Had the chance to wander a bit with The Man in Morgan Hill last week.
First we posed for a serious photo because we are serious folks.
And because we are adults and awesome like that, I snapped this photo when we found a large piece of spider art on a parking garage.
It wasn’t the only cool art we saw that day… check out this from the Morgan Hill Library.
And then we ended up going on a tour of a historic house and learning all sorts of interesting facts about the founders of the town.
Yeah, I know it “belongs in a museum” even my personal archaeologist wine drinking buddy told me I should leave it alone…
In 1850, Martin Murphy, Sr.’s youngest son, Daniel Murphy, married Maria Fisher, heiress of the neighboring 19,000-acre (7,700 ha) Rancho Laguna Seca, thus combining the two estates. In 1853, Martin Murphy, Sr.’s father, Bernard Murphy, died leaving the majority of the estate to Martin Murphy, Sr., but a substantial portion to a Martin Murphy, Sr.’s mother, Catherine, who then married James Dunne. By 1870, the Murphy family had acquired around 70,000 acres (28,000 ha) of the Morgan Hill area.[16] In the history of Morgan Hill, the Murphy, Dunne, and Hill families are of the most prominent significance.
In 1882, Daniel and Maria Murphy’s favorite daughter, Diana Murphy, fell in love with Missouri businessman Hiram Morgan Hill. They married in secret, on account of his being a Quaker and her being from a prominent Roman Catholic family. When Daniel Murphy died, Diana and Hiram Morgan Hill inherited the 4,500 acres (1,800 ha) surrounding the original Murphy estate, near Murphy’s Peak (now known as El Toro). In 1884, the Hills built their weekend estate, as the family primarily lived in San Francisco and in Nevada, dubbed Villa Mira-Monte (Italian for Mountain-View Estate).[18]
By 1886, the family chose to live primarily at the Ojo del Agua estate, as they jointly inherited 22,000 acres (8,900 ha) around the estate. However, the move was temporary, as scandal caused by the marital complications of Hiram Morgan Hill’s prominent socialite sister, Sarah Althea Hill, and her husband, Senator William Sharon, made the Hills a source of social ridicule, thus causing them to start spending the majority of their time between San Francisco and Washington, D.C., thus leaving their Ojo del Agua estate untouched for long periods of time.[16]
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| Is it just me or is the name of this church slightly disquieting? |
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| Not a rose. So…. |
