Spectres in Stone II

Haunted by the Past.

Headstone renovation can be both a joy and a grief, especially when you find evidence of a questionable previous repair and re-installation. In this particular case, The Ghost of Arana Gulch's headstone, an old beer bottle embedded in decayed cement to the side of its granite base, crumbled away to reveal evidence of a very '70s style installer with a sense of historic humor.

Top Men

Which '70s? 1970s, or the 1870s?

Simple! Answer: A plastic screw top cap with a very particular inscription on the side of the bottle narrowed the installation date down to 1974. Our 'beer' bottle was a whiskey bottle manufactured in between the 1960s-1970s. Our masonry expert thought the concrete might be a "quick mix" or "fence post" style concrete, hence its short 'shelf life' and evidence of epoxy slathered around the real base "slam dunked" our opinion.So why the concern? The 1970s at Evergreen was an active time of renovation complete with boxes of record keeping. Why was there no record of this particular set of stones having such a repair? Our team also noticed that the center missing piece (we never found it) may have "popped out", the result of a blunt force trauma to the back of the monument OR a very strong earthquake. A sledgehammer vandal(such a thing did happen at Evergreen in the 1960s) theory was dismissed, because the back of the damaged stone was smooth. We settled on an earthquake. The record of the past showed us evidence of several strong quakes (see previous blog post Shaken, not Stirred for more information).

A Fractured Past

Why is there a hole in the front of this marker? A.J. Sloan's stone quality was  different from his mother's headstone. An inferior style of marble, riddled with fine cracks caused the stone to fracture in this manner, leaving, as you see in the photo, a large hole in its face.

A number of opinions were discussed as we raised the monuments back up in their place, such as where were the records recounting this modern "restoration"? The whiskey bottle placed deliberately at AJ's base suggested an historical understanding, as a famous rumor claimed AJ flew into a drunken rage, was unarmed, and set upon. (All these claims had no proof, but made a great story at the time. See author's notes on this blog for more information.)
The lack of records was easy to explain. Like today, this was a volunteer effort. Someone donated their time and materials. The entire day could have been a workday for the entire cemetery. It was probably logged as such. We just needed to cull through those records again. One of our team joked that in forty years (the same amount of time from the 1970s to today) renovation volunteers will curse us as well.

Broken Up

In the end, when all was restored, the answer was quite clear how these stones broke apart. I am one inch over five feet tall. As you can see by the photo, I am standing six inches lower than the top of the headstone. This restoration took four 1/2 inch thick galvanized steel  rods, approximately 8 inches long slathered in modern epoxy to ensure its upright stability. In the 1860s, this stone was simply set in a base with barely a 12 inch long  2 inch wide, possibly 6 inch  deep "tab", none of which was adequate to hold such a heavy stone against the powerful sway of an earthquake.

The Standing Stones of Clan Sloan

One can only wonder at the love and care that went into the carving and mounting of these original stones. AJ's father was a native of Scotland. Did their surviving kin honor their Scottish past, pay a regular visits to Evergreen, until they were no more? How should the story of AJ Sloan, The Ghost of Arana Gulch be memorialized today? (To see a video of the actual setting of this particular stone and a 3D model of this monument, visit our facebook page )

Spectres in Stone

Back from the Dead
On February 11th, 1865 39-year-old Andrew Jackson Sloan was allegedly ambushed and killed by bandidos in the dark creek gully of Arana Gulch. Popular story aside, Sloan earned his ghost status in 1895 by first appearing to cross Soquel Avenue in  broad daylight, then 'melting' away in front of a very startled witness. Today, Sloan, his mother, two sisters and one brother are buried at Evergreen Cemetery. But Sloan's fate haunted many for over 120 years.

(For a recap and new research go to Author's Notes page on this blog)
The top half of his headstone is gone. The bottom half stuck out of the ground like an old retaining wall. There was another broken headstone next to his, also in the same state, belonging to someone older than him. Both rested beneath a huge cedar tree. Research into a journal, plot maps, and a previous historian's notes about the layout of Sloan's plot told us that Sloan's mother was the owner of this companion  marker.

Many locals well into this century continue to be 'haunted' by Sloan. Rumor had it that the modern veteran's headstone currently installed within his plot, was placed there to calm his ghost. (The truth is more mundane. The stone was one of many installations, part of a veteran's restoration project at the time.) During the setting of the veteran headstone marker, the crew found the top section of Sloan's original headstone. A note was made in the cemetery plot map file and it was covered back up, to be protected from wear and vandals.
In 2012 Sloan's headstone, along with his mother's was excavated.  (Here's the blog post about it.) They spent the next 2.5 years in the Museum's  Archives with a few other headstones from Evergreen for company.

Renewed Ambition
This year, Sloan and his mom return to their plots. The project seemed simple. The team had, in the last three months, repaired seven other larger headstones with more complex mounting and breakage issues.
Our team noticed that Sloan's headstone in particular was of poorer quality than his mother's. Small fractures appeared across its face. Drilling rebar holes into its bottom would be trickier than usual. A two inch wide piece was also missing from its center. The first thing to do was a complete search for this missing piece. Naturally we started around the area of his plot.

Well, I was excited to excavate this grave. To kill two birds with one stone, (uh...) we decided it might be a good idea to dig down and check on the stability of the original mounts.
We were expecting to find two individual granite bases, one for each headstone.  (Sloan died two years after his mother.) Many buried during this time at Evergreen had individual bases made from granite or marble. Multiple headstones installed in a single granite base was rare. The sheer size of such an undertaking would be costly and prohibitive. Stone shipments at this time came from Italy. Some were brought down from the Sierras. But the lack of transportation, good roads, and shipping schedules made such ventures costly.
One of the characteristics I had noticed while cleaning these exposed stumps was their remarkable detail and their exquisite workmanship, all signs of a well to do family. I also noticed something else about the stone, they seemed the same age. Since the death dates were close, this made sense.

Family Planning in 1865
Having your headstone carved while you were alive was not unusual. Families planned ahead and bought stones before the death of a loved one, or if one died before the other, they bought a stone for themselves, to be placed "when they followed". Usually they were carved at the same time. Stones were then placed above a grave, a few weeks, or even years later, depending on the family' wishes or financial situation. I had often said to my patient coworkers that I felt these two stones were set in at the same time. 

A Complex Past
I said alot of other things too, such as Sloan may have been murdered by someone other than what history 'recalls'. They were used to my cracker dog theories. (To explore these fanciful theories, buy this book about A.J. Sloan, called Ghosts in the Gulch, available on Amazon on Feb 12th.)
 We began to dig down beneath the headstone. We hit a huge base, granite, as expected. We began near his mother's stone and saw the same edging. The more mud and soil we removed, the more apparent and large this block of dark granite became. Sloan's complicated past just unearthed itself. The stones were mounted into one solid carved  5-foot granite block, and, yes, appeared to have been set at the same time. 

Haunted by Previous Renovators
As we cleaned off the mud from the single base, another shock greeted us.  These stones  broke off from their base before, and were repaired with the closest thing to a quick and dirty method early concrete blends had to offer, (complete with a beer bottle). A quick check on the plot history also revealed that Sloan's brother had purchased the plot a year after his mother had died.

Beer Bottle cemented in place 

So, did they simply have a carved stone ready to go for Sloan? Was he also ill, and they knew he was going to die soon? Or was it simply grief, and a generous (and guilty?) personage gave money to have both stones made, perhaps a few years later? Cracker dog theories aside, it had us all caught up in a mystery about motivation and the need to place such monuments, monuments that leave those of us in the present intrigued and interested in the details of what life in the 1860's meant for these folk. It also reminded us of the power of earthquakes, a quick leveler of many monuments over the years.

Tales of the City
In November of 1865 a powerful quake rocked Santa Cruz. According to news stories, several quakes terrorized residents over the years. One of them or all could have caused the damage that was revealed in front of us. In our minds a time line grew. Both stones were most likely put in either at the time of Sloan's death, two years after his mother, or perhaps a little later. How much later, we don't know.  An earthquake broke the stones from their original base. It was repaired.  A second one must have caused the headstones to break in half again. Which quake? Not  our local Loma Prieta Quake of 1989. Lucky for us the previous renovation crew back in 1987 made a note about the state of this plot. "Top Broken." and "Name Broken off." described this handsome set.

Legacy Set in Stone


Next week we will complete the work of setting these magnificent works of art in place, and continue excavating and exploring this site to get an insight into what the original plot may have looked like. Old brick appears to line the fringes of these graves, some in the delicate artistic curves to form a retaining edge. Found near the now towering non native incense cedar, I wonder, did a grandchild to the Mrs. Eliza Sloan, tenderly plant a tiny cedar sapling within a brick circle, emulating the amazing carving of a willow tree on her headstone?  Would she smile at how large her incense cedar has become? And what of Andrew Jackson Sloan? Will he still haunt Arana Gulch?

Mapping the Past for the Future

I love maps, map apps, old maps, and new maps. The best maps are ones that capture the era but have no clear signature of when, who, or why they were made. You can study, investigate, and speculate about the map's true intent.
Here is one found in the Museum's Evergreen drawer.

There are many historical names on this map: Judge Logan of Haunted Brookdale Lodge fame, R.C. Kirby husband of activist and feminist Georgiana Bruce Kirby,  and W.F. Cooper of the Cooper Building, just to name a few, and something extra. 

As a team we saw how cleverly the map maker caught the curve of the hill and the gully. He marked it too, with this dotted line. The Mason and G.A.R. plots are clearly squared off to the lower left. The blank field between the numbered plots and the squares is The Old Section. This is further verified by (see the upper picture of the first map) by the gully and hillside mark on the right side and a notation that clearly shows the stream there today. The one deed reference written on the map says "Vol 91 -241". A trip to the county revealed something quite different. 

Volume #91 page 241 at the County Records Office showed a complex dispersion of an estate of someone in Boulder Creek. Land, cash, just about everything was dispersed to a mysterious Evangelist.

I also tried looking at the entire ledger for any reference to Evergreen but to no avail. Luckily I had taken photo of this map on my phone and studied the reference numbers again. This is what I decided the Volume 91 truly was: 

Viola! The deed, and all of its participants appeared on page 241!

"Third day in November in the Year of Our Lord, Eighteen Hundred and eighty three."

Now for the curious mystery! What on earth was that circular "road"? (Without my glasses I mistook it for a pond at first, and alas my archive mates have permanently dubbed it my "Pond." theory!). Needless to say, we have considered that this might be a plan of some sort. But the referenced deed simply states that the boundaries of the properties adjoining this city land have been verified and marked on this map. There is no mention of Evergreen's use or plan. 

Here is the area,  near the retaining wall in the background, as it looked a few years ago:

And below today, from Evergreen Street, straight up, like the 1883 map suggests. The "pond" would have been behind the Chinese Gate up there.

Often, on site, we have noticed how flat the area behind the new Chinese monument appears to be despite landslide activity. It's bowl shaped. We assumed this was excavation done during the building of the culvert, except that a few burials dating pre 1880 (seven actually) were in place with minimal disturbance. There was slide debris on some, but from an older earth movement, not the recent construction. One of the things we've wondered as a team, was how access was managed for much of the funeral parties mentioned in the 1880s, in particular something as large as a Chinese ox cart mourning procession. Many news articles describing "The Celestials" funeral processions involved an ox cart of some size. We assumed that folk simply "parked" on the road below (Now called Evergreen/Coral Street) and walked up, much like today. If this cart turnaround was already part of the landscape then it would provide a better understanding about access in the 1880s and about the general planning of burials. 

Today, we are trying to map this area. It's called "The Old Section". There are no plots as the map above shows for Evergreen "proper" and there is a peculiar reference in the 1970s to two Chinese paths: Dragon and Incense. 

What we do not see and have not found, is long term evidence to support a long time use of such paths. We have, however, found twentieth century pathways put in to connect the bottom to the top, running over a few old burials in the process. These were done, according to recent maps, in the 1980's. As one visitor and former volunteer said during her last visit: "I want the Eighties to come back."

So do I. 1880s that is.

Landslide Victory

Evergreen Cemetery’s slide management

The rainy season cometh.  We danced for it, prayed for it, even voted to manage the water from it.  So when we get what we ask for, when Nature demonstrates the saying: “when it rains, it pours.”, expect our green hills to turn into mush and slide downward. 

Luckily, much Evergreen's hillsides are held together by joined crowns of lush redwoods. There are also  undulating tails of tall ferns and deep delving scented bay trees.  Hardened gnarled oaks tend to stay towards the bottom half. Occasionally, especially this time of year we are reminded that we have an oddball, flame colored deciduous wonder.
Enough rain in our quadrangle will best the most rooted of these hillside occupants, upending its trunk, sending the added weight to the slump of rock, clay, and sandstone, propelling the debris right into an old crypt or granite monument. 

Evergreen Cemetery has experienced numerous mudslides. In 1865, one such slide made the newspapers.  Cemetery volunteers, our first generation of “Evergreenies”, (the name we volunteers give ourselves today),  took on the challenge of Evergreen’s management with poetical humor, (if I read my 1865 counterpart correctly.)

  Today when you visit Evergreen, you can look straight up the main path to see trees and ivy. A lot of large trees are not holding their ground, but have collapsed, and been stacked by Nature, the high powered constituent in this race against ruin. In fact, in the two other gullies surrounding Evergreen, the debris looks human managed, stacked askew as if some giant played pick up sticks.  A sign on the main trail now to keep visitors safe, right before the Glory Path climbs up towards the top of Evergreen, to remind them that there is only one trail to use.
 In fact, the small hillside stream has already eroded away an empty plot. If it weren't for the single redwood standing guard up there, (with the help of some old wharf pilings put in back in the ‘70's), the whole section might slump down hill, again, this time taking a few headstone dense family plots with it.

In 1969, we were able to capture erosion in action at Evergreen:  

Creeped out?

In 1982, another landslide occurred. It happened during the famous storm, one that is forever recorded in a powerful picture book produced by the Santa Cruz Sentinel called “The Storm of ‘82”.  (This storm was also responsible for the Love Creek disaster.) Nature won this round against us.

In 2012, Engineers took a hard look at why landslides and flooding occurred at Evergreen. The hillside was slowly creeping downward. What trees clung to its sides leaned sideways like a human on a surfboard. This elegant solution was the result of this planning after many months of discussion and bids.

photos courtesy of G.Neier, Evergreen Archives

 The culvert  funnels water down this beautifully designed, channel shaped retaining wall. (complete with artistically placed stone pebbles within the water furrow..)  Flow heads straight into a large drain installed below the street.

Photo by G. Neier, Evergreen Volunteer

photo courtesy of G. Neier

Currents of Renewed Ambition

photo courtesy of D.White, Evergreen Volunteer

Cinder blocks for use on plot retaining wall

This isn’t the end. We are starting to shore up old plot retaining walls and with donations from the City of Santa Cruz, we are able to restore sections of Evergreen with recycled materials from local sources, replacing the first attempts by volunteers  to hold back the tide of mud and debris from further endangering the more delicate and historic sections of this living piece of local history. We may not ever win the race against Nature, but we can convince the landscape to work around us.

 Interested in helping out? Visit the Museum’s webpage .

Hauntingly Familiar

What is your favorite haunt on Halloween? Creepy mansions, old wharves, cemeteries?? Halloween cometh, and where I live, it's a national holiday. (I think it has to do with an excuse to eat candy, dress up and make mischief.)The blogging this week will concentrate on Spooky Tales of Evergreen Cemetery.
Evergreen Cemetery suffers the most this time of year, especially its fragile gravestones. People come because they want to see "The White Lady of Evergreen." Some come to celebrate their religious beliefs and some just want to come for the chills factor. After all, aren't cemeteries creepy?The reality is not that cemeteries themselves are creepy, but that some of the stories of how people GOT there, ARE.

For instance, what about the mysterious Marie Holmes? Her headstone has been stolen twice, and found twice. We don't know why it was taken the first time, and we suspect, due to the location of the second time it was found, the culprits may have been involved in a prank. But why, remains a mystery.

You see, there is a lot of inconsistent information about Marie. The biggest claim about her, is that she was a prostitute.  The second infamous claim is that she committed suicide in public. She DIED in public, but when you review some of the interesting stories around her, one fact can't be denied: She had a drink with a young man half an hour before she died. The community loved Marie and gave her a rock star's funeral, with a 'heavenly choir' and a full church service, not something commonplace for of woman of  her social standing.
That young man, who last spent time with Marie, killed again a few years later. Worse yet, he was sent away for thirty years, showed up, squatted, according to a local historian's remembrances, on the street that bears his step dad's last name, and yes, though he was a stepson, managed to get buried in the family plot.
That doesn't sound very interesting, except perhaps for the discovery of an old cemetery map behind a book page of a tattered 1920's Evergreen Association journal. This map revealed that three other young women died of "suicide" within a few months of Marie. Another interesting notation:  all the women, including Marie,  had babies buried with them. Hmmm.

Back on the other side of Evergreen is another mystery.

photo Courtesy of Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History

location of the Brinton headstone today

Mary Brinton made a sensational set of headlines for over a week after her body was found out in a tule reed choked lagoon near Natural Bridges. Her purse, recovered in a pool of blood staining a viewing bench on a cliff,  clearly cried out 'suicide' to the local police, except for an exceptional detective named Starbird.  Starbird was what we would call today, obsessed with finding the truth. We have legions of TV shows about such  detectives. Starbird, in the early 1900's, was the real thing. He didn't buy the coroner's or his boss' write off that this poor unknown woman's fate was suicide. Starbird investigated her identity.
First of all, Starbird took a sample of the blood found at the crime scene. He had to travel to San Francisco to a special laboratory to identify whether or not it was human. It wasn't human. The next step was to take her photo. He had a list of people who claimed they saw a woman who "looked melancholy," near the murder site, but when shown the photo of his VIC, well, they could not identify her.  Starbird looked at the labels of his VIC's clothing. He politely inquired if any women had bought a particular skirt or blouse (like his VIC's ) but no, very little was found out this way. Many had paid cash! Meanwhile, all manner of tips came in, (to use the modern lingo) but none of them could tell Starbird his VIC's name. (Many names were given, but none, as they say, panned out.) Finally, the victim wore spectacles. Somewhere there must be a record of who bought the spectacles for his victim, or even her own name.  Sure enough, the optometrist had the name of the patient who wore that particular prescription.   It was a break in the case. Starbird had the name of his VIC. Mary Brinton.
You'd think that would be the end of it, but many folk "identified" Mary, saying that she was sad, depressed, and yes, would have killed herself any time. Starbird was no fool. He tracked down three of these people, two who lived in Menlo Park, California. Without elaboration, he asked the "close associates" of Mary Brinton, if they could identify the 'unknown' woman in the photo (Mary), and none of the three could identify her. Meanwhile, Starbird had found out another curious fact:  Mary was very, very rich. She had funds in her bank account,  the equivalent in today's valuation, of 3/4 of a million dollars. She also had a child in New Zealand.  Finally, someone from Carmel came forward and identified Mary. Mary Brinton was the family nurse to a very wealthy man who lived in Redwood City. Who that man was, well, that still remains a mystery....The killer was never caught. In the end, Mary's death was still ruled a suicide, since there was no 'evidence' of foul play. What do you think?
Stay tuned!

Labor Intensive

Low water use succulents bring the green back.

Succulents installed at the Chinese Monument
by Homeless Service Center Volunteers

Labor Day. Every Monday we work to clean up, clear weeds, and assess potential problems in case the earth decides to move, or in a wet year, slide, around us. We labor to preserve a place that was a hub of entrepreneurial idealism, despite racial tensions and Civil War conflict. Santa Cruz's population grew, and then some died. The land was deforested to feed lime kilns and build dwellings, town businesses, and industry. It was cleared for farmland. And there was drought.  Evergreen was a name of hope and to instill hope, they created  Cemetery Decoration Days.  As always, they had to warn folk about the consequences of plant theft.

California enters it's third year of drought. And yet, here we are, again, like our forebears, giving hope, decorating our Cemetery,  trying our best to make sure our monuments prepare for our most important event of the year: Legacy Day. Our local paper, established in 1856, and author of the above print, recaps here,  today's events.
If you would like to volunteer at our site please contact the Museum of Art and History.

Rain is on the way: A salamander found by youth volunteers
clearing away ivy, searches for damp ground.

Let's do the twist..

On  December 21, 1862, May 16th and  October 9, 1865,  very large quakes rumbled through Santa Cruz. 

Damages were unreported or limited to brick buildings, bridges, or chimneys of stone,  which fortunately were not as common as wooden dwellings and structures. But what of Cemeteries? In 1989 Loma Prieta roared through Santa Cruz leaving devastation in its wake that ran deeper than the loss of its historic buildings. It shook our very souls. For an excellent recap of this history click on this link or visit the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz.

http://www.santacruzmah.org/2013/artifact-of-the-month-opening-the-lid-on-memories-brick-from-the-1989-loma-prieta-earthquake/

Evergreen Cemetery had some very interesting quake damage from our  1989 6.9 shakeup. 

Thanks to FEMA funding, many of these historic monuments were put back in place. Perhaps this is nature's way of saying that even the past is never set in stone, no matter how much we anchor, spend or preserve. It gives us pause to think about the next shakeup  and to wonder, are we ever truly prepared for change? 

To see images of pre-quake Santa Cruz please visit here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Santa-Cruz-County-History/125332627489930