The Stanford Family
In Residence 1882-1903
Portrait of Josiah Stanford, painted by Georgiana Campbell, 19th century. Courtesy of Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University.
Josiah Stanford was the eldest of six brothers born near Albany, New York. Five of them set out for California in 1849, determined to find their fortunes in the gold fields. Arriving in Sacramento, Josiah, Dewitt, Charles, Thomas, and Asa soon changed course and decided to earn their fortunes selling supplies to the tides of miners flooding California. They opened several stores, including one which advertised that the Stanford Brothers were, “importers and wholesalers of groceries, provisions, wines, liquors, cigars, boots, clothing, flour and barley, and constantly on hand a general assortment of miners’ tools.” The last Stanford brother, Leland stayed in New York and began a political career before a fire destroyed his legal office and he joined his brothers in 1852. Within ten years, most of the brothers had returned East, though Josiah and Leland remained in California.
Josiah solidified his fortune – and place in history – by developing and capitalizing on a new method of extracting oil by tunneling rather than drilling. The new technique was made possible only by the use of cheap manual labor. Fortunately for Josiah, his friend Charles Crocker had brought thousands of Chinese immigrants to build the transcontinental railroad. In 1866, Josiah’s company produced up to 20 barrels of oil per day through this tunneling method, which was then sent to Stanford Brothers’ own refinery in San Francisco. Josiah Stanford became the first person to establish commercial production of petroleum in California and a principal in one of the state’s first major oil companies.
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1876-1877: Alice (Marsh), William, Amy, and Gracie Camron
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1877-1881: David and Matilda Hewes and Franklina (Gray), William, and Lanier Bartlett
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1882-1903: Josiah, Helen, and Joe Stanford
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1903-1907: Captain John Tenant Wright Jr., Trella (Beck) Wright
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1907-1965
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1965-Present
Portrait of Josiah “Joe” W. Stanford with his penny farthing bicycle. Late 19th century. Joe was an avid cyclist and was a member of the cycling club at The Highlands. Camron-Stanford House Collection.
Josiah inherited the property from Leland in 1893, the winery had grown to 275 acres producing 1,000 tons of grapes and 320,000 gallons of wine in cooperage. The name was changed to Weibel Vineyards when that family purchased the winery in the 20th century.
Josiah Stanford and his second wife, Helen purchased the Camron-Stanford House in 1882. The couple divided their time between the Stanford family winery in Warm Springs and their house in Oakland for the next 23 years. The Stanfords only son, Josiah W. or Joe, was 18 years old when the family moved into the house and spent much of his time cycling around the Bay Area. In February of 1890, Joe married Gertrude Gordon at her family’s home, owing to the severe illness of Josiah Stanford. Just three months later, Josiah died at the Camron-Stanford House and was buried at Mountain View Cemetery.
The family suffered another loss in September of the following year when Gertrude died after a 4-month bout of illness. Joe had been left the Warm Springs vineyards by his father and spent most of his time there following Gertrude’s death. In 1899, Joe married again, this time to landscape artist Alice Herrick, the sister-in-law of his friend Mark Requa. Helen Stanford remained in Oakland and sold the house to Captain John Tennant Wright in 1903.