James Lick, Fredericksburg, Lebanon County

About this time next week I expect to be in my usual pre-convention frenzy. All the things in the world to do, no time in the world to do them. It happens every year.

But for today, I'm bringing you a blog post that turned out to be much more complex and intriguing than I initially expected. It's my first post from Lebanon County in well over a year, and it's a bit longer than usual because there was just so much to tell you. I can honestly say that it's the first time I've ever started a blog post by saying that almost everything you're about to read was the result of a young man's quest to be able to marry the woman he loved.

The marker stands on US 22 westbound, at the
intersection with Pine Grove Street in Fredericksburg

His name was James Lick, which you probably already knew from the post title, and he was born in what was then called Stumpstown (now Fredericksburg) on August 25, 1796. He was a grandson of William Lick, who had served under General George Washington in the American Revolution, and was the younger of two sons of John Lick, a carpenter, and his wife Sarah. At thirteen, James became his father's apprentice and learned the business of building cabinets and other furnishings. It's said that his father was a harsh master who demanded excellence from his son, and the quiet and studious James eventually reached the same level of skill as his father.

At the age of twenty-one, James fell deeply in love with Barbara Snavely, the daughter of a local farmer and miller. After a courtship of some months, Barbara confessed to James that she was pregnant with his child, which I imagine was rather scandalous in the early 1800s. Though he wanted to do the right thing by his beloved Barbara and make her his wife, one thing stood in their way - her father, Henry Snavely. Indignant at the idea that a mere apprentice would think himself worthy of the miller's daughter, he sent James away, telling him that he could not marry Barbara until he owned a mill that was as large and prosperous as the Snavely mill. James, so the story goes, retorted that one day he would own "a mill that makes yours look like a pigsty!"

This determination sent him out of Stumpstown and down south to Baltimore, where he applied his woodworking talents to learning to build pianos. From there he moved to New York and opened a piano-making enterprise. He grew successful in the endeavor, but was surprised to learn that his products were being shipped to South America, of all places. James figured that he could earn his fortune (and thus his wife) much faster if he took the supply straight to the demand; so he packed up his few belongings and sailed to Argentina. The year was then 1821. His time in South America was difficult, in part because he was frequently sick and the political climate was wildly unstable. He also didn't speak Spanish, which didn't help anything. Despite this, however, he did tolerably well with his pianos.

In 1825, leaving his business in the hands of a trusted associate, James went to Europe for a few months for his health. He improved considerably, but on returning to South America, his ship almost sank in a storm. After barely getting through that, a Portuguese warship captured the vessel and took everyone on board to present-day Uruguay as prisoners of war. Somehow, James managed to escape his imprisonment and return to Argentina, where he got back to his pianos. He also started dealing in furs, and between the two lines of work, he grew wealthy. Now, he thought, he could face Henry Snavely and ask once more for Barbara's hand in marriage, and back he came to Pennsylvania.

There was just one problem. James had apparently never told Barbara that he was coming back for her, and two years after he left, she married someone else. So when James returned to Stumpstown, he found neither her nor their son waiting for him; they had moved elsewhere with her husband, John Desh, and the three daughters she bore him.

The heartbroken James never married. He returned to South America, where various outbreaks of war caused him to move to Chile and, later, Peru. He continued to amass his fortune, but he was not fond of the southern continent and always planned to return to North America. He finally did so in 1847, sailing to California on the brig Lady Adams, and arrived in San Francisco just weeks before California was ceded to the United States. Along with his tools, his workbench, and a fortune of $30,000 in Peruvian gold (that's the equivalent of almost $1.2 million in today's money), he brought something else - three hundred pounds of chocolate which he had purchased from his neighbor in Peru. He was able to sell the chocolate rapidly, and he wrote to that neighbor, Domingo Ghirardelli, and advised him to relocate his business to California. In other words, James Lick is the reason that Ghirardelli Chocolates is based in San Francisco.

San Francisco, in those days, was not the San Francisco known and treasured today. It was basically a shanty town that happened to have a wonderful harbor. James, however, looked at the little settlement and saw dollar signs, and he began using his substantial fortune to buy up parcels of land as fast as he could. Most likely a lot of people thought he was nuts, but they weren't about to say no to the money he was offering. However, something happened less than a month after James arrived: the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill. The population of California quickly began to grow as people caught gold fever, and within two years San Francisco had gone from a population of roughly one thousand to more than twenty thousand, making James's investment one of the wisest in the territory.

James himself was briefly touched with gold fever, but he didn't care for the actual business of prospecting. Instead, he persisted in his belief in the value of the land. He continued to buy property from those who were anxious to sell in order to go off gold-hunting, then appointed an agent to oversee his San Francisco holdings while he set to work on his property near San Jose, where he raised some of the state's finest orchards and made even more money selling the fruit. The picture of him seen here, courtesy of WikiCommons, is undated; however, based on descriptions of the man, it likely dates to roughly this period in his life.

In 1855, he oversaw the completion of a lavish mill in Santa Clara, which was known locally as "Lick's Folly." It was rather extravagant, with expensive machinery and wood, but it was to prove a point. James had photos taken of the finished mill and sent them back to Stumpstown, proving his long-ago threat to own a mill that would make Henry Snavely's look like a pigsty. The fact that Henry Snavely had died since then didn't matter - it was the principle of the thing. That same year, he invited his son, John Henry Lick, to join him in California. Father and son had never met until this. John Henry arrived bearing the sad news that James's beloved Barbara had also died, putting an end once and for all to any lingering hope James might have had that they could still be together someday. James and his son attempted to maintain a good relationship, but they were of very different mindsets; for example, James wanted them to move into the elaborate mansion he had built, while John Henry preferred the rustic cabin in which they stayed during the mansion's construction. John Henry also had his father's less than robust constitution, and the California air disagreed with him. He returned to Pennsylvania in 1863, where he remained until summoned back to California by his father's failing health.

By 1874, James Lick was the wealthiest man in California, and had a reputation for being eccentric and stingy. He continued to amass great fortunes, and spent his money on grand-scale projects such as the Lick House Hotel, which was partially inspired by the Palace of Versailles in France. It was considered the finest hotel west of the Mississippi until it was destroyed in the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. After its completion, he returned to his estate in Santa Clara, where he suffered a massive stroke. He moved into Lick House, where doctors could better tend to him, and from there he spent the last two years of his life dictating how his money should be used on projects that would benefit society. He bequeathed generous amounts of the estate to his son and other relations, and ordered the construction of an enormous marble monument over the graves of his parents and grandfather, but the rest was to fund public projects. A small board of trustees, his son John Henry among them, was appointed to oversee the whole thing and make sure what he wanted was done.

His funds were widely distributed, and many of his greatest contributions still exist to this day. These include: 

• The free James Lick Baths in San Francisco, which provided a bathing facility for people in days when most residents didn't have indoor plumbing
• The establishment of the California School of Mechanic Arts
• The creation of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, as a memorial to Francis Scott Key; this includes the Conservatory of Flowers
• The Pioneer Monument, in front of San Francisco City Hall, which is a series of bronze statues illustrating the history of California
• The Lick Old Ladies' Home, a retirement facility for impoverished widows

James's greatest legacy, however, is the Lick Observatory and the Great Lick Refracting Telescope. With his friend George Davidson, the president of the California Academy of Sciences, he often discussed astronomy, and George gave him the idea to give California the most powerful telescope money could buy. At the time of its construction, the Great Lick Refracting Telescope was the largest of its kind in the world; even today, it's still a respectable third largest. Both were completed in 1888.

James didn't live to see the completion of the telescope and observatory. He died at Lick House on October 1, 1876, while the project was just getting started. Along with his various bequests and the projects dictated in his lifetime, James is remembered today through the names of schools, a crater on the moon, an asteroid, and a lizard. (No, really - the Sceloporous licki, which is native to California, was named in his honor.) Here in Pennsylvania, the community of Lickdale also bears his name, and is situated near his birthplace of Fredericksburg. In Cedar Hill Cemetery in Fredericksburg, visitors can admire the monument that he had erected to his family members, seen here. Nearby is the small mausoleum of John Henry Lick, who came home to stay after overseeing the final requests of his father. He never married or had children of his own, so James has no surviving descendants.

James himself is not buried with his son or other relatives; he remains in California still. In 1887, his body was moved to the partially constructed observatory and laid to rest beneath the spot where the telescope would be housed. His grave is marked by a tablet which reads, simply, "Here Lies the Body of James Lick." And, per the terms of his last will and testament, there are always fresh flowers placed there.

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Sources and Further Reading:

Lick History, from the official website of the Lick Observatory Archives

Lick, Rosemary. The Generous Miser: The Story of James Lick of California. Ward Ritchie Press, 1967. (The author is a great-granddaughter of James's brother Samuel.)

The Hometown Historian. "Pennsylvania Historical Marker Series: James Lick." YouTube, July 10, 2022.

James Lick at FindAGrave.com

James Lick at the Historical Marker Database

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.