Fraternity-Testvériség, 1962 (40. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1962-12-01 / 12. szám
FRATERNITY 5 Exhilarated by all the spectacular tumult in San Francisco, the explosive Colonel worked at a tremendous pace. With one of his sons, Attila, he planted trees and shrubs from the Atlantic coast, and more vines from Hungary and other countries in Europe. One bale bore an inscription so faded that Haraszthy could read it only as “Zinfandel”, a name unfamiliar to him. The date of arrival was February, 1852. The date is of importance, for it unfolded the future of wine-growing and raisin culture in California. Árpád, another son of the Colonel, said his father had known it in Hungary, but in no vine list of the time was Zinfandel, this productive mystery grape, recorded. The plague of that virulent fungus, Oidium, was raging at the time with terrific violence all over Europe. Haraszthy dreamed of his destiny. In California would be trodden out the grapes to solace the rest of the globe, and he would make the wine at the vineyards of his own . . . Now to get capital! The Bank Exchange was in the Montgomery block, and upstairs were the workrooms of Hungarian metal chemists, who refined gold that the banks bought from the miners and the express companies that dealt with the yellow stuff. Haraszthy talked with his compatriots, and in a month he began refining gold for Adams & Company. President Franklin Pierce appointed him assayer of the new Mint in the summer of 1854. By then the Colonel knew metallurgy. He was a partner in two metal works, one the Eureka Refinery, which had a Federal license to stamp out and issue gold and silver coins to depositors of ore. In 1855 Haraszthy was advanced to the post of Melter and Refiner at the U. S. Mint. With an excellent salary and bonuses received for hard work, his capital was growing. His San Francisco and Crystal Springs farms were not unthrifty, though the sea air and the cool fogs from the marshes retarded the ripening of his grapes. Hot sunshine and drier air, that is what his grapes required! These he would find at Sonoma, where he had already bought acreage, not far from the estate of his great friend, General Mariano Vallejo, the last Mexican military governor of Alta California. Meanwhile his three sons, Attila, Árpád and Géza, were strong and able helpers, were learning in the field, at the vats and in his wine library, which was without match in the State . . . But one calamity followed another, with bank failures, a slump in mining after a dry spell with a consequent shortage of water for the placers and the mills. It was a year of devastating fires also, of fiscal extravagance and over-trading, and the State’s credit was at its lowest ebb. Suddenly, Haraszthy found himself involved in trouble. All through his administration the Mint had been refining great amounts of gold, the furnaces going night and day, under forced draft. The machinery was not adequate; there was loss in processing. The Colonel toiled for months with his bookkeepers, gave up trying to strike a balance, and so in April, 1857, he resigned his post and asked for an inquiry into his accounts. His enemies made most of their advantage. He was denounced with passion, and with equal passion he was defended. The workmen at the Mint were all his partisans; they gave him a banquet in witness of their
