52 Ancestors - #41 Louisa J Boettcher – A 1906 Earthquake Survivor

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 struck San Francisco and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. Devastating fires broke out in the city that lasted for about four days and with the infrastructure destroyed there was no water to fight them. The Navy ran water lines from the bay to help with the firefighting efforts. As a result of the quake and fires, about 3,000 people died and over 80% of San Francisco was destroyed.  The earthquake was estimated between 7.8 and 8.3 on the Richter Scale. California has not had one that strong since. The violent shaking lasted for only 40 seconds – it started and then paused for 10 seconds and then continued again stronger for 25 seconds.

Roughly 28,000 buildings and 500 blocks were destroyed. It was the world’s first major natural disaster to have its effects recorded by photography. Not surprisingly, a later grand jury committee found that some insurance companies had used doctored photographs to avoid paying valid claims.

The earthquake was caused by the North American and Pacific tectonic plates moving past each other by more than 15 feet (annual average is two inches). It created a surface rupture along the San Andreas Fault which extended continuously for 200 miles and sporadically for another 80 or 90 miles.  The 1989 earthquake only created a rupture of about 25 miles. The mouth of the Salinas River where it emptied into Monterey Bay was moved 6 miles to a new outlet. It impacted an area of 300,000 square miles along the San Andreas fault, stretching from southern California to western Nevada and on up to southern Oregon. It shifted the ground at an estimated 4 to 5 feet per second, while the rupture traveled at about 5,900 miles per hour. It also caused 24 feet of lateral surface slippage near Point Reyes Station.

In 1906, San Francisco had been the ninth-largest city in the United States and the largest on the West Coastwith a population of about 410,000. San Francisco was the financial, trade and cultural center of the West and had the busiest port on the West Coast. San Francisco was rebuilt quickly, but the disaster diverted trade, industry and population growth south to Los Angeles, which during the 20th century became the largest and most important urban area in the West.

Out of its population between 200,000 and 300,000 people were left homeless. Every available area of vacant land was filled with makeshift tents. Even more than two years after the earthquake many refugee camps were still open.

At the time only 375 deaths were officially reported. Hundreds of fatalities in Chinatown were ignored and people were shot for looting so the total number of deaths is still uncertain, but research done later shows that around 3,450 people are known to have died.

Nearby cities of San Jose which is 55 miles south of San Francisco and Santa Rosa which is 55 miles north of San Francisco also suffered severe damage and deaths.  The entire downtown area of Santa Rosa was destroyed and also suffered devastating fires. At that time Santa Rosa had a population of around 7,000 people of which one was my great great grandaunt Louisa Jane Hardesty Boettcher.  She was the sister of my great great grandmother Mary Graves Hardesty Tucker.

 A man sits in the rubble near the intersection of Mendocino and 5th in Santa Rosa. The fallen cupola of the courthouse can be seen in the distance. Detail of image courtesy Sonoma State University.

 

I have in my possession a letter that Louisa wrote her sister Mary just three weeks after the earthquake on May 8, 1906. Upon hearing the news about the earthquake Mary had written Louisa to make sure she was alright. “My Dear Sister I received your letter of inquiry and will say we are all saved and been on duty until the last few days.” Louisa is staying in Petaluma 15 miles south of Santa Rosa with her daughter Orie and her husband Herman Weber and their two daughters Lisette and baby Melba Janet just five months old. Petaluma had minor damage with fallen chimneys and a few brick walls collapsed. She goes on to say, “Mary, I can’t tell what I have went through. I can’t write it and if I was with you could not tell you of my experiences with all our loss. I am glad to say we are alive and so far have had our usual rations daily at our own experience our richest men before the quake are now standing in line for their rations and I wonder when it will stop. The earth is still in a swing and every day and night quakes. I wish it would stop. It makes one feel that we may go down every time. To say the least it is a perilous time. We do not and never will know how many were killed in Santa Rosa and as for San Francisco they are taking the dead out on barges and dumping them in the ocean by the thousands.”  Orie’s sister Polly and husband Frank Berka and two daughters Rita and Reyna also lived in Santa Rosa.  About them Louisa says, “Polly and family are on foot now of them very well.” (“Are on foot” is used to mean homeless.) “Frank lost in the quake but has his business. My old houses are all standing chimneys down and filled with refugees of San Francisco. They have taken the parlour and sitting room and bedrooms for kitchens. Can’t help myself as the town is under martial law.” The letter ends with “This letter is for all with love and kisses I remain your loving sister Louisa J Boettcher.”

 Fourth St Looking East from A Street - Santa Rosa

(Image courtesy Larry Lapeere)

At the time of the quake Louisa, who was three years younger than her sister Mary, was almost 63 years old (she had been born May 19, 1843 in Eminence, Henry County, Kentucky.) She was widowed and living before the quake with Frank and Polly Berka in Santa Rosa. From a letter to Mary on June 29, 1910, she writes that they are still feeling the economic effects of the earthquake. Louisa has several empty rental properties and with all the empty houses the taxes keep going up and the property owners were being charged street repair costs. 

Louisa continued to live with Frank and Polly although in June 1911 she had just returned home after spending four months at her daughter Orie’s house of which six weeks were due to being quarantined –“had a hard time but all better now.” On February 14, 1914 she writes again to her sister Mary, “My husband has been dead 18 years.  I do feel sad and the longer he is dead the more I miss him.  A true and noble man.  I could pour out my soul to him.”  Louisa Jane died on August 27, 1915 at age 72 and was buried with Frederick in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Santa Rosa. Her four granddaughters never married.

52 Ancestors - #23 Benjamin Franklin Hardesty - Early Kentucky Settler

Benjamin Franklin Hardesty was born around 1735, the son of William Hardesty and Priscilla Lawrence. The family lived on a portion of “His Lordship’s Favour” a plantation which William’s mother Sarah Meades Hardesty had inherited from her father William Meades. Benjamin was the fourth son out of five and he also had three sisters.

Benjamin Franklin Hardesty married Elizabeth Hance, the daughter of Joseph Hance and Ann Johns about 1765 in Calvert County, Maryland.  Their first child Henry was born in Maryland and he was most probably followed by Elizabeth, Rebecca and Thomas. At some point they moved to Virginia because some of the children appear to have been born there - Samantha in about 1773, Benjamin in about 1776, William in 1777, Kinzea in 1779 and Samuel about 1782. According to some records Elizabeth and Benjamin may have had another child while living in Virginia.

In 1784 Benjamin brought his family to Kentucky (which at that time was still part of Virginia.) It was only nine years after Daniel Boone, thirty-five men, and two women blaze the Wilderness Trail into Kentucky. Sometimes it is hard to realize how difficult it was to travel from place to place back then.

The following is from Border Life: Experience and Memory in the Revolutionary Ohio Valley by Elizabeth A. Perkins, John Dabney Shane: 

Animal and man-made trails provided a rudimentary road system through the dense vegetation, although travelers needed considerable experience to navigate these routes successfully. Benjamin Hardesty described his family’s confusion upon their arrival in Kentucky in 1784 when they encountered the maze of trails and paths which criss-crossed the countryside. “We got out of our road at the Lower Blue Lick, and got lost with our wagons before we got to Bryant’s Station,” he said. “Followed an old Indian trace that let from Limestone to Bryant’s Station.” He added, with evident chagrin, “we took the wrong buffalo trace, of a good many that came in to the lick. Were two weeks getting to Bryant’s Station (sic) from Maysville,” a distance of approximately 60 miles.

1784 was also the year that the first statehood convention was held. Several factors contributed to the desire of the residents of Kentucky to separate from Virginia. First, traveling to the state capital was long and dangerous. Second, offensive use of local militia against Indian raids required authorization from the governor of Virginia. Last, Virginia refused to recognize the importance of trade along the Mississippi River to Kentucky's economy. Trade with the Spanish colony of New Orleans, which controlled the mouth of the Mississippi, was forbidden.

Benjamin and Elizabeth had three more children after they moved to Kentucky - Mary was born in about 1784, Sarah in about1786, and Francis in about 1790. As more settlers arrived and were born, the problems increased and nine more conventions were held. Finally, on June 1, 1792, with Virginia consenting to the separation, the United States Congress accepted the Kentucky Constitution and admitted it as the 15th state, without creating a territory first.

Benjamin and his youngest son, Francis, lived in and ran the first tavern between Lexington, Fayette County, and Maysville, Mason County, Kentucky. It took up to five days to make the trip between Maysville and Lexington, so hopeful proprietors established inns or taverns to serve travelers.

Elizabeth and Benjamin were married for 53 years when he died in 1818 in Bourbon County, Kentucky. Elizabeth died in 1833 and her will was probated in June of that year.  

Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandparents: William Hardesty/ Priscilla Lawrence

Great Great Great Great Great Grandparents: Benjamin Hardesty/Elizabeth Hance

Great Great Great Great Grandparents: Kinzea Hardesty Sr./Sally Campter (Kemper or Kempter)

Great Great Great Grandparents: Kinzea W Hardesty Jr./Mary (Pollie) Sallee Dingle

Great Great Grandparents: Mary Grave Hardesty/John Tucker

Great Grandparents: William John Tucker/Georgianna Katherine Ragan

Grandparents: Alva Ashbury Tucker/Effa Belle Graves

Parents: Elva Rosalie Tucker/Lionell Burris Mitchell

52 Ancestors - #20 George Washington, Zachariah Taylor, and Elizabeth Francis Hardesty - They Never Married

Part of my Hardesty information is from cousin Lois whose husband descends from Kinzea Junior also - his son Farmer Kinzea Marion Francis Hardesty. In the "small world" category my cousin Chris from the Tacoma, Washington area found her on a message board and contacted her only to discover that Lois and I lived in the same small town in Southwest Washington. Her grandson Rob and my daughter Nicole were best friends - and 5th cousins!

George, Zack, and Lizzie were the youngest siblings of my great great grandmother Tucker - Mary Graves Hardesty. They never married. Their parents were Kinzea W. Hardesty Jr. and Mary “Pollie” Sallee Dingle.

George Washington Hardesty was born on January 1, 1847 in Kentucky. Zachariah Taylor Hardesty was born November 9, 1848 in Henry County, Kentucky. Elizabeth Francis Hardesty known as Lizzie was born in Henry County, Kentucky on August 28, 1850 in the middle of the night. Lizzie was the youngest of thirteen children – eight boys and five girls.

The family decided to move to Missouri when Lizzie was around seven months of age. Their father Kinzea Junior died during the family’s journey to Audrain County, Missouri on April 6, 1851 at the age of 47. The rest of the family continued on to Missouri. At the start of the Civil War the Hardesty boys decided they didn't want to fight in the war and instead headed out west with the entire family. After a long and tiresome journey in covered wagons drawn by ox teams, the family arrived in Honey Lake, California in 1861. In 1865 they moved farther west to Santa Rosa to find better schools and to avoid the Indian Wars. Lizzie finished school while living in Santa Rosa, California.

Elizabeth Hardesty

In 1872 Lizzie, Zack, and George Hardesty moved to Elko County, Nevada in the South Fork area. They lived on what was known as the Hardesty Ranch which was owned by George. They were in the cattle business and also had olive orchards. 

Hardesty Ranch

Lizzie Hardesty

Lizzie was engaged to be married, but gave that up to nurse her invalid mother. In 1880 in South Fork, Elko Nevada, Pollie was living with her children George and Lizzie while Zackary was living with their brother Henry Clay Hardesty and helping him with his farm. Pollie died July 30, 1883 in South Fork, Elko, Nevada at the age of 73 and is buried at the Elko IOOF Cemetery. The bottom of Pollie’s headstone reads “after ten years suffering” so she must have moved in with her children shortly after they moved to Nevada.

Lizzie, Zack, George

On October 16, 1907 Zachariah Taylor Hardesty died. He was almost 59 years old. He is buried at the Elko IOOF Cemetery.

Funeral Memorial 

Z.T. Hardesty

On November 22, 1908, George and Lizzie were planning a trip to Silver Creek, Washington in late December or early January to see their sister Mary who they had not seen since she left California for Washington in 1865. Lizzie gives their location as Lee, Nevada which was a gold rush town from 1904 to 1907 and then eventually became a ghost town.

Lizzie and George

In July 1910, Lizzie reports to her sister Mary that there is “Lots of work going on.  The hay and grain has come out in the last two weeks so most everyone has fine crops.  Some of the grain 3 and 4 feet high. We have 13 young calves and 3 very fine colts - George's pride and about 160 chickens.  Hay, grain, cattle, horses, fowls, sheep high.” She also says that someone had sent “George and I and Vada and Polly a daily paper.  The Woman's National Daily.” So Nevada must have been living with them at that time. Lizzie also tells Mary that, “We went to the Lemoille Valley 25 miles away to the Fourth. I took Fried Spring Chicken and Potato Cakes and ripe olives and Blackberry Jam and coffee.  There was about 35 or 40 of us eating together.  Some had lunch and other did not.  There was everything the market afforded.” Nevada’s father Edward Carter Hardesty had died in 1907 and she must have been living with her aunt and uncle.

Lizzie was one of the principal workers that caused the state of Nevada to go dry in 1920. In 1922 at the age of 72 she moved to Lindsay, Tulare, California after fifty years in Nevada. 

 

George and Lizzie

In 1930 George was living with her in Lindsay. George Washington Hardesty died in Lindsay on November 8, 1937 at the age of almost 91 years and is buried in California.

In 1940 Nevada Griswold, Lizzie’s widowed niece was again living with her. Nevada considered herself to be Lizzie’s adopted daughter since Lizzie had helped raise her and another orphan. Lizzie died on May 10, 1943 in Lindsay at the age of 92. She is buried in California.