Banquet Piece, Pieter Claez

Saturday, August 22, 2015

First palms in the east bay and elsewhere?

Palms at Palmdale in Mission San Jose.
I have seen it stated that the Franciscan padres brought the first palms, Canary Island date palms, to California. If that is the case, then the first palms in the east bay would have been at Mission San Jose which was established in 1797. I read somewhere (will find!) that one of these palms might still live at Palmdale, across the street from the mission. That would make it a 218 year old palm.  See another opinion.

I have examined many old pictures of the mission and do not see palm trees.

Along Mission Creek and in Palmdale are many quite old and tall Canary Island date palms. Perhaps E.L. Beard or Juan Gallegos planted these later in the 1800s.

Aside from that possible early tree, where else were our first palms planted?

Tangible Memories (p. 154) says Louis Prevost was among the first to grow fan palms while he lived in San Jose. In 1858 he raised fifty specimens of Washingtonia filifera and distributed these over California. (Note 31) (also see page 397) Governor Latham bought two of these twenty five feet palms for $1000 and moved them to his property in Menlo Park. By 1878 these trees were thirty feet high. W.E. Hopping, County Judge in Shasta County also planted two of these palms in 1858. Possibly John Rock and Bernard S. Fox developed their enthusiasm for these palms after seeing Prevost's garden.

Pacific Rural Press in 1887 mentions these facts, so maybe that's where Butterfield got it. "Its native area along the Colorado river was thrown open to the public by the building of the Southern overland route, and is now a comparatively familiar country."
Pacific Rural Press says " It is on record that Louis Prevost, the pioneer San Jose horticulturist, brought seed from the southern desert to San Jose about 30 years ago, and succeeded in growing about 50 plants." So that would be 1857 which agrees closely with the 1858 date.


From OAC. These palms have turned up in a postcard?
This was photographed by Cheney.
Same trip as these others?


Related stuff

  • Louis Prevost and the Silk Industry at San Jose
  • Pacific Rural Press, December 17, 1887. Talks about Louis Prevost and introduction of the California fan palm.
  • Pacific Rural Press, February 2, 1878, John Rock's 3 year old filifera. The 3 year old would have been planted in 1875. In 1915 it would have been 40 years old. The CNC catalog says "some of the trees were 40 years old". Was this one of the trees that went to the PPIE?


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