Mare Island, in San Pablo Bay, separated from Vallejo by a strait one-half mile wide, a charming spot with an unpoetic name,—is another example of writers attempting to make difficulties where none exist, and so they would have us believe that the name of this isle arose, like Venus, from mare, the sea. Apart from the fact that this labored method of naming places, by seeking in the Latin, was quite foreign to the custom of the Spaniards, it happens that the true story in this case is at hand, and can scarcely be doubted, since it occurred in the immediate family of Dr. Vallejo, who tells it thus: “In early days, the only ferry-boat on the waters near Vallejo and Benicia was a rude one, made chiefly of oil barrels obtained from whaling ships, and propelled by sails. These barrels were secured together by beams and planking, and it was divided into compartments for the accommodation of cattle, to the transportation of which it was chiefly devoted. One day, while this boat was coming from Martínez to Benicia, a sudden squall overtook it, and the craft pitched fearfully; the animals, chiefly horses, became restive, and some of them broke through it. The boat was upset, and the living cargo thrown into the bay. Some of the livestock were drowned, and some managed to reach either shore by swimming. One of the horses, an old white mare, owned and much prized by General Vallejo, succeeded in effecting a landing on the island, and was rescued there a few days after by the General, who thereupon called the place La Isla de la Yegua (the island of the mare).”
An interesting corroboration of this story is found on page 574 of Fremont’s Memoirs, where he refers to the island as La Isla de la Yegua.
A statue of a white horse would perpetuate the history of this isle in a manner both appropriate and beautiful, in the same way that upon the heights of Angel Island a colossal figure of an angel, or of the Virgin, and upon Alcatraz a great pelican with outspread wings, might be placed to tell their stories. In the old world, many legends of the past are perpetuated in this way, and there is no reason why the equally romantic episodes in California’s history should not be so commemorated, at least in those cases that lend themselves readily to purposes of art.
ALAMEDA
It has been thought that this name may have been derived from the resemblance between Alameda creek, at one time thickly shaded along its banks by willows and silver-barked sycamores, and an alameda (an avenue shaded by trees), but since the primary meaning of the word is “a place where poplar trees grow,” from álamo (poplar or cottonwood), it requires less stretching of the imagination to believe that some such grove of cottonwoods near the creek gave it the name. Fray Dantí, in his diary of the exploration of “the Alameda” in 1795, says: “We came to the river of the Alameda, which has many large boulders, brought down by floods, and is well populated with willows, alders, and here and there a laurel. At a little distance from where the river runs, the tides of the Estuary come.”
THE FARALLONES.
“ ... standing like watch-dogs at our outer gate.”