MARTINEZ HISTORICAL SOCIETY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Restoration Specialist
Job Titles:
- Marketing Chair
- Website Committee Member
Job Titles:
- Old Train Depot Chair
- Old Train Depot Museum Chair / First Vice President
Joseph Hatton's Barber Shop (located on Main Street across from the Napa Opera House) also served as a hub of their community outside of the AME Church. Their barber shop sat alongside the Napa Creek which fed into the Napa River. Aaron would have gone there to get the latest news when steamers stopped and delivered newspapers at the wharf. Joseph and his father Edward were field agents for the African-American San Francisco newspapers, the Pacific Appeal founded in 1862 who believed in the creation of an independent African-American community and the Elevator founded in 1865 who believed in total integration of African-Americans in all aspects of society including education.
Job Titles:
- Cemetery Chair
- Website Administrator
Judie Palmer are founders and Board Directors of the Martinez Cemetery Preservation Alliance (MCPA) and Potter's Field Restoration Project. Additionally, Joseph is a Martinez Historical Society (MHS) Board Director and Cemetery Committee Chair, while Judie is a Contra Costa County Genealogical Society Board Director. They also head up a joint research team made up of members from both MCPA and MHS.
Job Titles:
- Borland House Co - Chair
- Programs Chair
Job Titles:
- Legal Advisor / Events Co - Chair
Job Titles:
- Archivist
- Publications Chair
Job Titles:
- Cemetery Committee Member
- Website Committee Member
Job Titles:
- Second Vice President
- Volunteer & Fundraising Chair / Events Co - Chair
Job Titles:
- First Woman CC County Supervisor
- Martinez Bocce Pioneer
Nancy Fahden made her mark on Martinez history several years before she became the first woman elected to the County Board of Supervisors sparking a huge change in the composition of the Board and its goals for the county. It was she who started the process that not only brought bocce ball back to Martinez
Martinez native Nancy Cardinalli Fahden had no intention of making history by becoming the first woman on the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors. In 1976 she recruited a neighbor, Bill Wainwright, to run against an entrenched incumbent who was one of five middle-aged business men on the board. But at the last minute Wainwright withdrew […]
Obed Fosdick Alley was born on June 4, 1824 in Massachusetts. He married Phebe Ray Bunker (1928) on July 18, 1950 in Nantucket, MA where he was a mariner in water transportation.
Obed came to California from Nantucket in 1850. After working in the gold fields and spending some months in Martinez he sent for his wife Phebe who arrived in 1852. They had two children: Herman born in 1858, and Susan M. born on June 12, 1865.
In around 1859, he had an accident and lost a leg.
Obed started a dairy and dabbled in politics, serving at various times as county assessor and secretary of the Contra Costa Agricultural Society. He was the County Tax Collector and County Treasurer from 1868 through 1869. In the 1866 Voter Registration, he is listed as growing fruit trees in San Jose, CA.
Phebe, a teacher, talked the Masons into allowing her to use some of their meeting hall space for classrooms. She had first taught school in the kitchen at the Sylvanus Swain home. The Swains were also from Nantucket. Phebe didn't teach long. She became more of a fund-raiser and dabbled in "magnetic healing".
On November 17, 1869, a playground accident killed their 10 year-old son Herman when he was struck by a baseball bat. In 1874, the Alleys moved to San Francisco.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Governance Committee
- Membership Chair
Job Titles:
- President
- Borland House Co - Chair
- Lead Carpenter
Job Titles:
- Museum Co - Chair / Landmarks, Monuments, & Plaques Committee Member