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Alameda County
Biographies
William Hayward
The gentleman whose name heads this sketch is about as well known as any man in Alameda County. After him is named the beautiful little town in Eden Township, originally the homestead of one of the numerous Californian family of Castro, who owned so many leagues of land and whose thousands of cattle covered hill and plain.
William Hayward is a native of Massachusetts, in which State he was born in the year 1815. After many mishaps by sea on his voyage hither from New York, He landed in San Francisco on the last day of October, 1849, having been six months and eight days making the trip via Cape Horn. He came to California, like everyone else, to make his fortune and return. After his arrival in San Francisco and engaged in road-making. After finishing a contract to build the old Mission road, tried the mines again in the Mariposa country. From there he entered the Livermore valley, in 1851, and stopped awhile. He went thence, via Martinez, to San Francisco, and purchased a scythe to cut hay, which latter he stacked in the Amador valley, between Dublin and Limerick, with old Amador. His next location was the Palomares canon, between his present residence and Dublin. Here he found good water, pitched his tent and remained a month, shooting deer.
He found a note left in his tent one day, informing him that he was a squatter. Then Castro, the owner of the ranch, sent for him, and offered him land for a farm. Was of the impression before that it was all Government land. He accepted the offer and pitched his tent on the ground opposite his hotel, in the Fall of 1851. Had made the acquaintance of Jas. B. Larue, when in San Francisco. He had a dairy there near the Mission Dolores, and there milked Spanish cows for him. When Hayward settled on the Castro ranch he went across to San Francisco, and purchased some cows for his new farm, of Mr. Larue. Besides farming, Hayward started a small store, while yet residing in his tent, and improvised hotel accommodations. In the following Fall he built 30 feet of his long house. He also engaged in road-making, and constructed most of the roads in his neighborhood, for the county. Was a stock-holder and Director in the Larue Steamboat Company, and lost $10,000 in the speculation. A. W. Swett, of Brooklyn, and himself stood by Larue to the last, in that enterprise, which, however disastrous to themselves pecuniarily, was of great service to the county. Served the county in the Board of Supervisors, and was once a candidate for the Legislature.
Guillermo Castro, the owner of the ranch, held six leagues of lands in the hills. He employed about 100 persons, Mexicans, Indians and South Americans. Among the latter were a number of exiles. Castro’s first bad move, he says, was made in 1852, when he took $35,000 with him to the southern country, to buy new stock, and employed 150 to 175 vacqueros to drive them to his ranch. He could not keep the money until he made his purchase, and spent it in gambling. In 1856 he mortgaged his ranch. Then he sold enough land to Hayward, Hughes, Maddox, Corey and others, to get out of debt besides $8,000 to #10,000 which he unprofitably spent in San Francisco. It was then that he had to mortgage to Atherton, who got hold; and finally, in 1864, gave him $30,000 to give the ranch to him. Then Castro went to South America, taking all his family with him, excepting a daughter, married to one of the Peraltas, and Louis, the present County Surveyor. Messrs. Chittenden & Simpson, Attorneys, had the legal management of the ranch. The once opulent lord of so many leagues and so many herds, employing as many servants as a feudal baron, died some years since in his South American exile home, no doubt bitterly regretting the misuse he had made of his splendid opportunity.
Hayward got married, the particular year the writer does not now remember, but knows, as a guest at her hotel, that Mrs. H. Is a good housekeeper. Mr. H. Is now in independent circumstances; owns a popular family hotel, which is full of guests in the summer months; farms about 60 acres of land; has a town named after him, and is ex-officio Postmaster. He has had most eventful career, and were all the incidents of his life narrated, they would make a most interesting volume.
Centennial Yearbook of Alameda County, California - Oakland, Calif., 1876 Pages 551-553
Transcribed by Peggy Allen, April 22, 2006
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