Davis

Background history on John Herbert Davis (1825-1899)

John Davis was born on the island of San Martina on the coast of Dalmatia (western Yugoslavia) in 1825.  By the Spring of 1840 he was engaged in the China Trade making voyages between England and China.  With the discovery of gold in California, he made his way to the Pacific coast on the ship "Antelope" arriving in San Francisco on 16 June 1848.  He found his way to the mines at Auburn on the American river.  Unfortunately, he was an unsuccessful goldminer.  Upon his returned to San Francisco, he was confronted by several wagons, laden with victims of cholera, which was an epidemic during the summer of 1850. Nevertheless, in that same year he built a house and opened a restaurant with a lodging house on Commercial Street.  In 1851, he sold his holdings and moved to the Richmond/San Pablo area of Contra Costa County, where he bought more than 400 acres from the Castro family.  He then operated a farm in the San Pablo Creek watershed, and also owned a large parcel in the Baxter Creek watershed, close to where the Sakai Brothers' Rose Company and the Oishi Nursery were once located, near South 47th and Wall Streets in Richmond.  Davis's San Pablo farm, which was mostly cow pasture, extended from where the Southern Pacific railroad tracks ran (west of Rumrill Blvd. today) almost to the intersection of San Pablo Avenue and Road 20, near San Pablo Creek.  In 1860, his property was valued at $20,000 (approx. $713,665 today).  Macdonald Avenue in Richmond, once called Davis Lane, was an old stagecoach road along which Davis planted eucalyptus trees as a windbreak (the practice of many farmers in the East Bay).  Davis, married Anna Connor, a native of Scotland in 1851, and they raised six children together.  He was a member of the Society of California Pioneers.  He passed away from complications of paralysis on 14 June 1899.  He was laid to rest at St. Mary's Cemetery in Oakland.  Over a century later, his grandchildren sold a portion of the land they inherited from Davis to the City of San Pablo.  Davis is commemorated today by Davis Park in San Pablo—through which Wildcat Creek flows. Davis Park is located at 1649 Folsom Avenue, in San Pablo.