Monterey and Stevenson

Laureen in front of where Stevenson once lived

In the latter part of 1879, a young unknown writer lived in a small Oceanside village called Monterey. He would be there only a short period, but the impact of that village would stay with him the rest of his life and influence what he would go on to write.

Robert Louis Stevenson was so little known, that most people just called him Bob.

He truly would not be the Robert Louis Stevenson of writing fame until the publication of his bestseller, Treasure Island, in January of 1882. 

Laureen and I love the city of Monterey. In fact, we try to get there at least once a year. There is something about walking the waterfront, driving beneath tall billowing trees, walking shoeless across the sandy beaches – the same sand that may have been there during Stevenson’s stay.

The entire Carmel Valley, where Monterey is located, is gorgeous.

Not many folks realize the man who penned such literary classics as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, resided there in a modest boarding house.

Robert Lewis Stevenson's old abode

The writer would wander the hills, valleys, riverbanks, and streets soaking everything in.

‘The town, when I was there, was a place of two or three streets, economically paved with sea-sand, and two or three lanes, which were watercourses in the rainy season, and were, at all times, rent up by fissures four or five feet deep. There were no streetlights. Short sections of wooden sidewalk only added to the dangers of the night, for they were often high above the level of the roadway, and no one could tell where they would be likely to begin or end,’ he wrote of the village of Monterey in his work entitled, Across the Plains with Other Memories and Essays, in 1892.

Today, that image of Monterey seems so out of date – well, I guess it is, since it was written 131 years ago.

Nearly 30,000 residents now make this charming old California town home.

“I love Monterey,” Laureen said, as we turned onto Pacific Street from Highway 1.

I nodded. “We better, since this time of year seems to include large amounts of rain.”

It was raining as we drove near the Monterey Historic Park. There was a promise of some sun later in the day as the clouds kept teasing us by tearing apart and then sticking back together like a kid eating cotton candy.

Some of the beautiful natural sites to be seen in Monterey

In all the times we had been to the city by the bay, we had never visited the Robert Louis Stevenson’s Museum on Houston Street.

“Why haven’t we visited it before?” I asked Laureen, slowing at a red light.

I bet during Stevenson’s stay there hadn’t been any red lights. Nope, just big wide sandy based paths going here and there across Monterey.

They knew how to lay out streets in 1879, no traffic lights and probably no stop signs either. 

“Whoa, Nelly,” a farmer may have said. “We have to stop at the stop light and let Bob cross the street before us.”

“It’s Robert.”

“Sure, it is, Bob.”

A romantic story is the basis for Stevenson’s stay in Monterey, and that deals with a woman by the name of Fanny Osbourne.

She was married to Samuel Osbourne, but their marriage was a rocky one since he was not faithful to her. In fact, so unfaithful was he that she finally left the cheating Sammy in 1875 and moved to Paris. In April of 1876, her young son, Hervey passed away from tuberculosis and she had him buried at Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

That’s the same graveyard where Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Marcel Marceau, Jim Morrison, and many other well-known artists, writers, and musicians are buried today.

Soon after her son’s death, Fanny moved to Grez-sur-Loing, where she met Robert Louis Stevenson, though he was probably still known as Bob back then.

She was a successful artist and magazine short-story writer, able to support both her and her remaining children, Isobel, and Lloyd in good stead.

Fanny became friends with Stevenson in 1876. The young man, ten years her junior, showed promise as a writer and she encouraged and inspired him with the talent she believed he had.  

They became very close when she suddenly jetted back to the United States, to California to be exact.

Actually, she did not really jet since such transportation was still more than six decades away, but rather boated back from France.

In two years, Fanny notified Stevenson that she was finally divorcing the cheating-dog Sammy.

Stevenson was thrilled with the news and planned to join her, but he didn’t have the funds for the trip and his parents refused to pay.

“Wait until you write Treasure Island, then you can afford passage,” his mother may have said.

“What’s a treasure island?” Stevenson may have replied.

Anyway, he saved up his money for the following three years and moved to Monterey in 1879 to be with Fanny who was suffering from an emotional breakdown dealing with the personal trauma over the divorce.

It was during this short stay in Monterey that Stevenson found his writing voice, which would lead to his long list of literary successes; Treasure Island in 1882, A Child’s Garden of Verses in 1885, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1886, Kidnapped in 1893, and other books, poems, and essays.

He and Fanny married in May of 1880. 

After the publication of Treasure Island, he and Fanny found it difficult to travel anywhere without throngs of folks wanting his autograph.

I know the feeling.

He would die on December 3rd, 1894, at the young age of 44 from a stroke while they were living in Samoa.

But it is his short say in Monterey that had brought Laureen and I back to this beloved town.

In his essays, he wrote about the woods surrounding the village at that time and mentioned how during the winter, with all the fog and rain coming off the coast the land would blossom into nothing but green.

And, then in the hot summers those very same forests would ignite into infernos. 

From, The Old Pacific Capitol – 1880, ‘These fires are one of the great dangers in California. I have seen from Monterey as many as three at the same time, by day a cloud of smoke, by night a red coal of conflagration in the distance. A little think will start them, and, if the wind be favourable, they gallop over miles of country faster than a horse. The inhabitants must turn out and work like demons, for it is not only the pleasant groves that are destroyed; the climate and the soil are equally at stake, and these fires prevent the rains of the next winter and dry up perennial fountains. California has been a land of promise in its time, like Palestine; but if the wood continue so swiftly to perish, it may become, like Palestine, a land of desolation.’

Some things never seem to change with California. Large forest fires during Stevenson’s time and large forest fires in the present.

The Stevenson House, where the museum is located, is a two-story adobe building that has existed since the earliest days of Monterey.

It has been used to house government officials, families, artists, writers, and fishermen from the Mexican Era. It was even a rooming house called the ‘French Hotel.’

When Stevenson arrived back in 1879, he was very ill from his long and arduous journey across the United States. He wrote about these travels in his book, The Amateur Emigrant, published in 1895. 

Friends at the French Hotel nursed him back to health so he could court Fanny Osbourne.

“You have to be well, Bob, if you want a woman to fancy you,” a friend may have said.

“It’s Robert.”

The Stevenson House is a must-see when visiting Monterey, with several rooms dedicated to the author. 

This particular area of the house is actually referred to as the Stevensonia rooms.

A fireplace to warm your toes

Artifacts dating to the time Stevenson stayed there are to be seen, and since donated by his family, along with information concerning his life as a writer and his bohemian adventures.

One photograph intrigued me. Stevenson and a large group of people spread around a large dining table filled with all sorts of food. It gave me a sense that this historic figure of a writer was just a man. A man enjoying time with family and friends possibly. Of course, it turns out that the dinner was a luau, and his friends included one of the last monarchs of Hawaii, King Kalakaua.

His lucky black velveteen writing jacket is prominently displayed along with other mementos of Stevenson and Fanny’s life together as they traveled the world, including an old steamer trunk emblazoned with his name and destination: Samoa. The whole place just gave a sense of humanness. 

Items on display concerning Stevenson's personal life

It is rumored that the setting for the novel Treasure Island was based on Monterey, and that this story may have been the driving force for the film, Pirates of the Caribbean.

Now, that is something to ponder while stretching one’s toes in the sands near Monterey Bay.

Happy Independence Day

The British Colonies located in those new and developing lands, which would be later known as the United States, voted on July 2nd, 1776, to declare independence from King George III and the British Empire.

The representatives meeting at the Continental Congress had decided they, and the majority of the citizens in the colonies, had had enough of the overbearing King way back across the pond.

Two days later, all 13 Colonies had signed on and the war for independence was on.

And that is why we celebrate the 4th of July on the 4th of July. 

Now, John Adams, one of the original signers, believed the annual celebration should be held on the 2nd of July, since that was the day, the declaration had been approved by the majority of the members of the Continental Congress.

In fact, it is rumored that Adams refused future events that landed on the 4th and not held on the 2nd.

He was a stubborn man.

An interesting tidbit is that the drafter of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams both died on July 4th, 1826.

At his last, did John Adams finally come to accept his demise on the day the country would celebrate its independence yearly?

We will never know – but here at J and L Research and Development, we just want to shout out to this most wonderful country and say – 

                            Happy Independence Day

Keys Ranch, Joshua Tree National Park

It wasn’t a park or a monument yet, but a rough and desolate place to make a living. Yet this man was not deterred. No, this Russian-born immigrant would make the desert his home until his death.

This is a story of a man who built something in an extremely hostile environment; one which most of us only venture into via an air-conditioned vehicle and very little time outside of that air-conditioned vehicle. 1910, a hard working man moved from Nebraska and took up residence in what would later be known as Joshua Tree National Park.

This is also a story of a man convicted of murder in 1943, and pardoned for five years later.

This is a story about Bill Keys.

According to Ranger Dave, “Bill was an industrious man. As you will see on this tour, he never let anything go to waste and built a home for his family in this often tough desert landscape.”

Ranger Dave at Keys Ranch

I generally don’t attend tours. Not that there's anything wrong with tours, but I like to wander here and there on my own and do my own research.

Sometimes I even get the research correct. When I don’t, my readers let me know.

During my recent visit to Joshua Tree National Park, I took the Desert Queen Ranch Tour - the ranch that Bill Keys created among the Joshua trees and towering boulders on the northwestern section of the park not far from Hidden Valley.

Keys Ranch in Joshua Tree National Park

To reach the ranch, down about a half mile single dirt trail, a guided ranger tour was the only way to view this abode in the middle of nowhere.

Only way in to Keys Ranch is by a dirt road

There was a locked gate. I didn’t have a key and broke two paper-clips before Ranger Dave showed up.

"I have the key,” he announced.

“I was trying to paper-clip some papers,” I replied. “But I forgot the papers.”

Ranger Dave was a friendly sort of fellow who greeted the tourists individually. The tour is limited in size and I think there may have been a dozen visitors at this early morning gathering.

Though, I was worried my paper clip may have jammed the lock.

“Okay,” he said to the tour group. “I will drive and all of you will follow me to the ranch. Please, do not take any items from the ranch or surrounding area since this is a historical site.”

Looked like I would have to stop by a gift shop to buy Laureen, my wonderful wife, a memento of my trip to Joshua Tree National Park.

A coffee mug or a rusty door knob from Bill Keys ranch - I know what I would desire.

The road was sandy, a bit rough but any vehicle could make the short trip to the ranch without any issues.

In 1910, Bill Keys arrived in the area of Twenty-Nine Palms and found work as a custodian and assayer at the Desert Queen Mine, east of where he would later build his home. It was tough work but something Keys fell in love with.

He oversaw the mine until 1917, when the owner passed away and Keys obtained the property due to not being paid for years. The back wages came in the form of a working mine.

Some mining equipment to view

That same year, he filed for 80 acres under the Homestead Act and started his ranch, built by hand from nearby rocks, adobe bricks, and wood shipped in from Banning and other locations.

“Funny story about Bill,” Ranger Dave said. “After years of living in this area alone, he met Frances May Lawton who happened to come from a very comfortable lifestyle near Los Angeles.. They fell in love, got married and Bill drove her out here to their, her new home.”

The home was a small wooden built structure boasting a living room, dining room and a bedroom located in not the green area Frances was used to, but instead a seemingly barren desert.

The Keys main residence

“What do you think her first words were when Bill stopped his old truck and showed his young bride her new home?”

Since this is a family blog - I will not say what words may have come out of Frances in my mind.

“We will never know,” Ranger Dave quipped. “What we understand is she smiled and accepted this is where she would reside with her husband. Within a short time, she loved this alcove in the desert as much as her husband did.”

Bill expanded the house, as well as the out-buildings as his family grew.  The couple had seven children, with four reaching adulthood.

It was a tough life day to day, but as Ranger Dave stated during the tour, they were a close-knit family and loved the rough and tumble life they led here.

As Ranger Dave was stopping here and there at this or that location during the tour, I wandered a bit and snapped some photos, stared into the canyon walls surrounding the property, gazed at the house, the horse corrals, the hand dug well in front of the house, and the rest of the site.

Hardy folks to say the least. Not just for a man and woman who fell in love and decided to make their life in the middle of a desert but to raise and educate children here was something special.

These were tough folks - honest folks - determined folks - and resilient folks.

I gazed over the round arrasta used to break up huge pieces of quartz in the search of gold and wondered if Keys hoped to find his fortune in the nearby hills.

The arrasta at Keys Ranch in Joshua Tree National Park

He had a small crushing mill at the ranch plus a larger one not far away for local miners to use, at a small fee, to crush what they had pulled out of the earth each day.

At one time, Keys had nearly 200 cattle on his ranch, along with pigs, burros, and a very large garden which grew both vegetables and fruit.

Horse corrals and livestock pens

This family knew how to make a buck and did it honestly with hard daily work.

Frances and Bill even built a one-room schoolhouse at the front of their property and other families in the area would bring the children there for daily lessons. The county provided a school teacher who resided in a home in which Bill had built for that purpose.

Another quarter on the ranch

During the tour, Ranger Dave told anecdotes about life here for the Keys family.

“One day, the children asked their father, since they were getting older, if it was their time to have a mine of their own.”

Ranger Dave smiled. “So, Bill told his kids to dig in a certain spot and that was to be their own mine. Well, they dug and dug and when the pit was deep and wide enough, Bill moved the outhouse over the hole.”

But, in 1943 the fortunes of the Keys family would change. With a dispute with a neighbor, Worth Bagley, there was a shootout and Keys was arrested for murder after killing Bagley.

According to a book written by Art Kidwell, Ambush, The Story of Bill Keys, the case against Keys seemed rather weak.

It was proven through the court records, or at least what I took from them, that Bagley shot at Keys without provocation first and Keys returned fire, killing him.

A trial was conducted and somehow the jury found Keys guilty of manslaughter.

Steve, a fellow visitor and recently retired California Highway Patrol Officer, looked at me - “Yeah, no issues there. A solid case of self-defense.”

I nodded in agreement.

Two former cops hearing what Ranger Dave said about the case put a lot of questions in our minds.

Rumors were that Bagley may have had friends in high places who did not like Keys.

Of course, those are just rumors.

After serving five years in state prison for the murder, Keys was pardoned by the governor of California, and instead of being a bitter man,  Keys went right back to work on his ranch and mining operations.

Frances died in 1963 and Bill six years later.

A romantic story of a couple who built a home out of nearly nothing, even with all the hardships and obstacles, their love endured till the end.

A visit to the Keys Ranch must be on the list when visiting Joshua Tree National Park - the Keys story of endurance is enough for the journey itself.