The blog history begins>....

ASSIGNMENT # 1 PART A


Hello there..

I am Craig Walters and i have been living in Danville , Ca for now 12
years almost. I want to first tell you something about myself and
then go on to the history of Danville in the next few blogs.


My family name comes from Scottish heritage and we were living in
the highlands of Scotland near Aberdeen, in the far northern corner
of Scotland. Our clan were associated with the now famous Forbes
clan.(Forbes magazine) It was not until the 18th century that we left
Scotland under dire situation when the Jacobite wars came, which
numbered three during that century but we had gotten involved
with the last Jacobite war. We went against the King of England,
finding us either thrown out of Scotland and going to the new world,
thrown in jail or executed for crimes against the King. My immediate
family decided to leave the old homeland and go to the south of the
new world, Georgia to be exact. There we started our new castle or
plantation home, after the one in Scotland had been burnt down by
loyalists to the King. The new plantation was located in Americus,
Georgia and was named Liberty Hall. It had became known as an
important historical place for both the American Revolution and the
Civil War, drawing an reputation of a place of gallantry in both those
wars and aiding the rebels of those wars.



The other side of the family, were Dutch and came over on the ships
in the early 18th century to settle in Pennslyvania and then onto
Kentucky to settle in Woodward county. It was there that a certain
Richard Cole Sr started the Cole Manor Inn which was a inn, tavern
and resting stop for all travelers along the road. It would be later to
be called the bad Cole Manor Inn, because of the constant fighting,
brawls and killings that went on, including one of the Cole sons was
killed in a tavern brawl.


The Cole Manor Inn happened also was the actual birth places of
both my great great grandfather Joseph Robert Cole who everyone
called Jesse and my great great auntie, Zeralda Cole. For those who
dont know who Zeralda Cole is, she married Robert James which
they had 7 children, two being FRANK and JESSE JAMES. Some of
the Coles had left Kentucky and gone on to Missouri(Home of James
farm) or Northern Texas, opening merchantile stores, banks, saddlery's
and yes outlaws! Sherman, Texas is where Richard Aquilla Cole ( my
grandmother's father) met the Dumas family and married a Dumas.
The Dumas family became famous because of Ben Milan who fought
at the Alamo and was killed by a Mexican sniper, James P. Dumas
who owned most of the land from Dallas to Sherman and he also
surveyed most of Texas and his wife, Mae Dae Dumas, the toughest
son of a cow girl ya'll want to meet. Mae Dae got the reputation of
drinking, gambling for the next dress and shooting with the boys
and she was called the Calamity Jane of the South.



Now that you know some of my history of my family, well ya'll need
to know some things about me, ok here it goes. I was born in Oakland,
Ca on March 22, 1961 and moved around alot going to Washington,
Hawaii, Arizonia and then Pasadena, Ca. I then moved up to Northern
California in 1968, my father who had been with Proctor and Gamble,
had a new job with a food company and the offices were in San Francisco.



We moved to Lafayette in the East Bay and I graduated from Acalanes
High School there in Lafayette. To make things short, well i did different
things after graduation, moving about to Walnut Creek, to Concord and
back to Walnut Creek, before buying an house in Danville in 1998. I now
live in a town house near Blackhawk with my two cats, Tabitha and also
Tiggra and go to CSU East Bay. My sister Cameryn and her husband
have their store Foward Motion sports in downtown Danville and still
live in the same darn Lafayette house i grew up in. My parents have
since retired and live in an old Victorian in Healdsburg, tending to a
vineyard they have and a winery, plus all their contributions they
do for the Sonoma community.



I live in Danville and have been in one spot longer than in my recent
history so will be doing an blog on Danville's history and most closely
on the downtown area of Danville. It is revealant that i do this because
i live there in Danville, plus it has alot of the history that goes back to
a century and half or more. Danville is still filled with old buildings and
historical spots to be explored and some are still there even today. I
am going to take ya'll on a map tour of those spots, so you can learn
about the history of Danville and also about the history of the East Bay.
I will hopefully enlighten you to go to my hometown of Danville and
futher explore the old town and even find buildings, facts and history
that i did not even cover in these blogs!



Please enjoy these following historical blogs!