Stamp That Tax

From British Colonial days to America’s Civil War, governments foreign and domestic used stamps to levy taxes.

Marin’s Past is Always Present

Marin’s pioneer Sais family left their names behind in Fairfax and San Anselmo streets.

The Greening of Marin

In the 1800s, the Irish flocked to the United States to earn a living and worship in peace. As new citizens, they contributed much to America and Northern California.

Marin Magazine Features the Black Family

Marin Magazine article features Marriage, Murder, and Betrayal in Nineteenth-Century California.

This Land is MY Land.

Diseños were hand-drawn maps confirming ownership of Mexican land grants in the mid-1800s. Farming and cattle empires grew and shrank as Marin pioneers bought, sold, and traded diseño patented land.

Cross-cut Trees

An accidental discovery helps map northern California’s portion of El Camino Real, the Royal Road linking California’s missions.

Sea Otters: Dying to be Worn

Sea otters have the misfortune to be born with plush pelts boasting up to one million hairs per square inch. Hunters prized their skins as “blacker, thicker, and glossier” than their cousins: the beaver and land otter.  When fashion dictated the Manchu nobles of the Chinese Qing dynasty (1644-1912) dress in sea otter skins, the animals’ demise was

Chloroform – Fit for a Queen

Although Queen Victoria and Prince Albert considered anesthesia for the birth of their seventh child, Arthur, they waited for Leopold’s birth in 1853 to ask Doctor John Snow to ease Victoria’s labor delivery with chloroform. The good doctor used a reclining “open-drop” chloroform application for the queen’s treatment rather than the steampunk inhaler he had

Don Timoteo’s Adobe

Adobe, Spanish for “mud brick,” refers to both the air-dried bricks of earth, water, and straw or dung as well as the buildings constructed from those bricks. For centuries, adobes have served as building materials, especially in arid locations. In 1830s Marin County, California, Timothy Murphy built a two-story adobe home, headquarters for his frequent