By Michael Hayes Jr.

WHILE COMPLETING A HISTORY THESIS at Dominican University in 2000, I stumbled across an old photograph of Benicia in the archives of the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, a religious order of the Catholic Church.

Growing up in a family devoted to history, I knew immediately this was an important image. With the Sisters’ permission I photocopied it, then promptly became distracted by other endeavors and misplaced my copy.

Ten years later, speaking with the current archivist for the Dominican Sisters, the image was relocated after aggressive searching. The Dominican Sisters have given permission for this image to be published in The Benicia Herald.

The photograph shows St. Catherine’s Female Academy in the 1850s. The image was accompanied by a caption, probably written by a nun in the later 1800s. It reads:

“S. Catherine’s Academy — Benicia, 1854.

“The above is the original house which the Sisters occupied in Benicia. It was located in a depression of ground and not suitable for a school.* Six years later the brick building was erected on a higher and a more desirable site, and some of the above buildings were moved to the same location.

“* The location was between the Sisters’ grave-yard and the row of fig trees at the end of the garden.”

St. Catherine’s was a school run by the Catholic Church for the education of young women, which was very important given the highly chaotic nature of early California. The Golden State lacked any social safety net for the massive influx of people during the 1849-50 Gold Rush — there were no public schools, no hospitals, no police, and no welfare of any sort. Religious institutions such as the Church helped provide much-needed stability.

Benicians today may be aware that from 1859 until its demolition in the 1960s, St. Catherine’s stood where Safeway is located in Solano Square. However, this photo shows an earlier school site for St. Catherine’s, where it was located from 1854-58, an adjacent location roughly at the intersection of Military and First Street. The photographer was probably standing near where the gazebo at City Park is located today.

Because of flooding and drainage problems from a creek that ran where Pizza Pirate and Bank of America stand today, a better site was needed for the school. Judge S.C. Hastings donated the Solano Square land to the Sisters so a more permanent brick school could be built in 1859. The wooden buildings in this image which were not moved onto the new site were probably dismantled.

Aside from the date in the caption, I knew this was an early Benicia photo because the landscape was devoid of any other buildings or vegetation. It might be possible to date this image to about 1857 or 1858, since there are several bushes growing in front of the main building. The topography does not entirely match what exists today. The large hill behind the main building with a cross was graded away when Highway 780 was built in the 1960s. The hill behind the building labeled “Infirmary” must also have been graded away in the 1800s to use for fill dirt, since early Benicia had many low areas with flooding problems.

In the center of the photo, behind the bell tower, what looks like a farmhouse on the hillside actually is a large outcropping of sandstone. This stone would be quarried to build foundations for buildings and tombstones at the City Cemetery. Remnants of this sandstone outcropping can still be seen today in the hillside facing Pappa’s Restaurant on East Second Street.

It is interesting to think that someone long ago took the effort to label the infirmary building. That structure, which looks like it stands near where Starbucks is today, was an important building given the high mortality rate among children in the 1800s. It is also quite remarkable that at such an early date as the 1850s, St. Catherine’s Academy was such a large complex. This shows how important — and how desperately needed — this school was for early California settlers.

This photograph is important for two main reasons. First, it is an early photo of pioneer California. There are only about six other known photographs of Benicia from the 1850s. Probably a similar number exist from the 1860s. Thus, any photo from this period that surfaces today is very rare.

Second, this photo may end up being one of the earliest known photos showing the Catholic Dominican Order in California. The Dominicans, like the Jesuits, and others played a big role in shaping California. Thus, I am not sure the Dominican Sisters today were aware of the importance of this image.

For me, St. Catherine’s Academy is extremely important because it is where my late Mom, Angela Lynch Hayes, and my Dad, Michael Hayes, met as elementary school children in 1948. Parting ways, they reunited 20 years later and married. Though the school is long gone, its legacy survives with me.

Michael Hayes Jr. is a Vallejo native.