Genealogical research often means seeing some sad things: the handwritten hospital charts for the Sailors and Soldiers home where civil war veterans went to die; the faded records of the indigent children scooped up from the streets of New York to be taken to the Almshouse on Blackwell's Island.
But that does make finding historical accounts that make you laugh with joy and amazement that much more special. When I was looking for the man who would turn out to be the uncle of my adopted great-grandmother, I Googled John Gue Barker and the first thing that popped up was a truly lovely mini-biography for him included in the application for Historical Preservation listing for this house:
I mean, seriously, don't you have a great big grin on your face right now? I still do!
John Gue Barker Jr. was born in Brooklyn on May 7, 1862. His eldest sister, Libby, was about six, and he likely had at least one other older sister, Hannah, and possibly another named Lillie. His mother, Hannah West, had been born in England and came to New York in 1834 with her parents and siblings when she was four. Less than a year later, the family was taken into the New York Almshouse as destitute. Hannah and her mother only spent a few months there but her father, a peddler, was in and out of the place several times before he died. Yet, somehow, Hannah met and married John Gue Barker Sr., a widower in the wholesale grocery trade. Barker's family had been in the New World for several generations, and many of his relatives lived in the City and on Long Island. I've not discovered many artefacts of John Sr.'s life on this planet, but have formed a notion of him as a man who had either purposefully distanced himself from his extended family, or done something to cause them to wish to distance from him. There is no evidence that he was a bad man; he just comes across as distracted, especially with regard to parenting. Whatever his familial relations, however, he did come in for a small inheritance from a wealthy uncle, so not a black sheep or anything like that.
After John Jr's birth, his father moved the family across the river to New Jersey, where he gained an additional sister, Mary Jane. Hannah died the following year of cerebritis, a brain inflammation, most likely a result of a dental infection but it has also been associated with lead poisoning. As John Sr. had done with the daughter from his first marriage when that wife died, his children were farmed out into other households, first with Hannah's brother, Theodore West, and then John Jr. and Mary Jane were sent to live with a widow woman who had no apparent family connection. In the 1870 census, she called them her adopted children.
According to a 1921 History of Stanislaus County, California, John Jr. completed "the New York City High School Course" and was also engaged in the wholesale business in New York City. According to 1880 census records, he was a clerk in a store. Both things could be true, of course... one just sounds a lot better! The same biography indicates he came to San Francisco in 1887. His move across the country was almost certainly at the behest of and likely sponsored by his sister, Libby, who had married a San Francisco man, Carl David Salfield, around 1881.
In San Francisco, Barker went to work for O'Farrell and Long, a real estate firm. They were evidently generous enough to give him time and possibly fare to return to New York for the probate of his father's estate in 1890. John Sr. left everything to his third wife.
In 1894, the 31-year-old Barker married Maggie Johnson, the daughter of Sarah Beachy Johnson, the owner of the Colonial Hotel. Sarah was the widow of a frontier Sheriff. Although her establishment was not the most elegant of the hotels on Nob Hill, it was eminently respectable; her testimony, quoted in the newspaper accounts in one long trial over the promises a wealthy politician and hotel patron made in writing to a woman who was not his wife, is that of an intelligent, principled and resolute individual. For her troubles, Sarah (and, by association, John Jr.) was targeted by some of the local powerbrokers; she almost lost the Colonial. But she prevailed in the end, and she and John were both reaffirmed by the press as ethical and upstanding citizens. Sarah must have been an amazing mentor for John Jr., who lived at the Colonial with Maggie and their daughter, Margaret, born in 1895.
By the time the earthquake hit in April of 1906, John was the hotel manager at The Colonial, but was also involved in real estate and gold speculation. As the city burned, John, Maggie, their daughter and Sarah all fled to Mill Valley, California, north of the City. The Colonial was lost to the flames and Maggie died the following year, in 1907. John and his daughter returned to the City and invested liberally in its rebuilding.
In 1909, John married heiress and socialite Rebecca Jennings Doolittle. A widow with a young son, Jefferson, Rebecca was described as a popular brunette and talented singer, which avoids stating the obvious: she was one of the wealthiest women in the area, heiress to several generations of frontier success stories. John was described as "a handsome hotel man," and "one of the most active real estate operators and property owners in the city."
The wedding marked one other change in John's life, at least as it was recorded in the newspapers. Prior to this, there was mention of John's sister, Libby, and her husband, Carl Salfield, at family get-togethers. After the marriage, however, the Salfields were not on the guest list for birthday parties, anniversaries or other celebrations.
John and Rebecca had two children, Jack and Muriel, joining the two children, Jefferson and Margaret, from their first marriages. In 1919, Margaret Barker married Paul Jennings Kingston, whose mother was a cousin to Rebecca. Jefferson Doolittle married Jean McLaughlin and they had three children. Jack Barker was only 28 when he died by suicide, leaving no heirs. Muriel Barker married John Clarke McPherson and also had three children.
Jefferson Doolittle's daughter, Jean Henry, wrote a really lovely book called "San Francisco Stories: Gold, Cattle and Food." In it, she describes the blended Barker family living in "large houses in San Francisco and Belvedere with servants, horses, and style, they lived the grand gesture.” The 1909 wedding accounts indicate that a residence is being built for the family in Belvedere. That was not 308 Golden Gate Avenue, however, which was built by Rebecca's brother, James Jennings. He gave the house to his mother while going through a very public and messy divorce. When she died in 1921, her estate was divided equally between Rebecca, James and their brother, Edward, but the brothers sold their shares to their sister and she lived in the house for the rest of her life.
I mean, who wouldn't?
Henry's book also goes on to say that John Barker Jr. squandered Rebecca's fortune. The couple divorced sometime in the 1930s. Barker continued to appear in the newspapers, although with much less fanfare. He died on March 3, 1949 and is buried next to his first wife, Maggie Johnson. Rebecca lived another 6 years in the big house in Belvedere (or at least summered there... everyone went to the City for the winter, of course). She never remarried.
The house was sold to the Chief Medical Examiner for the San Quentin prison after Rebecca's death, Admiral Morton D. Wilcutts M.D. One of the requirements for Historical Preservation designation is "History" including "association with a person of significance," and Admiral Wilcutts satisfied that. The house passed through six additional sets of hands after him, until settling with the current owners, who petitioned for and were granted Historical Preservation status in April of 2021.
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