at least for his university library. He thought the record of the American period of about a half century outweighed three and one-half centuries of Spanish and Mexican history. The very sort of materials that Bolton was laboriously collecting in Mexico were of no concern to Turner.9 Nevertheless, if Bancroft's library had the Anglo-American materials that Turner valued so highly, or if they could be obtained and added to the collection, Turner supported the purchase.
Turner made it clear that if the Bancroft (or the Sutro) did not have the materials that he needed, Stanford should find or build a library that did. Jordan and Farrand agreed. On Christmas Eve 1904 Farrand wrote Turner that “one by one the obstacles are being removed in the most satisfactory way,” though there were still details to be worked out that Farrand would not reveal.10
What was Farrand unwilling to tell Turner? The new library building at Stanford was about to open, and Jordan was undoubtedly pressing Jane Stanford on the need for books to fill it, a need that coincided with Turner's recruitment. Stanford decided to fund the proposed acquisitions, but before she could act, she had a frightening experience. In January 1905 she sipped some water at her bedside table, but the foul taste made her spit it out. There were no lasting ill effects, but analysis revealed that the water had been tainted with strychnine. Investigators thought the poisoning had been an accident, but Stanford believed that someone had tried to murder her. She decided to go to Honolulu, where she hoped she might be safe. Before sailing on February 15, she took care of the library business.11 “We need books at present more than anything else,” she wrote. The new library had room for one million volumes and she intended to acquire them. Therefore, she requested that the trustees establish an endowment from the sale of her “diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones,” to be known appropriately “as the Jewel Fund.”12
The story of the Jewel Fund does not have a happy ending. A few weeks after announcing her plans for the library, Stanford died in Honolulu, the victim of a second strychnine poisoning. Her murderer was never found. Indeed, the police did not investigate the crime. President Jordan, who evidently hoped to spare the Stanford family as well as the university from a scandal, insisted that she had died of heart failure even though an inquest in Hawaii indicated otherwise. Jordan's unfounded version of events was widely believed until recently when researchers examined the autopsy report and other testimony from Hawaii.13 Nevertheless, as Jane Stanford had wished, the Jewel Fund was established and became the essential endowment for Stanford's library.14
In January 1905 Jordan made an offer to Turner of $5,000 per year, a $1,000 raise over his Wisconsin salary. Turner did not jump at the offer, but he did not turn it down. He decided to wait for a year to see what Stanford would do about a library.15 The California rumor mill turned. A San Jose newspaper erroneously reported that Turner was going to Stanford.16 In Berkeley Professor Stephens, who was by then the history department head, heard the false report and implored Turner not to go to Stanford until he visited Berkeley. He promised to match any offer that Stanford made. Turner assured Stephens that Jordan had made no offer, but of course the Stanford offer was on the way.17
Turner's delaying tactics with Stanford gave Stephens time to address Berkeley's library problem. Like Stanford, Berkeley lacked a library that could support serious research in history. Stephens was a European historian, but he recognized the immense value of the Bancroft for the study of history on the Pacific Coast. He convinced President Benjamin Ide Wheeler that acquisition of the Bancroft was crucial to the future of the university. Wheeler then won over the regents, but money stood in the way, for Bancroft wanted a quarter of a million dollars for his library. Bancroft himself helped to overcome financial obstacles by agreeing to “donate” $100,000 toward the purchase while agreeing that the balance could be paid him in three $50,000 installments. On September 15 Stephens and Bancroft reached an agreement that Stephens sealed, in his decorous way, by kissing Mrs. Bancroft's hand.18
The regents feared a public outcry because Bancroft was portrayed in the press as a self-promoter who was prying money from the public treasury for a worthless lot of old books and papers, mere “rubbish” as some people thought.19 To mute criticism, the regents called for an expert appraisal. The choice of appraisers was especially shrewd considering Stephens's cherished desire to recruit Turner. The call went out to Reuben gold Thwaites, Turner's colleague and friend and the superintendent of historical collections for the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. His praise was unstinting. Bancroft's library was “astonishingly large and complete, easily first in its own field, and taking high rank among the famous general collections of Americana, such as exist at Harvard University, the Boston Public Library, the Library of Congress, the New York State Library, and the Wisconsin Historical Library.” The library would “at once attract to the University a body of graduate students in American and Spanish-American history and allied studies, who are to find here a practically unique collection of material of the highest order of excellence.”20
Thwaites recommended creating at Berkeley a repository of material for all of Spanish America. Nor was Anglo-American history to be forgotten. Bancroft had amassed a huge collection of newspapers, books, documents, reminiscences, business records, and other materials bearing on the Anglo-American phase of California and the West. The opportunities for research were “quite unexampled elsewhere in America.” As to its monetary value, the Bancroft Library was “a bargain” worth far more than the price that Bancroft had put on it.21 Thwaites made one additional suggestion: that Frederick J. Teggart, librarian of the fine Mechanics’ Institute Library in San Francisco, be put in charge of moving the library to Berkeley. Teggart had been working in the library for some time and was already a University of California extension lecturer.22 Accordingly he organized the move and eventually became curator of the Bancroft in Berkeley.
Bancroft's splendid rubbish now belonged to the university, but it remained in San Francisco until the University completed the Doe Library, which was still on the drawing board. In the meantime the newest building on campus, California Hall, was made ready to house the collections until Doe Library was on its footings. President Wheeler quickly used the library to good effect by inviting Turner to teach in the summer of 1906. “The presence of the Bancroft Library…might add to the attraction.” Turner accepted.23
President Jordan continued to work on Turner. In March he obtained an agreement from the Stanford trustees to give Turner an annual two months’ leave of absence to enable his research in other libraries “until such time as our library becomes adequate.”24 In early April Jordan went to Madison and made Stanford's best offer to Turner: $5,000 per year, plus two months’ annual leave for research until a library suitable for Turner's purposes had been gathered at Stanford. On April 17 the Wisconsin regents countered Stanford's offer. They did not advance Turner's salary, but freed him from teaching for one semester per year to carry on his research and writing.25
Had the world continued to turn on its axis as usual, Turner might have waited to hear something from Cal before giving an answer to Wisconsin or Stanford, but the earth quaked. Early in the morning of April 18 the San Andreas Fault gave way, causing catastrophic damage in San Francisco and the surrounding area. Jordan was in bed at his Stanford home. “We were all awakened by tremendous jolts, after which the house was shaken with great violence as a rat might be shaken by a dog, and objects began to fly through the air.”26 Devastation from the quake was terrific. Ceilings collapsed, buildings toppled, roads buckled, and the earth yawned. Fire soon added to the destruction in San Francisco, which burned for three days. Perhaps three thousand people died during the cataclysm.27
Stanford University, whose impressive stone buildings had only recently been completed, was in ruins. On the day of the quake President Jordan found a typewriter and someone who could work it. He sent a heartbreaking letter to Turner. “All of the beautiful buildings are gone, the loss being about $2,800,000.” Who could even imagine such stupendous losses, much less their replacement? He asked Turner to “let our matter rest in abeyance for the present
