Marin Herald, January 4, 1934
Early History Talk Resumed
By Donald Perry
Continuing his historical talks to the San Anselmo Rotary Club, Don Perry told several interesting tales, which were told to him by Rev. Dr. Robert MacKenzie, who was president of the Seminary board back in the ’90’s. He was instrumental in securing the Montgomery endowment for the seminary. It appeared that Montgomery casually drifted into Dr. MacKenzie’s church, in San Francisco, while walking along the street and he heard a sermon which hit home. He asked for a conference next day. Told Dr. MacKenzie that he had a wonderful mother back in Scotland, and that he was well to do and that he wished to ask MacKenzie what he would suggest in the way of a memorial in honor of his mother and these San Anselmo structures are the result of that talk. The doctor, one day showed the speaker a set of double harness back in his barn, in the rear of his home at Bolinas Avenue and Kensington Road and he related how he came into possession of this harness.
He stated that while he was preaching in his first church in San Francisco, on Mission street between Third and Fourth, Thursday came along and he had done nothing towards getting his Sunday sermon ready. His brain was not working very well, and so he decided to put on his hat and take a walk to see if he could not get rid of some of the cob-webs in it. He walked down Mission street and while passing an auction mart, where they sold horses, buggies, etc., just where the Rialto building now stands, he heard a gabby auctioneer auctioning off vehicles. He stepped in and enjoyed the show. After a while the harness was put up for sale and the bidding was lively—most of it being done by a mere nod of the head. The auctioneer was nodding first to this one and then another and he happened to nod at MacKenzie and he automatically and very politely nodded back at him. The first thing he knew the double set of harness was knocked down to him, and as he did not want to welsh, but wanted to be a good sport he paid his money and took the harness, although he never had owned a horse.
It was some 25 years later that he showed the exhibit to the speaker.
The doctor also told the speaker that his folks were very poor in Scotland and he worked his way out to this country, landing at Nova Scotia, intent on working for an uncle, there located. He did not get along with the uncle and decided to get down into the states. He ran out of money while heading for New York and the conductor on the train took his silver watch and chain as part payment for the fare.
He landed in New York, where he nearly starved. He was a very small fellow and not very strong. Finally he worked his way out to Detroit, where he often went hungry. Eventually he secured a job as freight clerk on a boat which was to start running the following day to Chicago. The boat took fire and burned that night at the dock and he had a time getting up to Chicago. After arriving there he got a job doing janitor work in a church, and in honor of his mother he decided to take a theological course, there being a small theological school, then a short time in existence.
This was back in 1860. To eke out an existence he did odd jobs around—anything that came along. He had to eat—worked at a sawmill, taking boards away from a planing machine, carrying them across a pile of sawdust and piling them on a pile, while the heels on his shoes were so run over that the skin was worn off the backs of his heels and he thought much on how a man could beat a machine—but he kept on.
He climbed many stairs, seeking a work in offices during another vacation period and after being repeatedly refused work he concluded that there must be something wrong with his personal appearance or line of talk.
The next stairway he climbed he knocked at a door, and a gruff voice told him to “come in,” and he did so. A man was sitting at a desk in his shirt-sleeves and he asked, “What do you want?” MacKenzie said work and without even taking the trouble to turn around, the man told MacKenzie to “get out.”
When he got to the foot of the stairs he waited and studied his procedure and then concluded that his chances would be better if he focused on some one line rather than to say that he could do anything. So the next stairs he climbed, on being told to come in, he noticed several young people addressing what he thought were envelopes. On being asked what he could do, he replied: “Address envelopes.” The boss told him to sit down and show what sort of a fist he wrote—and, as he wrote a neat, little Scotch hand, he got the job. In a few weeks he was given charge of the office force.
It was slips of paper the clerks were writing—addresses—for this was the starting of the first Chicago street directory. The proprietor was very kind to MacKenzie and so was his wife. She often made pies and cakes for him and he had this job each year, during vacation periods and in the intervals he collected rents for this man.
One of the tenants was a barber. He had a hole in the wall on the water front. Rents were collected weekly. One Saturday this barber asked MacKenzie to come on Monday. He did so and found that the barber had put his shop on a truck and moved the building away. It was several days before he could be found.
Using these materials and his experience, in sermons, in later years, he frequently fascinated his congregation. He preached a sermon back in the 80’s, using as his text, “This one thing I know,” and it happened that a wild young Englishman heard the sermon, after having knocked around the world trying his hand at everything.
Some years later Dr. MacKenzie was walking on one of the London streets when a man came up to him and asked if he wasn’t Dr. MacKenzie from San Francisco, and on being told he was, the man told MacKenzie that he wanted to shake hands with him, mentioning that he had heard him preach a sermon in San Francisco on “This one thing I know,” in which he told of securing his directory job. The man said he went down to Australia, got in the cattle business there, stuck to it and he stated that he was a very well-off man at that time. His sermon did the work.
A year or two prior to this directory experience, MacKenzie worked on a farm 15 miles out of Chicago. The farmer, a Swede, and MacKenzie did all the work on the farm. The 4th of July came around and they all went off to Chicago, leaving MacKenzie alone on the farm. MacKenzie had but one pair of pants, aside from his working clothes, and he loaned these pants to the Swede who had none of his own. The family came back but the Swede didn’t show up. So after waiting two days the farmer sent MacKenzie to hunt up the Swede in Chicago. He knew where to look for him and finally rounded him up, drunk as a lord, in a groggery.
MacKenzie was on horseback and he started back with the Swede walking beside the horse. After going about half way home the Swede said he was tired and asked to ride. As soon as he got on the horse he turned him around and galloped off to Chicago. MacKenzie had to foot it after him. Finally he landed him back at the farm and secured his pants.
While working on this directory job in Chicago, MacKenzie was thrown intimately in contact with all kinds of people—and they were pretty rough back in those days. The doctor, in relating some of these experiences (and he knew how to tell them) would laugh heartily. He was a great fisherman and how he “could tell” a fishing story.
Rotarian Paul Rieger was a great admirer of Dr. MacKenzie and he once told the speaker that Dr. MacKenzie made the wooden cradle which served his son when he was an infant. The doctor went east about 30 years ago, taking a church in New York. He died about five years ago. His son James was a prominent corporation attorney in San Francisco. He retired some years ago and now lives in Santa Barbara. One of his daughters—Jean—was a missionary in Central Africa for a number of years. She now writes and some of her books have been spoken of highly.
On the foreclosure of a mortgage, Mrs. Worn, daughter of Mrs. Ross, lost all of what is now known as the “Sunnyside Tract”— from the railroad up to the top of Bald Hill — $35,000 or so was the indebtedness. A. W. Foster, son-in-law of Dr. Scott, the real founder of the San Francisco Theological Seminary, then operating on the southside of Haight street in the first block west of Market street, purchased, at the foreclosure sale, the several blocks of land adjacent to and just north of Bolinas Avenue, including the Seminary Hill and the football field and he gave these holdings to the seminary. This was in the late ’80’s. Several years after, construction of the present buildings, including the Presbyterian chapel, was started.