Biography
Shattuck was born in Crown Point, Essex County in northern New York state. His mother was Betsy Mather, a descendant of Increase Mather who was the president of Harvard from 1685 to 1701. His father Weston Shattuck, a native of Massachusetts, was a farmer who died when Francis was 12. Francis earned a teaching certificate by age 18 and was a schoolteacher for four years. He then moved to a small town in Vermont and worked as a store clerk, until he heard of the discovery of gold in California. He and a friend, George Blake, by then also his brother-in-law, took off for California.
In 1852, Shattuck, Blake and two partners they met in the gold fields, William Hillegass and James Leonard, laid claim to four adjoining 160-acre (0.65 km2) strips of land in the area which became the central part of Berkeley. (See Kellersberger's Map)
Shattuck was instrumental in getting the Central Pacific Railroad to construct a branch line into Berkeley in 1876 connecting the community and University of California with the main line and the railroad's ferry to San Francisco.
Shattuck died after being knocked down by a man exiting from a train that Shattuck was attempting to board on Shattuck Avenue. He was buried with his wife, sisters, and George Blake at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.
Read more about this topic: Francis K. Shattuck
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