Fraternity-Testvériség, 2000 (78. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)

2000-10-01 / 4. szám

FRATERNITY

Page 9

In 1861 he was sent to Europe to study at the best vine-growing land. He sent 100,000 vine-shoots of 300 species to California. He planted a portion of them partly on his own farm, partly he portioned them out and thereby founding the well known Californian viniculture flourishing to this day. As the leading agricultural expert of the state, he became the chairman of the California state agricultural association in 1862. In the same year he published a valuable book on the subject closest to his heart: “A Report on Grapes and Wines of California. Transactions. California State Agricultural Society for 1858. Sacramento, 1859; Grape Culture, Wines and Wine-making. With notes upon Agriculture and Horticulture”. New York, 1862. This became the best-known trade book for a decade. His wines won first prizes, he was path-breaker in producing cognac, champagne and raisin.

By the late 1860s, Haraszthy expanded into banking, and still later, into the making of gold mints. It was during this period that the explorer John Xantus - the same Xantus that also visited New Buda - came and wrote about Haraszthy. The corporation making mints went broke shortly after this visit. Again travel fever caught up with him. This time he traveled to Nicaragua to engage in the production of sugarcane. It was while on a survey of his cane fields that he disappeared and was never seen again. His clothes and his pistol were found on the shores of an alligator-infested river. It was said that he was eaten alive by alligators, although suicide is also possible. Haraszthy’s fortunes grew with the great economic potentials of Jacksonian democracy and his contributions both in the economic area and to this democracy’s spirit are permanent parts of the American- Hungarian heritage.

The viniculture and the wine cellars founded by Haraszthy were ruined by the vine-pest and the earthquake in San Francisco. However, his famous wine was revived. Its new owner replanted it, restored it, and now his is the oldest founded and at the same time the most modern viniculture.

Of the children of Haraszthy the best-known careers are those of his second-bom son Attila and his daughter Ida. Attila worked with his father and his brothers (Árpád, Géza, Béla) for some time and put much effort in founding California’s viniculture. Attila played a significant part in the history of California. He married into the most distinguished family. He wed Katalin, the daughter of General M. Gundelupa Mairano Vallejo, the governor of Mexico.

Haraszthy’s daughter Ida was born in 1843 in the USA. She married Henry Hancock, the son of an aristocratic New- England family that séttled in California. Hancock was an engineer, a lawyer and a journalist. The couple played a large role in industrialization, helping Los Angeles to become a metropolis in an unparalleled space of time. Ida Haraszthy became a widow early, but her career was successful. In appreciation of her activities, the Saturday Night Publishing Company published a very well received book on her at the beginning of the 1940s.

Her son, Allan Hancock, a multimillionaire, held financial interests in various branches of the economy, i.e., in the railway and airplane industries, and the mightiest banks. The oil industry of the state also has its the foundation in the Hancock family, and is tied to Ida Haraszthy’s name. The progenies of Haraszthy were also highly esteemed citizens of California in the 1940s.

On the occasion of the commemoration of the centenary of California, the town of Sonoma remembered with great reverence Ágoston Haraszthy, who had established viniculture between 1856 and 1958. His memory is also preserved in the high relief, made by the Los Angeles sculptor Sándor Finta, found on the wall of an old brick-house of Haraszthy’s, now newly restored.

The pioneer books of Bölöni Farkas and the elder Haraszthy did for Hungarians what the classic volume of Alexis de Tocqueville “De la De'mocratie en Amerique ” did for the world at large. They revealed the United States to the Hungarian readers.

Sources:

A Californiai Magyarság 25 jub-száma 1946 (25th Jubilee issue of Californiai Magyarság. )

Sztáray Zoltán: Haraszthy Ágoston, a kaliforniai szolokultúra atyja. (The Father of Viniculture of California) San Bemadino, Calif. 1964.

Vasvári Gyűjtemény (Vasvári Collection) Haraszthy Ágoston Cas2/b-61 Hl/d:2-98 Hl/c:2-60 H6/a:20 KÉZ 1:77-78 M2/a:14 M3/:ll Rl/c-34-35 U4-48 in Somogyi Könyvtár, Szeged.

Schoenman, Theodore (editor.) Father of California Wine: A.H. Santa Barbara, 1979.

MAGYAROK A TERMÉSZETTUDOMÁNY ÉS TECHNIKA TÖRTÉNETÉBEN. Életrajzi lexikon A-tól Z-ig. Foszerk. Nagy Ferenc. BME-MMÉV-MTA- MTESZ-MVSZ. Országos Műszaki Információs Központ és Könyvtár. Budapest, 1992. (Hungarian Men and Women in the History of Natural Science and Technology. Biographical encyclopedia from A to Z. Ed: Ferenc Nagy Országos Műszaki Információs Központ és Könyvtár. Budapest, 1992.)

Article compiled by Dr. Julianna Puskas, Historian