Fraternity-Testvériség, 1962 (40. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1962-12-01 / 12. szám
4 FRATERNITY Welsh writer IDWAL JONES was hailed by book critics as the genius of California historians. In connection with a 250-page volume, published by William Morrow & Co., New York, he visited every wine-growing district in the State and has this to say about ÁGOSTON HARASZTHY “One of the Greatest of American Pioneers” (Reprinted from "Vines in the Sun") Hungary’s Ágoston Haraszthy did more than any man for the California earth he loved. He had advanced viticulture in the State and he was a prophet in his day. And he had planted the Zinfandel — an offshoot of the KADARKA perhaps — that accidental felicity. This, Haraszthy’s lasting monument, an ever-recurring miracle of twig, leaf and dark-purple cluster, blooms every summer on a hundred square miles in many a quaint California valley. In 1849 an Argonaut rode his horse from Wisconsin to Santa Fé as the avant-garde of a company of emigrants. Even in the garb of a plainsman he would have arrested the eye. He had curling black locks, a lustrous beard, an alert face and the glance of a hawk. Many extraordinary men were to play roles in that phenomenon known as the Gold Rush, but none was more singular than Ágoston Haraszthy, who was to be the father of modern California grape, wine and raisin industry. Abroad there had been portentous events. Europe was in a state of upheaval, the old order was shattered. In Hungary freedom had been declared by Kossuth . . . This outrider, with his sash, his rifle and powder-horn cheroot, who had been impoverished for his siding with Kossuth, fled with his parents, wife and children to the United States. All the freedom that Europe could promise was not enough for Haraszthy. He had turned his back on the Old World — and on the America that was settled — and was riding out to California. This Hungarian, who somewhere on the rough journey dropped the title of count for the more democratic title of colonel, could breathe only in the air of hazard. Yet, behind him he left much that still solidly endures. His talent was for promotion — his genius was for farming and the making of wine. A dashing chevalier, Haraszthy took his father, urbane Count de Mokcsa, the Sauk City apothecary, along. Charles Reiner, an emigrant in buckskin, traveled with him. In San Diego, which then numbered less than 700 souls, Haraszthy became first a councilman. In a brief while he advanced to presiding judge at courts martial, then assemblyman. In the Senate he advanced the notion that California should be cut in two, since the southern vineyardists were paying high taxes to benefit the mining north. But once he moved north, he stayed there. On 211 acres near Mission Dolores, today in the center of San Francisco, he established Las Flores, his new vineyard.
