two children there. He died in 1921. 2 In 2012, eight Howard-designed homes were still standing in Hillsborough. They are: the home at 245 El Cerrito built for the Shreve jewelry family circa 1890; 120 W. Santa Inez circa 1903; 1 Homs Court circa 1905; 124 Stonehedge circa 1906; 108 Stonehedge circa 1910; 2155 Parkside circa 1913; the home at 355 Hillsborough Boulevard built for Steward E. White circa 1919; Treehaven at 816 Hayne Road circa 1927. "Historic Building Survey," Town of Hillsborough, California, 1990. 3 Svanevik and Burgett, No Sidewalks Here, 45. 4 After praising details such as her table decorations, the reporter listed the friends entertained: "Mrs. William H. Crocker, Mrs. Ansel Easton, Miss Babette Howard, Mrs. Beverly MacMonagle, Mrs. Frederick L. Moody, Miss Jessie Bowie and Miss Beth Sperry." 5 Confusing as it may be, the family did not refer to George the architect as George, Jr. despite the fact that his father was also named George H. Howard. When his father George H. Howard died in 1878, his son George the architect was simply referred to by the same name. Thus, there are two George H. Howards: the husband of Agnes and the architect son of Agnes. The third George H. Howard, the son of the architect, is referred to as "Jr." Thus, his tombstone at St. Matthew’s Episcopal states "George H. Howard, Jr.", not "George H. Howard III." 1 The ranch was located just north of Pacheco Pass near the modern-day Interstate I-5. Fifteen miles long and six miles wide, the ranch was centered near the rail-stop town of Ingomar, between Newman and Los Banos. 2 One other person died and eight others were seriously injured in the same accident. See "These Ten Hurt in Elevator Accident," San Francisco Chronicle, January 7, 1915. 3 A photo of Agnes’s mausoleum is contained in the preceding section, William H. Howard." "Peninsula Royalty: The Founding Families of Burlingame-Hillsborough" by Burlingame founding Families. [https://burlingamefoundingfamilies.wordpress.com/howard-introduction/] |
Dimensions |
H-39.5 W-80 inches |
Medium |
Textile |
Search Terms |
Poett, Sarah Shawl Shawls Spanish Women's Fashion Women's Fashion Accessories |
Subjects |
Clothing & dress Scarf |
People |
Poett, Sarah |
Credit line |
Courtesy of Mrs. J.H.P. Howard, Jr. |