An Oldtimer’s Reflections of Lafayette (Oliver Hamlin)

I was asked by the Lafayette Historical Society to jot down some of my memories of the Hamlin property in Lafayette. My first remembrance of my life in Lafayette started in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s when I was growing up in Piedmont. Those were the days before the Caldecot tunnel was opened. You had to drive out here via the Fish Ranch Road.

Dr. O. D. Hamlin

My grandfather, Dr. O.D. Hamlin, had a cabin in the hills of the Hamlin Ranch, which I would visit occasionally on weekends with my family. It was a wonderful hideaway all by itself up in the hills where we had a great view of the hills and valleys of Lafayette. We also had the freedom of shooting at various targets and birds and doing whatever we wanted without any restrictions. It was a simple one room cabin with a screened-in porch on all sides which included a dining area, a kitchen, a bath and shower plus a sitting area and bar. Inside the cabin there were 6 or 8 beds and a heater with plenty of room for everybody in the family.

In order to get to the cabin, you entered the property off of Moraga Road where Silver Springs area is now and go past a farm house, + 2 barns and other buildings which were part of the ALTA CREST DAIRY run by the Joe Machado family. It was a full operating dairy ranch with perhaps 100 or more milk cows. The whole family including all 8 children worked at the diary and milked those cows 2 times a day by hand.

The history of the Hamlin property goes back a long way to when my great grandfather, OLIVER HAMELIN bought the land in 1871. He was a Frenchman with a very thick accent who came to California in 1849 from a little farming town called LES GRONDINES in Quebec, Canada on the St. Lawrence river.

He came to California as a teenager during the gold rush days of 1849. He caught a ship down the East Coast to Panama. From there he walked across the Isthmus of Panama, about 50 miles, and eventually caught another ship up the West Coast to San Francisco. He also had a fling in the gold country of Grass Valley, CA, and eventually came back to the San Francisco Bay Area and bought some farm land in Albany. This was before he bought the land in Lafayette in 1871.

He bought the 200 acre ranch in Lafayette for $3,000.00 and moved into a nice 5 room house on the property with his wife and a young child, who was my grandfather, Dr. O.D. Hamlin. The old man’s French accent was so thick that his name was mis-spelled on the original deed. The letter “H” is silent in the French language, so the name of Hamelin sounded like “AMLAY” or “ELMER” to the county officials. Actually the original deed was issued in the name of OLIVER EMLER. It was two generations later when my father, O.D. Hamlin, Jr., started to subdivide the property in 1944 that he had to file A DETERMINATION OF IDENTITY to clear the title.

The property extended from the top of the hill now called SKY HY RANCH down to St. Marys Road. The famous Lafayette Horse Shows were held annually on part of the property during the last weekend of August from 1935 to 1943. That area is now known as LAFAYETTE HOMELANDS including the street names of Hamlin Road, Oliver Court and Rowe Place — all named after family members.

1930’s Horse Show on Hamlin Ranch

In the early 1950’s more land was sold to Marchant Construction Co. who developed and built all the homes in the SILVER SPRINGS and upper Old Jonas Hill Road.

Eventually, my father, O.D. Hamlin, Jr. moved out of Piedmont and built a beautiful home in 1940 on the highest part of the property and named it SKY HY RANCH, He later became a Superior Court Judge in Oakland and also a Federal Judge in San Francisco. He lived at SKY HY for many years with the exception of the WWII years. The property was sold in 1973 and became the first “Planned Unit Development” in Lafayette.

Ollie Hamlin III and his wife, Virginia, built their home on part of the property at 750 Old Jonas Hill Road in 1950. Ollie still lives there in the same house today on the last 3 acres remaining of the original Hamlin Ranch. Virginia died in Sept 2000. The property has been in the family for 141 years now, and has been the home of five generations of Hamlins.

My earliest remembrances of Lafayette was that place where I learned to drive a car, learned how to shoot a gun, and learned how to milk a cow. I have now lived in my home for 62 years, and I have seen a world of changes in this wonderful town of ours. I was born in 1920 and have reached the ripe old age of 92 at the date of this writing. I guess that qualifies me to be one of the OLD TIMERS of Lafayette who plans to stay here indefinitely.

-Oliver Hamlin (Ollie Hamlin III)