William D.M. Howard and Rancho San Mateo

William Davis Merry Howard died in 1856. Everybody said so. But there are so many differing storylines in his life, you just have to pick a plot you like and go with it.

Here’s my scenario. He was born in New England (1808? 1818?), an unruly son of a prosperous maritime merchant named Eleazar Howard. His father sent him off to sail the seas at the tender age of 16, hoping the lad would learn the discipline he would need to succeed in life. He did. His travels led him to foreign ports and even into marriage in 1842 when he met Mary Warren of Hawaii. The couple sailed to San Francisco where Howard went into business, operating a store and acting as an agent for New England trading firms. Howard formed a partnership with Henry Mellus in 1845. They took over the ailing Hudson Bay Colony business when that company found it necessary to consolidate their holdings in Washington and Oregon. The Hudson Bay building at Sacramento and Montgomery was a perfect site near the Bay for receiving merchandise from incoming ships.

In January of 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill. Every able-bodied man dropped everything and headed for the gold fields. All except Howard and Mellus. They were already sitting pretty, and it was about to get prettier. Gold miners needed tools, tents, clothing and Howard and Mellus were well-stocked and ready to sell. Shovels and picks just flew off the shelves, and the partners became exceedingly rich, faring better than most of the gold miners did.

In May of 1846, Rancho San Mateo, an area of 6,500 acres (today’s Hillsborough, Burlingame and part of San Mateo) had been granted to Cayetano Arenas by the Mexican governor Pio Pico. Arenas, fearful that the Americans would confiscate the land, quickly sold it to Howard and Mellus for $25,000. In 1850, Howard bought out Mellus’ share of the land.

Back to the year of 1849. It was the best of times (gold) and the worst of times. Howard’s wife Mary died. One day, standing by the dock of the Bay, he observed a family disembarking from a ship. The family had been en route from Chile to England when the crew of their ship deserted their duty and took off for the gold fields. Howard offered to help the stranded family. He soon noticed their 16-year-old daughter, Agnes Poett. His widower’s grief lifted like the last thin veil of fog. He and Agnes were married in July 1849.

Howard had business interests not only in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, but also on the East Coast. While traveling through Panama, he contracted a tropical fever. By 1853, his health failing, he and Agnes moved to their Peninsula property. He had purchased a large, ornate pre-fabricated house from the East and had it shipped to his San Mateo rancho. It was a unique architecture for this part of the country, Carpenter Gothic. It had steep, pointed gables, gingerbread bargeboards, a square tower and a veranda. They named the mansion "El Cerrito” (The Mound) for the little nearby hill (De Sabla Road in Hillsborough). "El Cerrito” was the first of the great Peninsula estates.

The ravages of the "Panama Fever” took their toll on Howard, and he died in 1856, at the age of 48 (or 38), depending on whether you believe he was born in 1808 or 1818. Howard willed the southern half of Rancho San Mateo to Agnes, the other half to her father, Dr. Joseph Henry Poett. Poett, in turn, gave his other daughter Julia (Mrs. John Redington) much of the western area of his inheritance.

Agnes recovered from her bereavement quickly and married William Howard’s brother George. They had four children to add to the one son she had had with William. George died in 1878. Agnes married a third time in 1879 — to Henry P. Bowie. Rancho San Mateo’s "El Cerrito” estate was known after that as the Bowie estate.