Looking east down Fourth Street in busy central San Rafael, it's hard to imagine that mission orchards and vineyards producing fruit in abundance once spread from east of the Mission to Irwin Street.
The Mission San Rafael Arcángel was founded in 1817 as an asistencia, a hospital to which San Francisco's Mission Dolores sent Indians to recover from illness. San Rafael's temperate climate made it an ideal spot for healing.
San Rafael Arcángel became a true mission in 1822, one of the last to be founded by the Franciscans in California. The friars taught the Indians to raise animals and grow fruits and vegetables. The natural springs on the hill above the mission provided irrigation for the orchards, vineyards and fields of wheat, barley, corn, beans and peas.
Eventually the mission became self-sustaining, with a surplus of produce to trade. By 1828, 1,140 Miwoks lived at the mission and tended its plants and livestock.
San Rafael Arcángel was also the first mission to be secularized in 1834 when the Mexican government dismantled the mission system, seizing the land and other assets from the Franciscans. General Mariano Vallejo, who administered the transition, hauled away most of the mission's livestock, vines and trees to his property in Sonoma.
Another recipient of the bounty was General John Bidwell, who stated in a letter published in the May 1888 Overland Monthly,
“It was in 1848 that I went to San Rafael to get pear trees and grape vines. I obtained them from Don Timoteo Murphy, who for many years under Mexican rule had been the Administrator of the mission.”
According to Betty Goerke, author of Chief Marin: Leader, Rebel, and Legend, some native people returned to work the orchards and gardens after secularization. Time, however, treated both the mission grounds and the Indians harshly.
Recalling Mission Pears
In its heydey, the mission was known for its delicious pears. Several eyewitness narratives survive from various points in the mission orchard's history.
Charles Lauff, a Marin pioneer, describes what he saw in 1845 in a series of his reminiscences in the San Rafael Independent, Jan 25 - May 23, 1916:
“I remember in 1845  when I came to the county with General Fremont it was in the autumn, and the pears were ripe on these trees. They had quite a large orchard that extended from C Street to the Hotel Rafael. The trees were planted in a straight row, and grapes were planted between the trees. The fruit was excellent and we carried some away with us. The General, who was a very talkative fellow, remarked that the pears were the first fruit that he had tasted in several years.”
Lauff also mentions the state of the pear trees in 1916:
“The old pear trees back of the Masonic building, at the southeast corner of Fifth and De Hiery Streets, San Rafael, were planted by the Mission Fathers in 1817, and they have borne fruit every year since. They never require pruning and the fruit is quite palatable.”
In another account in the San Rafael Independent, August 14, 1917, Juan Garcia mentions the mission orchards:
"My father, Corporal Rafael Garcia, was in charge of the building of the Mission San Rafael.
"All the land from B Street east along Fourth Street and north of Fourth Street was planted in fruit and grapes by the missionaries. The orchards were intact thirty years ago and the first property owners to cut into the orchard were Hepburn Wilkins, Douglass Saunders, Oliver Irwin and others.
"The same pear trees planted by the Mission Fathers can be found back of the Masonic Hall today, and there are several back of the Herzog property on Fourth Street, opposite Cijos Street. There is also one, still bearing fruit, back of the Magnes lot on Fourth Street.”
In his 1880 History of Marin County, J.P. Munro-Fraser provides another description of the aging orchard:
“Contiguous to the mission there was a vast orchard and garden that extended from the Wilkins' place down to the thoroughfare known as Irwin street and from thence to the Marsh land.
“Standing at the lower end of the town, a little below the court house, are a dozen or more trees, gnarled in appearance, grey with time and bowed with age, which, without their clothing of foliage, have all the appearance of good old oaks that have stood the brunt of battle with many a fierce gale. These are the remains of the pear trees which formerly stood in the ancient mission orchard.”
By the late 1800s, development had encroached on the orchard and fields to where the Sausalito News, September 16, 1892 reported:
“Ever since San Rafael began to build streets and houses the ancient trees grew alone by the main thoroughfare, always an object of historical interest and curiosity. A week or two since they were cut down, with the exception of a few smaller ones in the rear, and now sections of the trunks, fully three feet or more in diameter, may be seen on the sidewalk. They will be preserved as curiosities to show how large fruit trees may grow in California.”
Pear Promoter George D. Shearer
The remaining pear trees were not totally neglected. George D. Shearer, a prominent Realtor, auctioneer and owner of the “Everything Auction House and Storage Company,” took an interest in the old mission pear trees. The Sausalito News of May 19, 1893 reported that George D. Shearer would supervise the Marin County Excursion to the World's Fair, which left San Francisco on June 1, 1893. "Be sure you see George at once and secure a good berth. Have you seen what he puts up in his overland lunch baskets? Oh my!” The paper read.
Shearer may have placed mission pears in his lunch baskets, as he brought a load of the pears to exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair. He also exhibited a slab of the largest remaining pear tree. In the ensuing years, Shearer continued to exhibit the nearly century-old pears in fairs and exhibitions around the state, including San Francisco's Panama-Pacific Exhibition in 1915.
Shearer died in 1923, and without a promoter, the pear trees also disappeared. With construction of the El Rey Apartments in the 1929, all but one tree was destroyed. It stood in a courtyard behind the El Rey Apartments at 845 Fifth Avenue next to the Masonic Building on Lootens Place.
Saving the Trees
A pear from the tree was exhibited as a museum artifact at a meeting of the Marin County Historical Society on September 20, 1939. The society also owned a branch from one of the original pear trees donated by Mary (Mrs. Thomas) Wintringham.
Wintringham's daughter, Georgia, described in a 1966 letter to historian Lucretia Little her memories of the last trees:
"There was a row just inside the fence on the lot back of the Masonic Building before the apartment house on the corner of Fifth Avenue was built. My mother tried to get people interested in buying the lot, turning it into a playground and saving the trees but was unable to get enough people enthused."
Last Pear Tree Destroyed
In late 1963, workers ripped out this last remaining tree. According to the report by Alton S. Bock in the January 2, 1964 Marin Independent Journal, Harry Albert, son of Jacob Albert, had purchased both the Marin Municipal Water District building on Fourth Street and the El Rey Apartments. He planned to use the rear of the properties for a parking lot and needed to add a driveway between the El Rey Courtyard and the Masonic Building.
Sometime in December 1963, the tree was destroyed to make way for the driveway. Albert had planned to save the tree, but he died before he made those plans known.
John C. Oglesby, a 10-year resident of the El Rey Apartments who had long watched over the tree from his apartment window, discovered too late that the tree was gone. A civil engineer and former Marin County surveyor, Oglesby rushed to the dump to see if he could save a bit of the tree but found no remains.
The news saddened San Rafael residents who valued the last living remnant of the old mission. Mabel J. (Mrs. Albert) Siemer wrote in a letter to the editor of the Independent Journal:
"My husband built the El Rey Apartments and felt very badly about having to sacrifice the trees, but at that time no one seemed to want them. He did have the one tree transplanted to the rear court of the El Rey, where as you know it continued to bear pears.
"At that time he had a gavel of the old wood made and it was presented to the of San Rafael where I hope it is being used."
Saved by Graftings
Thinking all the trees lost, residents perked up when they learned that the pears lived on thanks to the forethought and talents of nurseryman Richard Lohrmann, founder in 1909 of a nursery in San Rafael's West End. Lohrmann had taken a graft from one of the trees back in 1929 when the trees were destroyed to make way for the El Rey Apartments. He grafted the mission pear onto a tree that produced both a German variety and a French variety.
“I called up the editor, Craemer, and I told him that it was not a lost cause because we still had a tree in the nursery and I would graft them over for the following year and then I would give them to various people. And I was successful. I think I grafted about twenty or so trees and I gave one for Mrs. Moya del Pino; one I planted in front of the Catholic Church. It’s still standing there.”
Pear Trees Planted
In 1965 Karl Untermann gave one of the trees to Saint Rafael Church. He planted it with Rev. Thomas Kennedy and eighth graders Connie Croker and Kenny Andres of St. Raphael School, during 'plant a tree week.' That tree no longer stands.
Yet another of the grafted trees still thrives next to the Jose Moya del Pino Library, home of the Ross Historical Society, in the Marin Art and Garden Center. Untermann produced about 20 trees, so other grafted mission pears may be growing in the county.
Karl Untermann purchased his Uncle Lohrmann's nursery and operated it as West End Nursery until he turned it over to his son Tom in 1990. Now Tom and his son Chris continue the family nursery business and can be proud of their family's role in saving San Rafael's mission pear.
Several of the photographs were provided by the . If you are interested in purchasing these photographs or others from their collection please call 415-382.0770x3 or email firstname.lastname@example.org.
Other resources were provided by the Anne T. Kent California Room of the Marin County Library.