Volume 90, Number 1 - California Historical Society

the multicolored glass set in the two peaked windows
adjoining the front door. Similarly, fellow
Bohemian and sculptor Arthur Putnam could
well have carved the rising sun, described as “an
Aztec nimbus,” that sat above the door, while
Putnam or another craftsman from the gregarious
coterie contributed the scarlet cross that
arose from the gable and the silver Moslem crescent
on the door. 8
The Bohemian Club provided Miller with a base
in the city for drinking and socializing and, until
the 1906 earthquake and fire demolished its
building and the majority of its contents, a place
to archive some of his papers. He participated in
the “jinkses” that related to his own experience,
such as the 1903 theatrical and musical evening
honoring a companion of his London days, fellow
miner and longtime rival Bret Harte. Five
years later, he joined in a comparable celebration,
the “Days of ’49,” with fellow performers
“Sunset Norris” (Frank Norris of Octopus fame),
“Sundown Field” (Charles K. Field, editor of
Sunset magazine and Bohemian Club president
from 1913 to 1914), and Arthur (repackaged as
“Coyote”) Putnam. 9
So much did the Poet of the Sierras enjoy his
Bohemian experience that not long after its
launch in 1904, he joined the Sequoia Club,
society figure Ednah Robinson’s revival of a
short-lived earlier group, a female response to
the Bohemian Club. 10 Uniquely for its time, the
reorganized Sequoia Club integrated genders.
Headed by Charles S. Aiken, editor of Sunset (and
shortly to be Robinson’s husband), the Sequoia
Club signaled its revival with a dinner at the
St. Francis Hotel honoring the author Gertrude
Atherton. Other receptions followed, along with
concerts and art exhibits. Harr Wagner, who
became Miller’s close associate and first biographer
(and the Sequoia Club’s third president),
commented that the poet was inspired to host a
barbecue at his ranch for a hundred of his fellow
Sequoians. 11
44 California History • volume 90 number 1 2012
Given the logistics of transport, entertaining one
hundred guests at home would have been marginally
more demanding than attending the San
Francisco gatherings. The Bohemian schedule
of performances at 9 p.m., with dinner following
at 11, would have been a challenge for any
member who wished to be home the same night,
especially if that home happened to be in the
hills behind the decorous suburb of Fruitvale and
ten miles from the center of Oakland. With the
last San Francisco–Oakland ferry leaving around
midnight and connecting streetcars on the other
side running only every hour, Miller could not
have lingered long over dinner. In a few lines of
a surviving note, he reassured a concerned friend
that he did his “stint at the Bret Harte jinks, then
caught the boat and walked up the hill to the
Hights and slept in my own bear skins, as I told
you I would.” 12
As with almost everything connected with Miller,
the facts, as related by both him and observers,
are contradictory. However, almost all accounts
concur in describing the hike up the “tawny hill”
as a strenuous one. Commencing at the little
settlement of Dimond at the intersection of Hopkins
(now MacArthur) and Fruitvale Avenues,
the purported length of the trip varied markedly
depending on the age and fitness of the traveler.
What was two miles for a couple of college students
in 1892 was five for the author, publisher,
and arts-and-crafts manufacturer Elbert Hubbard
a decade later. At least by the time the two Baptist
students attempted the trip, the electric Highland
Park and Fruitvale line had replaced the horsedrawn
Brooklyn and Fruit Vale (as the name of
the suburb was originally spelled) streetcar and
now extended from Fruitvale center to Dimond.
But even under ideal circumstances—a private
carriage driven all the way from City Hall at
14th and Broadway—the trip to the Hights was
a two-hour trek. 13 Usually Miller made good use
of a horse and buckboard when commuting up
and down his hill. Returning from San Francisco
after the Bret Harte musicale, he made the best