Alice Eastwood’s Heroism during 1906 Earthquake
by Laurie Thompson
Alice Eastwood -born in 1859- was already a renowned botanist when she came to California in 1892 to accept a position as Assistant Curator in the Botanical Department at the California Academy of Sciences. Later, of course, she became the Curator of that department.
Her reputation as a “fearless” botanical explorer served her on the fateful morning of April 18, 1906, when San Francisco was ravaged by a powerful earthquake. The quake destroyed the Academy of Sciences Building which was then located on Market St.
In a 1949 Pacific Discovery article, Leroy Abrams recounts Eastwood’s heroism the morning the earthquake hit:
The San Francisco earthquake and fire of April 1906 destroyed the old Academy building and all the collections. Everything that is, except the types of plant species…. The saving of the plant types can be credited to the wise curatorial practices instituted by Miss Eastwood, as well as the ingenuity and courage she showed the morning of the disaster.
Abrams credits Eastwood with having segregating the plant types in a special herbarium case which gave them extra protection when the quake hit. He goes on to recount:
Unmindful of imminent danger to her home and to herself, she got down to Market Street and made her way into the quake-shattered Academy building through an adjoining store, accompanied by a friend, Robert Porter, whom she found by chance on the street. Once inside -the front door was locked- they climbed the broken marble staircase to the museum by holding to the iron-railing and putting their feet between the rungs. With flames roaring into nearby buildings, Miss Eastwood coolly gathered up the priceless herbarium types: she and Porter lowered them to the ground floor with improvised ropes….. From there, Miss Eastwood with Porter’s help got the rescued objects across Market, she staying with them till an express wagon was engaged to take them to her home. When fire threatened that, she and her friends carried ‘the Academy’ by hand to Russian Hill, whence everything was finally moved to Fort Mason.
She lost all her own possessions -’Not a book was I able to save, not a single thing of my own, except my favorite lens, without which I should feel helpless’- but through her effort, the Academy possesses over 1,000 of the most valued plant specimens from the old herbarium, rare specimens and books from other departments, and its cherished records going back unbroken to the first meeting in 1853.
Source: Pacific Discovery: A Journal of Nature and Man in the Pacific World. January-February, 1949.
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
