History
This is one of the bunkhouses of the China Camp for the Shinn Ranch, seen in 1975. A flowering quince bush is growing along side, providing beauty, fruit, and protection. A table on the front porch stands ready to be used by its last occupant. This is part of a series of photos taken that include the Shinn barn (before it burned in 19xx) and the packing shed. At the time of this photo, there were two bunkhouses, a cookhouse, and an outhouse. The city park plan shows the locations of the buildings.
Originally the buildings were located along Alameda Creek - a complex of buildings for sleeping, business, and cooking for the Chinese workers at the Shinn ranch. This ‘China Camp’ was where work was contracted by a “China Boss" for the Shinn Ranch and adjoining ranches and operations.
Today, 44 years after this photo was taken, this historic Chinese bunkhouse sits between an old barn and fruit cutting shed at the Shinn Historical Park & Arboretum in Fremont, California (website) (Facebook).
Only the bunkhouse and an outhouse remain now as the remaining physical evidence of the Chinese workers who were associated with the Shinn family since the 1870's.
There are few people who know what it is, because there is no signage. It is covered with a tarp and it continues to decay and fall apart.
The Chinese Bunkhouse Preservation Project was formed to preserve this rare building so it can be used to tell the story of the Chinese workers who came here in the 1860s and to better tell the story of the Shinn family who had Chinese workers in the 1870s and possibly until the 1940s (website) (Facebook).
1870 Census
Records in our local archives and in our community give us clues of who were the people who lived here.
According to census records, a China Camp on the Shinn Ranch could have been here since 1870, the year after the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in our area.
Shinn ranch ledgers also mention the Chinese who worked for them in wages. These are waiting to be mined for further information. A cursory scan of the ledgers provides an interesting history.
Lucy Shinn's letters to her daughter, Milicent, also mention their domestic help and ranch help, in between reports of eating right, clothing, neighborhood updates, extended family, visitors, and more.
Later, in the period between WWI and WWII, Joseph Clark Shinn (b. 1861), prepared some remarks about the immigrants who worked for his family. He said
“...the Chinese I know … I have the greatest respect and liking. I have found them remarkably honorable in all business dealings and faithful in all respects to the interests of their employers."
Shinn family descendants today confirm that the Shinn family had a warm relationship with the Chinese workers.
Hand-drawn map detail
Mrs. Gusman, who was apparently a housekeeper for Milicent Shinn, drew up this map, unknown date. She noted "3 houses chinese work men lived here." This could be the two bunkhouses and one cookhouse that were moved to the Shinn "backyard" when the area was quarried for gravel.
Full map
The detail above is from the right hand side turned sideways. The little house of "Mr. Joseph Shinn Jr." is the cottage at the front of Shinn Park.
Miss Milicent's house was moved to Peralta.
The family members in the private cemetery were reinterred to the Mountain View Cemetery.
Joshua and Belle
Joshua Fong's parents came to California in 1917. Eventually they settled on a farm in Centerville along Alameda Creek, not far from the Shinn Ranch and the California Nursery. Joshua wrote about his experiences from the 1930s to the 1940s: going to school, working on the family farm, hunting and fishing, and sometimes working on the neighboring farms and nursery. The family worked periodically for the California Nursery Company and on the Shinn Ranch.
Joshua and his brothers and sisters walked three miles to and from school through the California Nursery's China Camp. This was the half-way point for the kids and the camp cook often saved them pies, cookies, or other treats.
Joshua described visits to the China Camps for the Shinn Ranch and the California Nursery. His memoirs (p.7) give us the best description of his cousins and uncles who lived in these China Camps.
“There was a Chinese camp on each of these ranches that had a kitchen building with a large wok on top of a brick stove, bunk rooms with hard bunk beds such as those found in China, an outhouse and a small vegetable garden. The Shinn Camp, situated on the edge of Niles Lake had a fish trap fashioned out of rice sacks, much like those observed in later life on a trip through China. Among those cousins and uncles I remember were Fong Day Ngee, the camp cook, two Fong Gwei Mao, one being called Big Mao and the other Small Mao, and Lum Wa Sung, who eventually brought his wife over from China and established his own family unit and farm in Niles.
From the Shinn camp was Fong Hung Bong, who was the labor camp leader because he could drive and speak English. He used to drive his old 1929 Dodge truck 5 miles to visit us."
The remaining bunkhouse is the tenuous thread to the previous China Camps and the history of the Chinese workers who helped build our community.
The Chinese Bunkhouse Preservation Project continues to collaborate with local museums and descendants. We will continue to record and present the history of the Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans who lived and worked in our area - for the Shinn family and for other ranches, farms, and nurseries.
