Seculovich Conveys His Properties
Historical Essay
by Stephanie T. Hoppe
Stephanie T. Hoppe is a former staff counsel to the California Coastal Commission and a great-great-granddaughter of Peter Seculovich.
Part 8 of Peter T. Seculovich in San Francisco
At the Mission District convention of the Populist Party that fall, Seculovich was one of several men suggested as candidates for the 17th state senatorial district. The party’s call for government ownership of railroads might have appealed to him. He had registered to vote soon after gaining US citizenship in 1860 and kept up his registration assiduously. The early 1890s voter rolls included a physical description, the only such information we have about Seculovich. In 1892, when he was 65, he was reported to be 5 feet 4 ½ inches tall with gray eyes and hair. Four years later, the rolls gave his height as 5 feet 6 inches, his complexion ruddy and eyes blue.
In 1897, when Seculovich turned 70, he deeded most, if not all, of his Bernal Rancho parcels as well as some other properties to his daughter, Jennie, purportedly in exchange for $2,000. One property included in the conveyance caught the public eye:
The owners of Western Addition Block 60 were rather astonished this morning to find their property conveyed away by deed among a lot of other city lands by Peter T. Seculovich to Mrs. E. E. Theriot.
This block is now one of the most valuable pieces of down-town property, bounded by Van Ness avenue and by Geary, Polk and O’Farrell streets….It is covered by what is known as the J. K. Moore title, under a deed executed by Fernando Marchena in 1850, a conveyance which was not recorded until 1863.
This is in common with nearly all the Western Addition blocks, but no notice is now taken of the title by reachers [sic] of records as it is of no value whatever.
It was thought at first that perhaps Mr. Seculovich claimed through the old Moore title, but, although it would appear that the other large property interests transferred appear on the record in his name, no trace of Western Addition Block 60 is shown.
Mr. Oscar A Rouleau of the firm of F. A Rouleau, searcher of records, made a close search for the connection of the Seculovich name with the titles to the particular block to-day.
When asked about the title he replied, “I can find no transfer from any one to Mr. Seculovich, the grantor named in this deed of this particular block, and the name does not appear among any of the original transfers.” (Undated newspaper clipping in Seculovich Family Papers)
Discrepancies between Spanish, Mexican and US real estate laws created many opportunities for both confusion and fraud in land titles in San Francisco, as throughout California. In numerous cases, more-or-less plausible claims of ownership led to substantial payouts by those currently in possession just to clear their title. The Call & Post described Seculovich’s claim in more detail:
Peter T. Seculovich, an old and wealthy resident of this City, has laid claim to a block of land in the center of the residence portion of San Francisco, and the indications are that the present holders of the property will have to battle in the courts for their homes.
The land in question embraces the block bounded by Ellis, O’Farrell and Polk streets and Van Ness avenue, and is valued at several hundred thousand dollars. Seculovich claims it under an old pueblo grant, and says that he has ample evidence that he is entitled to the property.
As a preliminary step, so at to make any future proceedings in court perfectly regular, he has applied to the Board of Supervisors to place him in possession of what he deems his own. The matter was up before the Outside Lands Committee of the board yesterday, when a formal communication from Mr. Seculovich was read, asking the board to declare him the owner of the land.
The communication states that in 1861, 1862 or 1863 he filed a regular application for the land, on which he had settled several years before, when it was a barren patch of land, under the provisions of the old pueblo grant. Subsequently other interests caused him to lose sight of his property there, and he took no further proceedings in the matter.
The committee decided that it could not put Mr. Seculovich in possession, but that if he could make his claims good under the present statutes he would be entitled to the lands.
Mr. Seculovich began a deeper investigation into the matter yesterday by going into the files of The Call of 1861, 1862 and 1863 to see whether from the reports of the proceedings of the board he was not given possession. He has already consulted an attorney and may begin legal proceedings at any time. (Call & Post, 3/25/1897)
A year and a half later, Seculovich published a rambling ad that appeared in the Call & Post between offers to paint and paper rooms ($2.50) or evict tenants ($4):
Any person having Morning Call file of 1860-61-62 or 1863 that contains a petition at its length over the signature of Peter T. Seculovich to San Francisco Board of Supervisors for a block of land No. 60, W.A., by producing to him the same or a certified copy, or any information of the time, as two thousand petitions followed it, or its natural ground and his occupation of it, or having municipal reports of 1860-61-62-63 and 1867-8, or knowing of one living, Mr. Carter, that owned and kept a grocery store in 1860 on Filbert st., between Powell and Mason, will be reasonably paid. PETER T. SECULOVICH, 3241 Mission st. (Call & Post, 8/7/1898)
Ten years later, he persisted in his claim with a petition to the Board of Supervisors that he be given a deed to “Block 60 of Pueblo Lands, Western Addition.”’ “The petitioner claims to have occupied the block from 1860 to 1862 and asserts he is entitled to possession as a squatter thereon” (Call & Post, 2/12/1907, p. 15).
Seculovich slowed down, making no appearances in the newspapers in 1897-98 or 1900-01. Or perhaps it was that the railroad proposals stalled, although he was also missing from the city directories in those years. In 1896 and again in 1899, the city directories listed the Islais Creek Property Owners Association at his home address.
As far as we know, Seculovich made no new real estate purchases after 1888. In 1891, Jennie returned to him the Bernal Rancho properties he had deeded to her in the 1880s. Then, in several transactions between 1897 and 1901, he again deeded them to her. In 1902 and 1903, for an unknown sum, she sold six of the Franconia Landing marsh lots that were the source of his interest in navigation in Islais Creek. Presumably he approved of these sales, as the deeds listed her and her husband as well as Seculovich as grantors. She—or they—also sold several Precita Valley properties for $7,000, a substantial sum. A few years later, Seculovich complained that the city tax collector had sent property tax bills to Jennie rather than to him, so it may be that he did not take his transfer of the property to her very seriously. After 1903, he reported his occupation as capitalist, perhaps considering himself retired from the real estate business.
According to the 1900 US census, Seculovich owned his home at 3241 Mission Street free of mortgage and shared it with a lodger, a lineman working for a street railway. The open pasturelands he moved into 40 years earlier were now a densely developed working-class neighborhood. A full range of shops and services lined Mission Street, plus rooming houses and storefront eateries, and a bar at every corner. In late 1905, he sold his home to a downtown businessman who rented it out, initially to a butcher and a machinist, then to a tailor with onsite business. Today, Seculovich’s residence and fruit trees have been replaced with a three-story building containing nine apartments and a street-level tax preparation business. With gentrification proceeding apace, the property is worth many millions.
Seculovich moved to 2001 San Bruno road, a property on the southeast corner of the intersection of that road with Cortland Avenue that we have no record of him acquiring or owning. Photographs of the area a few years later show Cortland descending steeply from Bernal Heights to the San Bruno road, a muddy track skirting the heights on a ledge some 10-15 feet above Islais Creek and marsh. A rock quarry cuts deep into the heights amid a variety of rickety structures of uncertain purpose. Across the road, several dilapidated wooden buildings perch on pilings above the marsh with gangways or stairs connecting them to the road. Seculovich apparently lived in one of these. The photos would seem to confirm the judgement of his granddaughter, taken to visit him as a young child, that he lived in a shack. From this location, he had an unobstructed view across Islais Creek and marsh.