Laura Dakin's Organizing Continues

Side/back of the Dakin Home

Criswell continues: There is much more to a well-rounded education than learning the 3Rs, so the ladies turned their attention to a new crusade. The morality of Knights Ferry's population had been neglected. Without a spiritual guide and an adequate church building, the community was like a ship without a rudder at the end. Drunkenness and rowdyism was running rampant.

As a rest stop, Knights Ferry was without rival. As one stage driver put it, "the Ferry sure knows how to take care of a hungry and tired man." And when he was cleaned up, fed and rested, there were others ready to entertain him. There were as many, perhaps more, saloons and card rooms in town than in Angels Camp, Columbia or any other Moder Lode community.

Something needed to be done, so the Ladies Literary Guild took up the challenge. Sporadic services had been held by visiting clergyman on occasion, but no real effort had been expanded to get a permanent church and pastor. The ladies went to work. they solicited funds and volunteer labor. there were to be no excuses. Knights Ferry was going to have a church.

Under the guidance of Laura Dakin, success was assured. Her tireless efforts paid off so that in 1867 lad was purchased at the northeast corner of Ellen and Shurl Streets for the permanent home of Knights Ferry's first church.

The building was erected the very next year. It was a multipurpose structure housing the church, Sunday School and parsonage. Mothers pledged their children's attendance. The Reverend C. Anderson was persuaded to move to town and assume a rather big job of bringing religion and sobriety to its inhabitants.

Ladies of the Guild met regularly at the Dakin home to plan strategy for contacting every resident of Knights Ferry. with their enthusiasm, religion picked up rapidly so that in a few short months there were 28 members of the church and 25 scholars attending Sunday School.

Meanwhile, the Dakins were becoming famous for their garden parties held on the spacious lawns front and back of the house. Hundreds of swaying candlelit Japanese lanterns added a festive note and music was provided by the Knights Ferry band. The colorful evening gatherings were among the town's top social events. The guest list always included the men and women who made up the main driving force that propelled the Ferry to prominence in this part of the state.

Wilbur, Henry & Alice Inspire a School

Wilbur, Henry & Alice (circa 1870)

Just short of a year after the Dakins moved into their new home on Vantine St., they were blessed with the birth of a son. They named him Wilber and all of Knights Ferry rejoiced with Laura and Isaac on their good fortune.

Having a new person in the home meant many changes. Isaac spent less time at the smithy, turning over much of the work to his partner, and Laura took up the study of child rearing with an intensity bnever seen by the other mother's in town. Soon the articles she submitted for publication took on a childcare complexion, so immersed was she in her new role.

Two years later, in 1863, another bundle of joy arrived in the Dakin home. It was a boy and his name was Henry. By now Laura was an expert on babies and while neither child was slighted, the care and feeding of infants became a well organized routine.

Nearly two years went by before a third child made her appearance. This time the Dakin's were the proud parents of a girl whome they promptly named Alice. All three children were born in the big white house at Dean and Vantine Streets where loved prevailed among all the Dakins, young and old.

The Ladies Literary Guild, meanwhile, was never without enthusiasm, always ready to take up the clarion call of a new need in Knights Ferry. In 1861, a school of sorts ahd been set up in one end of at stable on Main Street, but as the town's population grew it became woefully inadequate.

The ladies, under the forceful leadership of Laura Dakin and her sisterm, Mary Locke, soon turned the focus of their attention to getting a real school with a building dedicated to the education of their children; one with modern equipment, adequate books and tools, and a qualified teacher of some experience.

With the Dakin children fas approaching school age, the call became more urgent. On November, 1868, with Wilbur Dakin approaching his seventh birthday, the Ladies Literary Guild finally succeeded in convincing the county to organize the Emory School District, an area including Knights Ferry.

But, without money and a lack of enthusiasm on the part of county officials, it was still an up hill battle for five long years before the ground was at last broken on the hill top over looking Knight's Ferry were a real school house.

It proved to be well planned for a growing population. By 1880 there were 64 pupils in the one spacious room that offred a first through sixth grade education to all children of the area.

Much of the success of this and other far-reaching accomplishments in Knights Ferry can be traced directly to Laura Dakin and her ability to sway public opinion to get things done.

The Jamison Sister Organize Knights Ferry

Laura Jamison Dakin (circa 1870) Her unusually short hair

is thought to be the result of scarlet fever suffered early in life.

The future looked so rosy in the new community that Mary Locke persuaded Laura, who in turn finally convinced her husband to relocate there. There were no regrets. The two families worked and played together and were soon the most influential residents in town.





Arrival of the Jamison sisters marked a turning point in the tortunes of Knights Ferry's life. Both were well educated and progressive young ladies whose ideas for the fledgling village were a settling and civilizing influence.





Laura had a flair for writing and indeed was a regular contributor to such famous women's magaines as Harpers Weekly, the Stockton Daily Independent, Harper's Bazaar and the prestigious Godley's Ladies Magazine.





Isaac subscribed tothe Wagon Builder's Journal, The Rural Press, The Horticulturalist's Monthly and, to keep up with the times, the New York Tribune, so there was no scarcity of educational material coming into the Dakin home.





Besides reparing equipment of travelers passing through town, Dakin and his partner Lewis McLauflin made new wagons in their shop on Main Street, wagons that found a ready market.





But it was the sisters who left the greatest impression on the village. Laura organized the Ladies Literary Guild and invited all the women to join her in disscussing needs of the community. They all came, eager for information on what could be done for their children and their husbands as well as their homes.





There wre lively discussions about a school, a church, and a community center. About activities in to which everyone could join. On household hints and gardening, about improving the water supply, the latest styles and clothing, food recipes, and so on. The weekly meetings in the Dakin home were well attended by enthusiastic ladies wanting to do something constructive for themselves and the town.

Dakins Arrive in Knight's Ferry

Isaac & Laura Dakin's house on the northeast corner of Vantine & Dean Streets, Knight's Ferry, CA (Photo: 1993)

Isaac lost no time carrying out his/their plan. After asking directions, he climed down from his wagon and Laura from hers and they headed toward they headed toward the home of Lewis Bent who owned nearly all the land around town. He was impressed with the Dakins' enthusiasm, so a deal was quickly struck transferring ownership of a plot of ground 100 x 170' at the northeast corner of Vantine and Dean streets where the Dakins intended to build their home. According to Irene Paden (Big Oak Flat Road), her father Wilbur Dakin remembered that their home "had a spring in the cellar and could have withstood a seige" by those from the original occupiers of the land (though they would not have called themselves owners). This strategy was useful in the chaos of central California in the 1840's and 1850's.

In the 1840s, there were virtually no permanent settlements east of the San Juaquin River. Jose Jesus grew up at the San Jose Mission, "but had fallen from grace and was now extremely unrepentant and a leader of the "Horsethief Indians." He hated the Mexican Californians and his tribe was dreaded for unprovoked (at least in the immediate sense) raids on outlying ranchos.

In November, 1847, there was only one wooden house in the settlement, then appropriately known as Tuleburgh (later Stockton). Discovery of gold in the spring of 1848 again upset the balance of power in California. Events then moved with frightening and unbelievable speed. The acuisition of California by the U.S. at the end of the Mexican War terminated all talk of a separate republic of California (though it was retained on the state flag).

Some of the Mexican Californians were angry and uneasy; some thought it would be better in the long run to be part of the United States than of Mexico, as long as the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed the continued ownership of their land-grants. (Big Oak Flat Road) This was the emerging frontier 10 years before the Dakins arrived.

A deal was also made for Isaac to build a blacksmith shop on a pacel of land directly across Main Street from the new general store. Within a few hours of their arrival in town, the Dakins had already put down roots. Laura and Isaac had spent a lot of time already talking about the design of their new home and had committed that design to paper before they had left Tuleburgh. Now they swung into action. Work on both the home and the blacksmith shop began immediately.

By the first of July (1853-Criswell and about 1860 by family recollection), the Dakins were already moving inhto their very own home and the smithy was opened for business. It is important to note here that Isaac and Laura were also met by family in Knight's Ferry. Mary Jamison Locke, sister of Laura and wife of David Locke) was already living there. She had married David (in 1852?) and came with him to the banks of the Stanislaus River.

Before the dry season of '49 had saddened into winter mud, David Morrell Locke traveled in the first wheeled vehicle ever to pass along this sketchy road as far as Knight's Ferry; the change from pack mule to freight wagon had begun and, from then on, was never allowed to lapse. Soon the goods transported yearly to the Ferry amounted to thousands of tons. D.M. Locke wrote in his journal on August 16, 1849: "We reached Knight's at 10 o'clock A.M. Took breakfast pork & beans, hard bread & coffee $1.50 each. Went and saw them digging gold for the first time."

The Miners' and Business Mens' Directory for the year commensing January 1, 1956, bore, under the caption, "Knight's Ferry," this item: Some 300 yards above the Ferry is located the Flouring and Saw Mills of Messrs Locke and Company..."

By August, 1858, the substantial Locke bridge was in operation and at the end of five months a formal report showed the net profits of the Stanislaus Bridge and Ferry Company for that period was something over $4700.