Alameda County Biographies

Francis Kittridge Shattuck

Transcribed by Peggy Allen, April 20, 2006

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

          No man in this community has worn so well in public life as the 
subject of this sketch.  He is a native of Essex, Essex County, New York, where 
he was born in the year 1825, and reared on a farm.  Before coming to 
California, he both farmed and merchandized in his native State.  He came to 
California on Feb. 22d, 1850, in the steamer Oregon.  Among his 
fellow-passengers was the late Geo. M. Blake, with whom he subsequently ever 
remained on terms of  intimacy.  He went to the mines, and continued mining for 
a couple of years with indifferent success. 
          In the month of January, of the year 1852, he settled in Oakland 
Township, and farmed out at Berkeley in company with his late partners, William 
Hillegass and Mr. Blake.  At this time there were but about fifty to one hundred 
people in Oakland, Including Carpentier, Moon, Adams, A. W. Burrell, S. H. 
Robinson, Samuel J. Clark, L. J. Hardy and Edward Gibbons. He and his partner 
were the first American farmers in the township, and his residence there was a 
reason for the prominence and importance subsequently attained by the locality 
since named Berkeley, and which title was the suggestion of Frederick Billings.  
The land was very productive,  prices were good, and farming paid well.  After a 
while he and his partner started a livery stable, at the foot of Broadway, and 
took up his residence in Oakland.  He was elected to the City Council in 1856; 
as was also his partner, Mr. Hillegass.  Mr. Shattuck continued to fill the 
position of Councilman for three or four years, and in 1859 was elected Mayor of 
the city.  Honors continued to crowd thickly upon him.  In 1858 he was elected 
one of the Vice-Presidents of the newly-organized Agricultural Society; and, in 
the same year that he was elected Mayor  of the city (1859), he was elected an 
Assemblyman to the State Legislature, as a Broderick Democrat, serving the 
following year.  He has been a member of the Board of Supervisors since 1860, 
with exception of two years.  In 1861 he and his partner invested in Mount 
Diablo coal-mines, having purchased the Stewart mine, which was by them called 
the Central mine.  They formed a company to work it, and incorporated it in 
1863, Mr. Shattuck holding the position of President, and which he has held ever 
since.  This mine worked form fifty to one hundred men, whose wages varied from 
$2.50 to $4 per day.  Their coal was teamed to vessel at Antioch, and was 
disposed of by contract.  It was worth $7 per ton, delivered at the landing. It 
is principally used for generating steam and manufacturing purposes.  This mine 
is estimated to be worth now $150,000, although not in actual operation.  The 
investment in this enterprise always paid well.  Mr. Hillegass died at the 
beginning of the present year, leaving a fortune estimated at $200,000.
          The firm, amid their various other enterprises, engaged in raising 
stock and dealing in real estate. Messrs. Shattuck and Hillegass may, with 
propriety, be called the pioneers of Berkeley.  There was not a house within 
sight when they settled there, and they labored persistently for its  selection 
as the site for the State University, cooperating in this regard with the late 
Doctor Durant.  The State University grounds constitute a portion of the land 
originally held by them.  Mr. Shattuck has served his last term on the Board of 
Supervisors, and desires hereafter to avoid public life.  He is also contracting 
his business operations, having sold his livery stock in November of the present 
year.  It should have been mentioned in the proper place, that in 1869 Mr. 
Shattuck was the Republican candidate for State Senator, and was defeated by the 
late Edward Tompkins, one  of the ablest men that ever entered the California 
Legislature.  In the affairs of 1869, as printed in their proper place in this 
volume, by some mistake, Mr. Tompkins� majority has been credited to Mr. 
Shattuck.  He is yet a comparatively young man, and in the prime of life.   But 
few have served the public so long and so faithfully, and he is now entitled to 
a respite, at least, from the cares and labors of public life.  Mr. Shattuck was 
married, in New York, in 1855, having made a trip home for the purpose, but 
possesses no family. 
 
The Centennial Yearbook of Alameda County, California-Oakland, Calif., 1876 
Pages 540-542