Shinn House Museum
Welcome to the archives and museum of the Shinn family in the historic Shinn House at the Shinn Historical Park and Arboretum in Fremont, California.
You can visit the archives on the same days that the house is open.
You can make an appointment with mphf.archive@gmail.com at other times.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The archives cover the years before James and Lucy Shinn came to California, their arrival by ship in 1856 via the Panama Canal, the gold rush, teaching, education and the university, the lumber business, the coming of the railroad, the nursery years, and fruit ranching years. Details of life can be found in nursery and ranch ledgers, in photos, in writings, and more. Descendant, Kathryn Kasch, wrote about the The Story of the Shinn Ranch
Over the next months & years, we will be filling in the history of the Shinn family and featuring items from the collections.
Our first major preservation and digitization project - The Lucy Letters
The letters from Lucy Shinn to her daughter, Milicent, are accessible from California Revealed and the Internet Archive. Other items from the Shinn family can be found at the Bancroft library and at the Washington Township Museum of Local History.
In 2020, Kathryn Kasch received a box of letters from her cousin-in-law, Pete Zeigler. Kathryn is a descendant of Charles and Julia Shinn. Pete's wife Ann is a descendant of Joseph and Florence Shinn. They are both descendants of James and Lucy Shinn. The letters....[more]
... were written by Lucy Shinn to her daughter, Milicent, between 1873 and 1882. During that time period, Milicent was in high school and later at the University of California at Berkeley. The Shinn family lived in a small cottage until 1876 when the “Big House” was finished. The Shinn’s Nurseries were operating during this time.
These letters provide a glimpse of life of the Shinn family. The children - Charles, Annie, Milicent, and Joseph - were getting their education and their first jobs. And unfortunately Annie passed during this time.
Kathryn embarked on the long process of transcribing Lucy’s pen and ink letters. She sent the letters in dribs and drabs for safekeeping. As we read them we realized that Lucy Shinn was very observant, witty, kind, loving, intelligent, and practical. She wrote about cuff and collars, carpets, the new house, the nursery business, their Chinese help in house and field, politics, friends and family, and especially about the the family’s successes, illnesses, and deaths. She made the whole world of the 1870s come alive for us.
In 2020 Margaret Balk and Janet Barton connected with the California Revealed program of the California State Library. They scanned and prepared the letters to be hosted online. Here they are on the Internet Archive for you to enjoy.
Featured Letters
