Agoston Haraszthy, 1812-1869
Aristocrat, Entrepreneur, Official, Winemaker
Entry Author: John
Ralston
For many California pioneer families, the road to respectability
was to make money, do Europe, build European-style estates,
and marry their daughters to European nobility. Agoston Haraszthy
(Ah-gush-tun Harris-tee) was an anomaly. A Hungarian
- which accounts for his name and those of his family sounding
like characters in Bram Stoker's Dracula - he was
aristocratic, born into a noble family of Pest (now part of
Budapest) on August 30, 1812. The family was not as wealthy
as other nobility, and Haraszthy, like so many other Europeans
whose ambition exceeded their opportunities, emigrated.
Haraszthy arrived in New York in 1840. He was unusually intelligent
and ambitious, had the advantage of a better education than
most other immigrants, and a gift for self-promotion; today,
it is hard to separate fact about Haraszthy from legend, a
legend he himself did much to create. After traveling to Wisconsin
with a cousin, he laid out a township that became Sauk City,
on the Wisconsin River. He raised livestock and grew wheat
and hops, then returned to Hungary briefly to reunite with
his parents, wife Eleonora, and sons Geza, Attila, and Arpad.
In 1842 Haraszthy returned with his entire family to Wisconsin,
where a fourth son, Bela, and two daughters were born. He
bought property, ran a steamboat line, and experimented with
grapevines, including vitis lambrusca, the native American
genus and species that produces "foxy" wines. His
health suffered in the harsh Wisconsin winter, and the news
of gold in California, with its salubrious climate, prompted
Haraszthy to pull up stakes and bring his wife, children,
and father - his mother had died - to San Diego. He planted
vines of the Mission variety, which produced drinkable but
inferior wine, engaged in other businesses, was elected sheriff,
and built a new jail (a conflict of interest, which was common
with California's lax ethical standards at the time). Just
one year after California became a state, Haraszthy was elected
to the state legislature as representative from San Diego.
A Democrat, he allied with the Southern Democratic pro-slavery
wing of William Gwin and David Terry, in opposition to the
anti-slavery wing of Senator David Broderick. After serving
just one term, Haraszthy left San Diego for San Francisco,
where he had bought land while in the legislature.
 In
1853 Agoston, his son Geza, and some partners took advantage
of a Federal program to claim lands in a long, narrow, canyon
called Crystal Springs, in the hills south of South Francisco
- the picturesque formation was due to the San Andreas Fault
lying precisely below it. Again he experimented with wine
grapes, this time the European vitis vinifera, notable
for the varieties chardonnay, cabernet, pinot, and others.
In partnership with some other Hungarian immigrants, Haraszthy
also formed a San Francisco business in assaying and refining
precious metals.
Agoston Haraszthy, c. 1857
Click here
for larger view
In April, 1854, the first San Francisco branch of the United
States Mint opened on Commercial Street, an alley perpendicular
to and west of Montgomery. Haraszthy's reputation for public
service got him appointed to the position of assayer of the
new mint. His appointment was partly political, but Haraszthy
filled the post conscientiously, particularly considering
the hazardous, uncomfortable conditions. Vats of heated acid
in the melting and refining process discharged noxious fumes,
protection from which was non-existent, and the heat was intense.
Haraszthy's position at the mint got him into serious trouble
that almost ended his life's work. In 1854 J. Ross Browne,
a U.S. Treasury Department agent (who would also be a successful
California and Nevada writer and illustrator), arrived to
investigate discrepancies between the amount of gold dust
brought to the mint for refining and the amount actually stamped
into coin. The discrepancy came to about $150,000, an immense
sum. The Commercial Street mint being too small for all the
work it had to do, Haraszthy and his refinery partners had
applied to the Treasury Department for a contract do some
of the refining. This, plus the $150,000 discrepancy, and
Haraszthy's wealth, looked suspicious to Browne, and in September
of 1857, after a lengthy and inconclusive investigation, a
Federal grand jury indicted Haraszthy for embezzlement. If
convicted, he could be fined $10,000 and imprisoned five to
ten years.
Eureka Gold and Silver Refinery of Haraszthy and Uznay,
Brannan Street, San Francisco. Haraszthy's partnership in
a private refining business while he was U.S. Mint assayer
put him under suspicion.
Click here
for larger view
Trial was held before Judge Hall McCallister (McCallister
Street). Haraszthy was defended by prominent attorney Edward
Stanly. The defense's case was that gold dust was lost through
defective chimneys, which was borne out by gold dust being
found in the mint's chimneys and on roofs adjoining the mint,
even on buildings some distance from it. Mint record-keeping
was also substandard. Haraszthy's reputation being good and
the government's case being weak, the indictment was eventually
dropped. The government had a civil suit against Haraszthy,
however, which dragged on until 1861, when a jury quickly
returned a verdict in favor of the defendant.
Haraszthy had been vindicated, but his reputation had suffered
and legal expenses had taken much of his fortune. Remarkably,
he had continued planning to plant vineyards during his legal
troubles. He sold his Crystal Springs property, uprooted the
vines, and replanted them in Sonoma County, where he had bought
property that he named Buena Vista on account of its splendid
views. A near neighbor and vineyard owner was General Mariano
Guadalupe Vallejo, who had successfully made the transition
from Mexican California to American California. Vallejo and
others in Sonoma grew mostly Mission grapes. Haraszthy began
systematically planting vitis vinifera, including a
previously unknown variety called zinfandel, today a bulwark
of California wine.
Haraszthy's mansion in Sonoma
Buena Vista was Haraszthy's most successful venture by far.
Chinese laborers dug caves into the stone hillsides to permit
aging wine in constant, cool temperatures, following European
practice. Haraszthy toured Europe in 1861 as a state viticulture
commissioner and returned with 200,000 cuttings. He was European
wine correspondent for the San Francisco Alta, and
back in California he wrote extensively and learnedly on viticulture
in California. The California legislature, however, balked
at reimbursing Haraszthy's $12,000 expenses incurred in Europe,
and he sold much of his cuttings at a loss. He continued to
be active at Buena Vista until 1868, when he sold his interests
to the Buena Vista Vinicultural Society, a multinational corporation.
 Entrance
to the cellars at Buena Vista Winery. Restored after the 1906
earthquake, the cellars appear much as they did in Haraszthy's
time.
Click here
for larger view
In spite of Haraszthy's success in viticulture, his finances
seemed cursed, and in 1868 he filed bankruptcy. Somehow he
got enough capital for another venture, distilling rum on
a sugar plantation in Nicaragua. In San Francisco the Alta
reported favorably on his arrival in Nicaragua and wished
him well. It was not to be. In 1868 Agoston's wife Eleonora
died of yellow fever, probably transmitted by a mosquito bite.
Haraszthy went back to California on business, then returned
to his Nicaraguan plantation. On July 6, 1869, he apparently
tried to cross a river by climbing along a long overhanging
tree branch. The branch snapped, Haraszthy went into the water,
and was dragged under by an alligator. Haraszthy's mule was
found still tethered to a tree, with his pistols still holstered.
Haraszthy has been called "The Father of California Wine,"
and similar titles. This may be an exaggeration, but it is
certainly true that he did more than any other figure to establish
the California wine industry. By growing and crushing vitis
vinifera on a large commercial scale, he laid the foundation
for wine industry giants like Mondavi, Krug, Heitz, Schram,
and Niebaum. His defects were of judgment, not of character.
It would have been more prudent and probably more remunerative
to have concentrated on private business, rather than blending
it with public office. It seems he tried to do too much.
|
Agoston Haraszthy was born into a noble family of Pest (now
part of Budapest) on August 30, 1812