University of Virginia Library

RECOLLECTIONS OF TEMPLETON CROCKER
By HENRY R. WAGNER

I DO not remember exactly when it was that I first met Mr. Crocker but I think it was in John Howell's bookstore, some time in 1917 or 1918 I had heard of him in New York from dealers in American books, and at the time our acquaintance began he was an avid collector, usually buying everything on the subject that was sent him. Most of the years 1919 and 1920 I spent in New York City. On my return to Berkeley in the latter part of 1920, I again met Mr. Crocker and began discussing with him the advisability of organizing an historical society. The record of the first steps taken in the spring of 1922 to reorganize the Society, with Templeton Crocker as president, can be found in the first volume of the QUARTERLY (pp. 9-20, 107-110) and were briefly retold by Anson S. Blake in his obituary of Mr. Crocker in the QUARTERLY for March of this year, so I shall comment only on the less familiar details.

As a means of procuring members the first year, Mr. Crocker suggested that I write a short history of the proceedings leading up to the Society's re-birth, and that John Henry Nash be asked to print it; he, Crocker, would pay for it. Several hundred copies of eight pages were printed at a cost to Mr. Crocker of $300. It met with success and we could at last begin operating. Miss Dorothy H. Huggins was made corresponding secretary. It should be mentioned here that she officiated in that capacity as well as assistant editor of the QUARTERLY until 1944, when she resigned to take a position with the University of California Press. The success of the Society was due more to her efforts than to any other person.

To publish a quarterly magazine was the only object in organizing a Society. Turning it into a museum had been frowned on at the start and many gifts of that character were rejected. Neither was money to be spent in the purchase of books for the library and no professors of history were to be elected as directors, the object being to prevent the use of the QUARTERLY as an outlet for their own articles or those of their students, and thus limit its interest to professional historians.

When we began to prepare material for the first volume of the QUARTERLY, the work devolved on Robert E. Cowan and myself. It proved no easy task. Where were we to find something of value and interest to print? Dr. Charles L. Camp edited a story of overland adventure by Charles Cardinell; Mary Floyd Williams wrote a piece on California local institutions under Spain and Mexico; and Mr. Cowan one on auction sales of California

Then we were stuck. Finally, we decided to print an article I had written on the discovery of California and which I had read at a luncheon meeting on May 5, 1922, but still we did not have enough; so we decided to include a documentary section. This device was used for a number of years as it was a flexible one. Mr. Crocker owned some very valuable documents, especially regarding the Bear Flag movement, and most of these we printed for the next two years. They were originals and absolutely unknown.

Like all institutions of this character that are not supported by the state or by large endowments, there was always a deficit at the end of the year. As Christmas approached, I would figure out how much we needed to balance the accounts. The sum required was usually about $750. I would then go to Mr. Crocker's office and tell him; whereupon, promptly and pleasantly, he would give me a check for the full amount. He continued this practice for several years until finally two or three directors agreed to pay part of the cost. Never have I met a man who gave up money more cheerfully than Templeton Crocker. Let there be no mistake: Mr. Crocker and not I, as some of my friends insist, was the real founder of the California Historical Society. Without his social position and wealth I could not have made a go of it. He did not wish to be president and tried hard to avoid election. When I was in Europe at the time of the annual meeting in January 1923, he persuaded the directors to elect me president. The news reached me in Seville. I immediately wrote, declining to accept; I insisted that Mr. Crocker should remain president. To this he finally agreed and continued in that office for several years. Almost always he attended the directors' meetings. As far as I know, however, he attended only one luncheon meeting but did not preside. He said he could not talk on his feet at a public gathering.

Templeton Crocker was the most indifferent—or perhaps casual is the better word—man I ever met. On one occasion in 1921, while he was still interested in California books, he said he would like to see my collection, so I invited him, and he came out and spent some time looking at prize volumes of one kind or another which I had. He looked at them with a most indifferent air, usually without comment. After about two hours of this we were both worn out and he went home.

In the early part of 1940, while on a visit to San Francisco and not having seen Mr. Crocker for a number of years, I called his office on the telephone and he told me to come to his apartment on Green Street that evening. After we were comfortably seated, we began to reminisce about the early days of the Society. Suddenly I thought about his books and rather impertinently asked what he intended to do with them as they no longer seemed to interest him. Without a particle of annoyance he said he had thought of leaving his collection to the Society. Then I asked him if that was the case, why not give them to the Society now? He thought a minute or two and

said, "Very well, l will." Allen L. Chickering drew up a deed of gift which Mr. Crocker signed, and thus the Society became owner of the collection. Some of his larger pictures had been hanging in the Society's quarters since its beginning, but he had a number of others at his house which he sent down in batches from time to time for several months. The directors had the collection appraised for insurance purposes at $67,000. I made out a small list of the most important books; this was published in the QUARTERLY of March 1940 (pp. 79-81). Shortly afterwards, Mr. Crocker became ill, and I never saw him again. He died on Sunday night, December 12, 1948.

Although the end was not unexpected, all his friends felt his loss deeply; especially was this true of the early members of the Society who had come in personal contact with him. Crocker was a rather slender man, not very tall, and always in my relations with him he was good-natured: I doubt very much that he ever became angry. I have written enough to show how generous he was. In time, he became rather proud of his association with the Society, especially of his part in its resuscitation in 1922. Once, when we were a little short of patron members, I asked him if he could not get some more, as he knew everybody who had money—perhaps the chief requisite. He smiled and said, "Oh, yes, I could get more members, but after a little while those members will come to me and say, 'Mr. Crocker, we joined your Society, and now we have one we want you to join.' Naturally, I cannot refuse. and I calculate that it costs me less to pay the deficit of the Society."