MILLS COLLEGE, OAKLAND, CA: Nature Walk and Window Onto History

Mills College, Oakland, CA

In the middle of Oakland sits the campus of Mills College, an island of greenery around academic buildings and a place where local residents go to play sports on the playing fields, walk along tree lined paths, birdwatch, and generally enjoy nature. Established as a women’s college in 1885, Mills College will transform to a campus of Northeastern University in Boston in the fall of 2022.

Mills Young Ladies Seminary, about 1873. Mills Hall and students.

Mills College began as a Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, CA, moved to Oakland in 1871, and was chartered as a college in 1885. Juliet Fish Nichols (1859-1947), the subject of my new book, Keeper of the Light: Juliet Fish Nichols Fights the San Francisco Fog, was one of the first graduates. 

Olin Library at Mills College. 

Earlier this year, on a Sunday afternoon in June, Art and I took a walk on the Mills campus. I wanted to see Mills Hall, the building where Juliet had lived and attended classes when she was a student.

Mills Hall, 2022.

It is likely that one of the girls seated on the lawn in the 1873 photograph is Juliet, then fourteen years old. (The identity of the girls is not noted on the photograph.) At the time, Mills Hall was the only structure on campus. It contained classrooms and offices as well as housing for faculty and the young women who were the students. Now it is used as an administration building. 

The Bell Tower, designed by architect Julia Morgan. 

Gradually, the college grew, with facilities for the arts, sciences, music, sports and other disciplines. In 1904, the bell tower, El Campanil, designed by Julia Morgan was built in the southeast quadrant of the campus, across from Mills Hall.

A grove of California Bay Laurel trees on the Mills College campus.

In the first years the land around the new campus was quite open except for a few native oak trees. More than one thousand trees were planted, now grown to stately heights. As you walk around the campus today, you feel like you are in an arboretum, with trees and plants identified, and a nature trail along Leona Creek, which flows through the campus. 

A bridge crosses Leona Creek, which flows from the Oakland hills to San Francisco Bay.

The day I visited was shortly after graduation (chairs were still set up on the lawn) and few people were around. It was easy to imagine what it must have been like more than one hundred years ago when Juliet was a student.

Juliet Fish was born in Shanghai, China, where her father, Dr. Melancthon Fish, was serving as a medical missionary and United States consul. The family returned to the United States when Juliet was three. Juliet grew up in Oakland, California, and attended Mills Seminary for Young Ladies, where the goals were good health and a classical education. A daily outdoor walk of at least one mile was required. Students also worked out with dumbbells, Indian clubs and wands—so Juliet was well prepared for the physical demands of her later lighthouse work.

When Juliet was a student at Mills, she would have walked along shaded paths like this one lined with blackberry vines.

In 1888, Juliet married Commander Henry Nichols of the U.S. Navy, who became Superintendent of the 12^th Lighthouse District along the coast of California. They had no children. In 1899, Henry Nichols was sent to the Philippines during the Spanish-American War, where he died of heat stroke, leaving Juliet without financial support.

Angel Island Lighthouse and Bell Station, as it appeared when Juliet lived there.

When Juliet learned that the lighthouse keeper on Angel Island was retiring, she applied for the job. Juliet served as lighthouse keeper at Point Knox on Angel Island from 1902 to 1914. Upon her retirement, Juliet lived the rest of her life in Oakland. She is buried in the family plot at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.

Except for her lighthouse log and official letters and reports, Juliet Fish Nichols left few clues to her personal life. As I walked around the Mills Campus, I felt that in a small way I was able to share Juliet’s experience as a student and get a bit of insight to her life.

I donated at copy of my book Keeper of the Light to the Olin Library at Mills College in honor of Juliet Nichols. 

For more about Juliet Fish Nichols and Angel Island go to my posts of September 2017 and July 2012.

Additional information about Juliet Nichols, her log, Angel Island, the Point Knox Lighthouse, 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and more is at https://carolinearnoldart.blogspot.com/p/extra-material-for-keeper-of-light.html .

MOUNTAIN VIEW CEMETERY: in Oakland, CA--Bankers, Chocolate Kings and Ordinary People

View of Mountain View Cemetery from the Fish Nichols plot

On a recent sunny afternoon, I visited Mountain View Cemetery in the Piedmont area of Oakland in search of the grave site of Juliet Fish Nichols, the lighthouse keeper on Angel Island from 1902 to 1914.  I had learned about her last summer on a trip to Angel Island and about her heroic efforts to keep the fog bell ringing on a very foggy night in the summer of 1906 after the devastating San Francisco earthquake. (See my post for July 30, 2012.)  After retiring, she returned to her home in Oakland where she lived until she died in 1947. She is buried in the cemetery alongside her husband, father, and mother.

Mausoleum of Charles Crocker (1822-1888) founder of Crocker Bank

I found Julia's tombstone in the family plot, high on a hill with a spectacular view and a host of impressive neighbors–Charles Crocker of Crocker Bank, Domingo Ghiradelli, the “chocolate king”, Julia Morgan, California’s first woman architect, James Folger, the coffee producer–and many more of the people who are integral to California’s history.  Luckily, we  had picked up a brochure at the park office near the entrance on our way in along with a guide to the cemetery and the graves of some of its notable residents--a kind of crib-sheet to local history.

Crocker's tomb, upper left; Samuel Merritt, right, with pyramid on top

The brochure also included a brief history of the building of the cemetery, which was designed by the well-known landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of Central Park in New York City. In 1863, Olmstead was in California writing a report on Yosemite in an effort to convince Congress to make it into a national park.  The city of Oakland, rapidly growing on the East Side of San Francisco Bay, had bought 220 acres of land for a cemetery in the Oakland hills and invited Olmstead to create a design for it, which he did.  His design, an elegant blending of art and nature with majestic avenues, winding roads, shaded paths and inspiring vistas, among beautiful plantings of trees and flowers, became one of the most prominent garden cemeteries in America.

Avenue leading to top of hill

On the day we visited we saw some families tending graves, but the cemetery is so large that as we drove up the hill to find Juliet Nichols grave, we encountered few people and were aware mainly of the quiet and peacefulness of the site.  When we got to the top, we had stunning views of San Francisco and the whole Bay Area.  We were there in December and the entrance of the cemetery was decorated with a large nutcracker figure for the holidays and inside they had a special display of holiday lights.

You can take free docent led tours of the cemetery at 10:00 a.m. on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month. For more information about visiting Mountain View Cemetery and learning about its historic residents go to  http://www.mountainviewcemetery.org/.