I.C. Woods

Shumate, Albert, The Notorious I. C. Woods of the Adams Express, The Arthur H. Clark Company (1986), 144 pp.

Some notes relevant to Menlo Park compiled by J. Clendenin

Isaiah Churchill Woods was born on October 8, 1825, in Saco, Maine. His father, Isaiah Woods, Sr., a sea captain, died at St. Croix at the age of 38 when his son was only 14. Woods was able to buy a ship and sailed to the south Pacific in 1847. Hearing of gold in California, he sailed to San Francisco in 1848 and quickly established himself there as a successful businessman. He gradually became involved with Adams & Co. (successor to Adams Express, founded in Boston in 1840), which by 1853 “was generally regarded as California’s leading business organization.” (37)

In 1852 Woods acquired about 2000 acres in southern San Francisco County (today San Mateo County), much of it in present day Menlo Park. The site was bordered by the San Francisco Bay, Middle Road (today Middlefield Road), and Willow and Marsh Roads. (42)

On this land Woods began design of a new city he named Ravenswood, perhaps in anticipation of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad scheme, which was to go through the site. (This line was never built.) (41)

On his property Woods created a country estate for himself that he named Woodside Dairy. (42) The prefabricated frame house was brought around the Horn from the East. (126)

Adams & Co. failed as a result of the panic of 1855. Woods’ Ravenswood property was sold by the sheriff. A large portion was bought by the brothers John T. and Robert Emmett Doyle and their brother-in-law Eugene Casserly. R.E. Doyle lived many years in the Woodside Dairy estate. Casserly’s part later became the Joseph Donahoe estate*. (56)

There are stories about I.C. Woods being forced at gun point to yield $80,000 of gold hidden at his Woodside Dairy estate by a creditor of Adams & Co., “Maurice Dooley.” (58)

In 1875 R.E. Doyle sold his Menlo Park estate to Kate Johnson, who in 1891 gave it to the Catholic church for St. Patrick’s Seminary. The Woodside Dairy house burned down in 1909. (126)

The city Woods planned was not built. Today, Ravenswood Avenue in Menlo Park and the Ravenswood City School District in East Menlo Park and East Palo Alto are the only remaining reminders of Woods’ dream.

Additional information about the Woodside Dairy estate:

The U.S.G.S. California Palo Alto Quadrangle topographic sheet (edition of Mar 1899) shows what appears to be a driveway going northeast from Middlefield culminating in a circle as for the entrance to an estate. (There are no street names on the topo, but all existing structures are indicated.) The structures around this circle are almost surely the Woodside Dairy house and associated buildings. Today’s Seminary Drive and Hanna Way appear to be the remnants of that driveway. St. Patrick’s Seminary (labeled on the topo as Catholic University) is just to the south of the circle.

The 1868 parcel map for San Mateo County shows a structure (house), labeled "Dairy," on the R.E. Doyle tract of about 1000 acres.

*In 1868, Joseph A. Donohoe, a wealthy San Francisco banker, acquired 40 acres on the east side of Middlefield Road and built a stately three-story Victorian, which he named Holm Grove. Menlo-Atherton High School is presently on this site. (Svanevik, 36) The 1877 parcel map for San Mateo County shows the J.A. Donohoe tract as 50 acres. The Kate Johnson track is shown as 79 acres bordering Middlefield Road. East of Bay Road are 404 acres for R.F. Rnyders The remaining 243 acres between Bay and Middlefield is R.E. Doyle.

13 July 2013