44459.
886. Pioneer’s Cabin; near view; diameter 32 feet. Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County. [D]
44460.
887. Big Tree Abraham Lincoln; height 281 feet; circumference 44 feet. The man standing to the right of the tree is Hubert Howe Bancroft (May 5, 1832 – March 2, 1918). Bancroft was an American historian and ethnologist who wrote, published and collected works concerning the western United States, Texas, California, Alaska, Mexico, Central America and British Columbia. He was born on May 5, 1832, in Granville, Ohio, to Azariah Ashley Bancroft and Lucy Howe Bancroft. The Howe and Bancroft families originally hailed from the New England states of Vermont and Massachusetts, respectively. Bancroft’s parents were staunch abolitionists and the family home was a station on the Underground Railroad. Bancroft attended the Doane Academy in Granville for a year, and he then became a clerk in his brother-in-law’s bookstore in Buffalo, New York. In March 1852, Bancroft was provided with an inventory of books to sell and was sent to the booming California city of San Francisco to set up a West Coast regional office of the firm. Bancroft was successful in building his company, entering the world of publishing in the process. He also became a serious collector of books, building a collection numbering into the tens of thousands of volumes. In 1868, he resigned from his business in favor of his brother, A. L. Bancroft. He had accumulated a great library of historical material and abandoned business to devote himself entirely to writing and publishing history. Bancroft’s library consisted of books, maps, and printed and manuscript documents, including a large number of narratives dictated to Bancroft or his assistants by pioneers, settlers, and statesmen. The indexing of the vast collection employed six persons for ten years. The library was moved in 1881 to a fireproof building and, in 1900, numbered about 45,000 volumes. He developed a plan to publish a history in 39 volumes of the entire Pacific coast region of North America, from Central America to Alaska. He employed writers and wrote some of the material himself, though he credited only himself as an author. In 1886, the publishing establishment of A. L. Bancroft & Company burned, and the sheets of seven volumes of the history he had written were destroyed. Bancroft’s first marriage was to Emily Ketchum in 1859. They had one child, a girl who was born in 1859, named Kate. Emily died in childbirth in 1869. Bancroft married again in 1879. His second wife was Matilda Coley Griffing, with whom he had four children. Although he never graduated from college, in 1875 Bancroft was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Yale in recognition of his massive historical work on Native Races of the Pacific States. He was also elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1875. He died on March 2, 1918, at his country home in Walnut Creek, California. “Acute peritonitis” was blamed as the cause of death in published newspaper reports. Bancroft was 85 at his death. His body was interred in the Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California. In the late 19th century, it was determined that much of the work of which Bancroft claimed authorship had in fact been written by others. This tainted his legacy in the eyes of some scholars, on the principle “false in one thing, false in all.” The Salt Lake Tribune called him a “purloiner of other peoples’ brains” in 1893. The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, reflects the collector’s name. The University of California purchased his 60,000-volume book collection in 1905. Bancroft Way in Berkeley, California, was named in his honor. In 1885 Bancroft purchased a ranch with an adobe cottage located in Spring Valley, in San Diego County, as a retirement home. The Hubert H. Bancroft Ranch House is now a National Historic Landmark. In addition, part of a property Bancroft bought around 1880 in Contra Costa County, California later became the Ruth Bancroft Garden, when three acres of the remaining farm land was given by Bancroft’s grandson Philip to his wife, Ruth Bancroft. Several schools are named for Bancroft, including Bancroft Middle School (Long Beach, California), Bancroft Middle School (Los Angeles, California), Hubert H. Bancroft Elementary School in Sacramento, Bancroft Middle School in San Leandro, California Bancroft Elementary School in Andover, Massachusetts, Bancroft Elementary School in Walnut Creek, California and Bancroft Community School in Spring Valley, California. Several streets are named in his honor including Bancroft Way in Berkeley, Bancroft Avenue in Oakland and San Leandro. An archive of Bancroft family correspondence, collected by his daughter Kate, is held in Special Collections and Archives at the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego. Recollections of Hubert Howe Bancroft and the Bancroft Family, an oral history interview with Margaret Wood Bancroft, widow of Bancroft’s son Griffing, is held in the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.
44461.
887. Big Tree Abraham Lincoln; height 281 feet; circumference 44 feet. Hubert H. Bancroft at left.
44462.
888. Mother of the Forest; 305 feet high; 63 feet circumference; bark off 121 feet. Photographers Charles Lyman Pond and John Calvin Scripture, 6th and 7th from left.
44463.
888. Mother of the Forest; 305 feet high; 63 feet circumference; bark off 121 feet.
44464.
888. Mother of the Forest; 305 feet high; 63 feet circumference; bark off 121 feet.
44465.
889. Father of the Forest; 112 feet circumference, Mammoth Grove. Hubert H. Bancroft on ladder.
44466.
889. Father of the Forest; 112 feet circumference, Mammoth Grove. [D]
44467.
890. Fallen Tree, Father of the Forest, 112 feet circumference; and Jas. King of Wm., Mammoth Grove.
44468.
890. Fallen Tree, Father of the Forest, 112 feet circumference; and Jas. King of Wm., Mammoth Grove. Hubert H. Bancroft is the man seated on the log; his librarian H.L. Oak is the man on the ground in rear. Scripture’s photo wagon can be seen in the right rear.
44469.
890. Father of the Forest, 112 feet circumference, and Jas. King of Wm., Mammoth Grove, Calaveras Co.
44470.
891. Big Trees Old Dominion and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County.
44471.
892. Stump of the Big Tree Eagle Wing. Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County.
44472.
892. Stump of the Big Tree Eagle Wing. Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County. The two men up in the fallen tree are Thomas Houseworth, at left, and Hubert H. Bancroft, at right. The man on the ground at right is George S. Lawrence [of Lawrence & Houseworth].
44473.
893. Big Tree-George Washington; 284 feet high, 52 feet circumference.
44474.
894. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, from a point 40 feet in the interior of the Big Tree Eagle Wing, Calaveras County.
44475.
896. Under the Dome of the Forest-from the base, looking up-Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County.
44476.
897. A Walk among the Big Trees-Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County.
44477.
898. Bark, Wood, Cones, Foliage, etc., of the Big Trees, Calaveras County. [D]
44478.
899. The Keystone State-Big Tree Grove, Calaveras County.
44479.
900. The Pioneer’s Cabin and Pluto’s Chimney, Big Tree Grove, Calaveras County.
44480.
900. The Pioneer’s Cabin, 32 feet in diameter; and Pluto’s Chimney. Big Tree Grove, Calaveras County.
44481.
901. Father of the Forest, 112 feet circumference, and Jas. King of Wm., Mammoth Grove, Calaveras Co.
44481.
901. Father of the Forest, 112 feet circumference, and Jas. King of Wm., Mammoth Grove, Calaveras Co. Photographer Charles Lyman Pond leaning on tree in front.
44482.
902. Father of the Forest-near view. Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County.
44483.
903. Father of the Forest, 112 feet circumference-Entrance to the Horseback Ride, Mammoth Grove.
44484.
903. Father of the Forest, 112 feet circumference-Entrance to the Horseback Ride, Mammoth Grove.
44485.
903. Father of the Forest, 112 feet circumference-Entrance to the Horseback Ride, Mammoth Grove.
44486.
904. The Mother of the Forest, 305 feet high; 63 feet circumference-near view. Calaveras County. [D]
44487.
905. Pluto’s Chimney, burnt up 90 feet, Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County.
44488.
905. Pluto’s Chimney, burnt up a distance of 90 feet, Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County.
44489.
906. Under the Dome of the Forest-Wm. Cullen Bryant, Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County. [D]
44490.
906. Under the Dome of the Forest-Wm. Cullen Bryant, Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County.
44491.
907. Abraham Lincoln-near view; 281 feet high, 44 feet circumference. Big Tree Grove, Calaveras County.
44492.
908. The Original Big Tree, 250 feet from the Stump, 335 feet high, Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County.
44493.
909. Interior of the house built on the Original Big Tree Stump, Calaveras County.
44494.
910. Section of the Original Big Tree-near view. Mammoth Grove, Calaveras County.
44495.
911. But-end section of the Original Big Tree, near view, showing the auger holes made in felling.
44496.
913. General View of the Mammoth Grove and Hotel, Calaveras County. [D]
44497.
915. Sequoya Queen.
44498.
917. Fallen Tree Hercules-325 feet long. [D]
44499.
918. The Root of the Miners’ Cabin. The man on ground at left is Hubert H. Bancroft; the man at right on the ground is Charles Lyman Pond, photographer. The man at the middle of the root is probably Albert L. Bancroft and the man at top is possibly James L. Sperry.
44500.
919. The Root of the Father of the Forest.
44501.
No. 5. Ready for Action at the Highlands.
44501.
921. A Group of Trees.
44502.
Fishwomen, Edinburgh.
44502.
924. Tree Growing from the Body of the Eagle Wing.
44503.
1261. Four Oyster Women at Tenby.
44503.
925. U.S. Grant. [D]
44504.
Brighton Fishermen Out of Luck. No Fish Today.