Easton Family in Burlingame

Ansel Ives Easton was one of seven children, and his brother was Aschell Samuel Easton who became the San Mateo County surveyor in the 1860s. Aschell married Georgette Tilton of San Mateo. Their sister, Jenny, married Ed Taylor who bought the San Mateo House on El Camino Real.

Ansel migrated to California in 1852, after the initial Gold Rush had subsided but he nevertheless made much money in the booming real estate market, along with other business dealings. He married Darius Ogden Mills’ sister Adeline, for which Adeline Creek in Burlingame is named.

Following their wedding, Adeline and her husband Ansel sailed to Panama, crossed the isthmus by train and boarded the ship, SS Central America bound for New York. The side-wheel steamship sank 200 miles off the coast of the Carolinas in 1857. Ansel and Adeline were rescued and, after they returned to California, they bought the Rancho Buri Buri property in Burlingame.

Adeline had always wanted to live in a genuine adobe house so Ansel had the adobe of Jose Isidro taken down and reassembled on the property west of the El Camino Real, unmindful of warnings of earthquakes. Easton Drive, with columns of eucalyptus trees lining the road, led to the ranch they named Blackhawk. All did not go well for the family. A great earthquake in 1868 damaged the structure and the adobe was replaced by a sturdier building. This building was demolished by a falling tree and a third structure was built for the family to live in.

Ansel developed a horse ranch on the property. He was only a few miles from another horse ranch run by William Corbett. Corbett had a race track built on his property and, not to be outdone, Ansel had a race track built, Shell Park Course, northeast of the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad tracks (near Highway 101 and Broadway). The crushed shell for the track was taken from the numerous Indian middens (mounds) found along Burlingame creek. The area of Burlingame late developed a tradition of air pioneering in the 1860s 35 years before the Wright brothers made their "lighter than air” flights. The ship, the "Avitor” took to the sky with aid of a steam engine for a maiden flight on the Easton estate, flew at the speed of 5 mph for a mile distance. The Avitor was later destroyed in a fire before it could repeat this feat. It wasn’t until 1910 that Louis Paulham made the first extended air flight on the West Coast at Tanforan Race Track in San Bruno.

The Eastons had two children before Ansel died in 1868 at the age of 49: Ansel Mills and Jenny. Jenny married Col. Frederick Charles Crocker. Jenny inherited the property around Capuchino High School in Millbrae. Jenny and Charles had two children: Templeton Crocker and Jennie Crocker. Jennie married Malcolm Douglas Whitman. In 1904, Charles Templeton and sister Jenny, having lost their father recently, in 1897, donated money for a boy’s orphanage in San Mateo. On Sept. 2, 1905, the same day they came into their inheritance of $5 million, they dedicated the cornerstone of the building. However on April 18, a great earthquake struck and the newly laid brick building was almost leveled. Jenny and Charles promptly donated money to repair the damage done by the quake.

Ansel Mills Easton was born in 1865 and died in 1941 at the age of 76. He married in 1888 a daughter of pioneer lumber man and San Francisco Cable Car developer, William J. Adams. Ansel Mills began developing the property he inherited in 1905.

Energetic real estate men and the aggressive heir, Ansel, called the area "Easton” and they built a railroad station they named "Easton” at the foot of Broadway. Hundreds of acres of property in the hills were sold in the following years by Ansel to the people fleeing the unpleasant confines and rigors of San Francisco streets. Here they found a bit of paradise in the solitude of the forests and hills.

Rediscovering the Peninsula by Darold Fredricks appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal.