Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1958-02-01 / 2. szám
FRATERNITY 13 ing a new “domain”. With other men, including his eldest son Geza, he obtained a large plantation near Corinto and a limited monopoly from the Nicaraguan Government for the distillation of spirits for export. He built a large distillery, cleared additional land for sugar cane, erected a sawmill for cutting hardwoods. Yellow fever took his wife from him in July, 1868. In the following winter he returned to San Francisco for machinery. On January 22, 1869, he sailed from San Francisco for the last time. His father, the old “General”, insisted upon going along to Nicaragua, though he was 79. The “General’s” wife and Colonel Haraszthy’s younger daughter Otelia went also. The Colonel’s father left the plantation in July. Aboard ship, en route back to San Francisco, he died. On July 6, 1869, Ágoston Haraszthy himself disappeared. There was an alligator-infested stream on his property. He had wanted to locate a site for another sawmill on the other side. It is believed that he tried to cross on the limb of an overhanging tree, and that the limb broke and dropped him to where cruel jaws waited. Few men have packed more action into 57 years than did Haraszthy. But though his restless energy carried him into many fields, he is best remembered for his contributions to California wine-growing. Three sons — Attila, Arpad and Bela — continued to carry on in California the vinicultural standards he established; but his reputation would have been secure in any event. As time passes, the State’s wine men become more conscious of the debts they owe to Colonel Haraszthy. In 1946 the State Chamber of Commerce and Sonoma wine growers dedicated a plaque in Sonoma’s plaza to recall Haraszthy’s aid to winegrowing. Frank H. Bartholomew, vice-president of the United Press, and owner of 435 acres of the former Buena Vista estate, has revived the Buena Vista Vinicultural Socieyt, whose incorporation papers were allowed to lapse after the earthquake of 1906. He is paying further honor to Haraszthy by endeavoring to restore the hillside tunnels and two stone winery buildings left from the Colonel’s days. Bartholomew acquired his acreage in 1943 and found on it an acre of ancient vines, mostly Zinfandels. The grapes from this acre he had crushed into wine that fall, and he has since planted about 34 acres of wine varieties which Haraszthy would have approved. He hopes before long to be producing wines in one of the original stone buildings, and to market them under the label names that Buena Vista used. Almost 100 years have passed since Haraszthy came to California. In his two decades in the State he helped to increase wine production about fifty-fold, from a reported 58,055 gallons in 1850 to around 3,000,000 gallons. Since then there has been more than a fifty-fold increase of this larger figure, to 177,000,000 gallons, gross, of table and dessert wines, in the year 1946-47 — and the wine is better than before. Haraszthy, if alive today, would be overjoyed to see this, but he would not be content to stop there. He never let reality catch up with his dreams. (The End)
