Los Angeles herald., 1906-01-07
HOW HUBERT H. BANCROFT
ACCUMULATED A LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA;
ACQUISITION
Genesis of Its Origin and Growth.
Impressed With Pacific Coast as
Historical Field, He Began to Coll
lect Volumes in 1852
From New York Evening Post.

From New York Evening Post.
To those who concern themselves
with the sources of American history
the transfer last week of the Bancroft
library of San Francisco to the Uni
versity of California for the sum of
$250,0GO will appear as momentous
item of news. 1t has been at the same
time a topic of congratulation for the
literary world that this absolutely
unique assemblaEe of historical docu-
ments-from maguey manuscripts OF
the Aztecs to California newspapers of
the forties and secret archives oil the
"Vigi!antes' at last found a cor
porate custodian which must and Will
preserve it as it should be preserved
for the honor and good of the Ameri-
can people.
About the year 1852. Hubert Howe
Bancroft. an Ohio youth at that time
of about twenty, went out to California
by way of the isthmus. He had been
a bookseller at Buffalo, n. Y, and at
San Francisco he became bookseller
again. though there was very little de-
mand there for any but law books. If
it is genius to feel the force of impor-
tant truths which do not affect the
masses of ones contemporaries, then
ii was genius that impressed him with
the importance of the Pacitlc slope as
q fresh field for the writer OF history.
MUCH Oh IDb Illdltlldl llC was 'N'NiN'
Law all about him in the form of auto
graph letters official records, and-not
least Valua ble-the unwritten memories
of men who had seen and done histor-
ical things. He resolved to write his
tory, and write it large. But to do
this he must first find out what had
already been printed that had been
written by the Spanish-American his
tcrians of three centuries. With the
pecuniary means accumulated in twen-
ty years of bookselling. he set out, In
the sixties, to ransack book shops and
bcokstalls, not only in Mexico, but in
Madrid, Burgos and other cities or OLD
Spain, for rare works upon the history
| of early Spanish domination. Paris
and London and the bookmarts of the
world yielded their contributions OF
| literary ore to him and his agents.
Providentially it happened that by the
overthrow of the Emperor MaXimilian,
the Andrade collection, which was to
have formed the nucleus of great
imperial library in the City of Mexico,
seemed to its owner to be in danger at
the hands of the revolutionists Jose
Maria Andrade packed his books and
parchments upon a train of mules and
hastily fled with them to the gulf coast,
on his way to Europe-a golden oppor-
tunity for Mr.. Bancroft. He saw his
chance and the famous Andrade col
! lection, purchased in Leipsic and re-
turned to America, is part of the re-
Gently transferred Bancroft library.
Proceeding in this way. buying books
both singly and at great auctions in
bulk he succeeded in making not mere
| ly library, but an astonishing liter
airy museum. Into the great building
on Valencia street, San francisco,
eventually prepared for the accumula-
| tion, there went unique copies of the
| m North America
religious works in Spanish and in
Latin-hugc manuscript choir books OF
| the sixteenth century missions pre-
pared for the instruction of Indian
neophytes, even examples OF those AZ
tee hieroglyphiC manuscripts when the
early bishops of Mexico had done their
best to have destroyed as impious and
pernicious But all this was not
enough: the historian collected these
only by way of preliminary; he still
had to gather original documents.
On his estate not far from San Fran
cisco, lived General Vallejo, the last
of the great dons of Spanish California.
| He, IL was known, had collected ma
terial for history but IL was supposed
| to have been destroyed by fire; more
over. he was not too friendly disposed
! toward los Yanquis. In spite OF all
| Mr.. Bancroft succeeded in gaining the
friendship of Vallejo and his sympa-
thetic cooperation. As result many
volumes of manuscript notes, many
cases of priceless letters, and complete
files of forgotten newspapers were
added TO the Valencia street treasure.
Thus did the original letters of Junl-
pero Sierra, the famous Franciscan mis-
sionary, become part OF the library
which is now that of the University OF
California With them are autographs
of Spanish kings and vice kings and
autographs of such strongly contrast
ING personages as the first leaders of
the san Francisco "Vigilantes' and the
4 FIRST Russian orthodox missionaries in
Alaska. Mr.. Bancroft Travelled IN all
directions, too, taking notes from those
who remembered things worth Temem-