Title: George Chase, Alameda County (California) Papers,

Date (inclusive): 1802-1911

Collection number: Mss134

Creator: Reginald R. Stuart

Extent: 0.25 linear ft.

Repository: University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections

Shelf location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.

Language: English.

Collection is open for research.

[Identification of item], George Chase, Alameda County (California) Papers, Mss134, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

George Chase, was Deputy Treasurer of Alameda County. He was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts (1841), a son of Moses and Emily (Stickney) Chase. The Chase family subsequently settled in Brooklyn (Clinton), California, now part of Oakland. The father of George Chase came to California in 1849. There, he supported himself on West Oakland Point by hunting. He joined in partnership with the Patten brothers and obtained land in Clinton which they subdivided into building lots. They built the first hotel in East Oakland, called the Clinton House. Moses Chase returned East in 1853 to visit family and in his absence the Clinton House burned. He returned to California the same year. Son George came to California (1854) in company with his aunt Mary and her husband, James Allen. George's mother, Emily (Stickney) Chase, had died when George was a baby.

Upon his arrival (1856) George Chase worked as an assistant to the toll-collector on Oakland's Twelfth Street Bridge. Meanwhile, he attended preparatory school at Durant College. Later, Chase worked with his father on a sloop the latter used in freighting goods to San Francisco. At eighteen, George learned the trade of carriage-painter with A. H. Cochran and was in business with Cochran for a year (1860). He then went to work for Bangle Brothers, carriage-painters, and, from 1865, was a house painter for them. In 1867 he and his old partner, A.H. Cochran, formed the firm of Cochran & Chase. Chase traveled East via Panama (1868-1869) visiting his three Stickney aunts in Newburyport, going also to Portland, to Hallowell, Me., and to Boston. He returned to California after five months and began a new contracting/painting partnership with the Bangle brothers. The firm continued in business until George Chase had an injury to his ankle (1878). He then became a copyist under P.R. Borein, County Recorder (1878-1881) and was later appointed Deputy Treasurer of Alameda County (1881 to at least 1892). He was married in Clinton (1869) to Miss Mandana E. Boynton (Danie of his letters), who was born in Hallowell, Maine, about 1843. They had three children: Mary Emily (b. 1870), George Moses (b. 1873), and Albert Boynton (b. 1879).

The collection consists of typescript copies of originals. It contains the 1883-84 diary of Mellie Chase, twelve year old daughter of George Chase; the 1867 and 1868 diaries of George Chase, and, correspondence from his mother's family, the Stickneys, of Newburyport, Mass. The collection also contains correspondence between George's cousin Millie and his Aunt Fanny Stickney, copies of 19th c. Alameda County land documents, an extract from Jacob Stickney's will and a speech by George Chase to his old Civil War Company. There is a collection of Chase family papers at the University of California, Berkeley.