|
About
Elise P. Buckingham
"She
took the road less traveled by!"
by Ruth Gardner
Begell
Little written
information survives detailing early Solano women's accomplishments. An
exception to this is Elise Pierson Buckingham, often referred to in the
literature of her day as Mrs. E. P. Buckingham. A native of Genesee
County, New York. Elise was apparently a woman of such obvious,
outstanding qualities for her time and such an outspoken proponent of
her views that she received good press almost from the time of her
arrival in the Vacaville area in 1884.
After her
divorce from Mr. Buckingham, a San Francisco businessman, Elise left
behind the social life of the Bay Area to invest her substantial wealth
in what was soon to be known as the "Wonder County. " She
purchased over 400 acres in Lagoon Valley from Jose Demetrio Pena in the
spring of 1884. According to an 1895 San Francisco Examiner article by
Mabel Clark Craft, Elise first purchased the land with the intention of
reselling it for profit but later decided to plant it in fruit trees to
provide a future for her college-age son, Thomas Hugh Buckingham.
According to Wickson at the time of her purchase there were some long
established vines thriving on the tract. To these existing orchards
Elise added new trees until she had over two hundred acres in orchards
at her Lagunita Rancho.
In 1888 Elise
bought one thousand additional acres near Vacaville from William
Butcher. She subdivided the acreage and sold off one half of it within
seven years, canceling out her debt for the original purchase price for
the entire one thousand acres. According to Craft's article the new
landowners were "all young men and women, mostly from England and
Holland. One New York City girl owns forty-two acres of her own, planted
to trees, and manages eighty acres in addition for relatives as well as
any man in the county could. " Another young woman was one of the
county's early commuters. Sarah A. Bates purchased forty acres from
Elise Buckingham that she planted in orchards and vineyards. However,
she worked in San Francisco as an artist, earning enough to pay for her
own horse and carriage.
Elise
Buckingham was an enthusiastic supporter of Northern California and gave
talks on California fruit growing to audiences not only in San Francisco
and Oakland but also in New York State and Poland! In addition, her
letters describing local fruit raising methods were published in the New
York Post. After a visit to New York where she purchased Vacaville fruit
from a dealer who thought the cherries hailed from Los Angeles (he
thought Los Angeles was another name for California). Elise had a stamp
made to be used on all her fruit boxes which proclaimed in red letters
"Northern California."
Elise is also
credited with influencing several "distinguished" families
from New York in their decision to locate in the Vacaville area.
Despite the
fact Elise had no prior experience or knowledge of the fruit raising
industry and feared when she arrived in Vacaville that being a city girl
she would never like country life, she soon adapted to her new
situation. By 1888 she was widely known for having an exceptionally
profitable and well-run operation which she personally oversaw without
the assistance of a ranch manager. At that time she was said to possess
the largest fruit orchard in the world owned and managed by a woman. In
1893 she marketed six hundred tons of fruit from her orchards.
Elise
Buckingham had strong ideas about the role and potential for women that
were not generally expressed by the majority of women of her era. Not
only was she involved in presenting the first and only speakers on
suffrage in Vacaville in 1911, but as early as 1888 she was
characterized by Edward Wickson as knowing ". . . how women tire
sometimes of the exactions of society or grow restless in the bonds of
conventionality. She knows also that upon many women devolves the duty
of investing money or employing energy so that returns may be had for
those dependent upon them, and how often the usual investments prove
un-remunerative if not delusively, and how crowded are the ranks of
vocations conventionally considered women's work. Herein we have a key
to some of the thoughts which Mrs. Buckingham cherishes: to lead women
to recognize their own ability and strength to lead them to action
rather than to restlessness or repining, to demonstrate that a women can
succeed in horticulture even when the affair is extended and complex and
great interests involved, to add perchance a single scintillation to the
light which California throws forth to cheer and welcome those who have
force enough to do and dare for the promotion of their own
welfare."
Wickson was
obviously impressed with her abilities as a businesswoman and fruit
rancher. He described her ranch as "the greatest horticultural
achievements in Laguna Valley.... It is the most notable example of
woman's work in California fruit growing, and it is the more interesting
because its executor was left with the property on her hands and thus
forced into its manipulation, but taking her own cash capital she moved
forward into horticulture with due deliberation, believing that she
could thus build up a pleasant and profitable business enterprise. There
are in California horticulture other instances of successful work by
women among those who have deliberately taken up the business but we
believe the undertaking in Laguna Valley is by far the greatest in view
of the capital invested and the magnitude of the operations undertaken.
"
When Elise
Buckingham died in 1915 at the age of eighty, her death was announced on
the front page of the Vacaville Reporter. It was noted that she was
"prominent for many years in the social and business life of this
section of the state. " |
For a list of other schools in our
area, go to the