Volume 90, Number 1 - California Historical Society

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of it, closing the aforementioned note with the
description: “The little baby moon had gone
to bed, but all the heaven was a pin cushion of
gold-headed stars and I was neither lonely or
leg weary: all this to show what the steps (?) and
stairs (?) out door air will do for a fellows [sic]
legs and lungs.” 14
Although it lacked exact complements to the
Bohemian and Sequoia Clubs, late-nineteenth-
century Oakland could boast its share of fraternities.
It was a town, in the words of its mayor,
where “Science, art, and letters thrive[d]” along
with “morality and general education.” 15 In addition
to upscale areas with “handsome and costly
houses,” the Alameda County seat hosted sixteen
educational establishments. The Vermonter Miss
Mary Snell, principal of the Snell Seminary, filled
in as a patron of the city’s budding art scene.
When the reformer Baroness Alexandra Gripenburg
of Finland sought, in 1887, to meet the East
Bay’s famous new resident, they rendezvoused at
the seminary. 16 In this way and in others, Miller
improvised his social life on the Contra Costa
side of the bay.
Spiritual heightS
Above almost all else, the church was a unifying
force in the middle-aged bard’s new northern
California life. Although Miller claimed loyalty
to no single religion, his father’s Quakerism
and the fundamental Christian practice in the
Willamette Valley of his youth strongly shaped
his outlook and his writing. (The Bible, he frequently
asserted, was the only reference book he
needed.) Halfway up the hill on the trail that led
to his private cemetery, he erected the Bishop’s
Gate, honoring William Taylor, Methodist bishop,
powerful gold rush preacher, and heroic missionary
to Africa. What would have further attracted
Miller, Taylor enjoyed a reputation as one of the
first, if not the first, importer of eucalyptus to
California. 17
California History • volume 90 number 1 2012
Simultaneously with Miller settling at his
ranch was the establishment of the Unitarian
Church’s first East Bay branch. Known as a sect
with advanced views and led by a succession of
dynamic ministers, the First Unitarian Church
of Oakland attracted a distinguished congregation.
18 Although Miller habitually spent his
Sundays propped up at work in the big brass bed
that doubled as his office, he formed strong ties
to the church’s Reverend Charles W. Wendte,
his successor William Day Simonds, the freefloating
Reverend Benjamin Fay Mills, and, even
more importantly, two of the church’s staunchest
parishioners, Charles J. Woodbury and
John P. Irish.
Son of a German immigrant and a gifted leader
who grew up in Boston and San Francisco,
Wendte established twelve new Unitarian
churches in a six-year period during his stay in
Oakland. To a large degree self-educated, he promoted
literature as well as music during these
years (1886–98) in the burgeoning town. 19 True
to the liberal outlook of his chosen denomination,
he offered the pulpit of the newly built First
Unitarian Church to both the radical feminist
Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Indian mystic
Swami Vivekananda, founder of the Vedanta
Society. Under his aegis, a fundraiser for a
memorial to a deceased poet drew almost a complete
complement of writers from the area. On
another occasion, Miller sat by bemused while an
embarrassed Unitarian from across the bay parodied
his versifying. 20
Relocated to southern California by 1904, Rev.
Mills was less a literary figure and more a spirited
reformer with a socialist agenda. Miller,
whose writing inveighed against the evils of
unfettered capitalism (ignoring his own inveterate
land speculations), enjoyed an easy rapport
with Mills. Elbert Hubbard recalled the Hights
proprietor waylaying him and the minister during
a visit. Miller had appeared from the trees