511 Hazel Brake

Lots 28, 29, 36, and 37

“The Wilson House”

Built in 1905 or 1910

Currently owned by Josh Gutierrez and Sarah Jones

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In 1905, lots 28 and 29 are purchased by Edgar Bishop

Lots 28 and 29 were purchased in 1905 by a wealthy real estate developer named Edgar Bishop. Mr. Bishop had owned land in the San Lorenzo Valley since the late 1800’s and subdivided land near downtown Ben Lomond near where Casa Nostra restaurant is now. He was one of the big backers in turning the San Lorenzo Valley into a resort. He owned lots in many of the new subdivisions. There is no indication that he built the cabin during the period of time he owned it as our history say it was built by the Thomas family.

In 1910, the Wilson family buys lots 28 and 29 and builds their cabin on them.

The Wilson Tragedy

In October of 1910, the lots were sold to Reverend Thomas Wilson and his wife Ellen and they built their cabin upon them. Thomas was a prominent member of the First Pentecostal Nazarene Church of Berkeley and owned a brick laying company. Thomas and Ellen were married in 1897 and had a 20 year old adopted son named George.

The Wilsons had a turbulent marriage and they were divorced in 1916. In the divorce proceedings Thomas gave her almost everything he owned – a sum of nearly $20,000. He retained his Bracken Brae cabin but Ellen was awarded the furniture. In exchange for leaving the furniture, she got to use the cabin a couple of months per year.

In the summer of 1918, Mr. Charles Doss, owner and builder of 611 Hazel Brake and trustee of Bracken Brae, wrote Thomas several times insisting that he come to Bracken Brae at once as Ellen was damaging the cabin and becoming a nuisance. In mid-July Mr Doss accompanied Thomas on the train from Oakland to Boulder Creek to evict Ellen from the cabin.

When they arrived at Bracken Brae, Mr. Doss (611 Hazel Brake) stayed in the street while Thomas confronted Ellen. When she refused to leave he entered the cabin, picked up a chair and threw it at her, then began viciously beating her. He pulled a pistol from his pocket and shot her twice.

Thomas called for Mr. Doss and they each took one of Ellen’s arms as she could not stand and was weak from loss of blood. They forced her to walk two miles to town to the Boulder Creek Hotel (near the current site of Johnnies). She stayed in a room for two days before she boarded a train back to Oakland and went to the East Bay Sanitarium (hospital) where she now lay dying.

The police are called and at first Ellen refuses to say how she came to be shot. Finally she declares that her ex-husband had shot her. The police rush to Thomas’ church where he is directing choir practice and, bursting through the door, arrest him mid-hymn. Paraded in silver cuffs he is hauled off to the city jail.

At least that is what Ellen and the newspapers say. When Sheriff Trafton of Santa Cruz County starts investigating he gets a contradictory story from witnesses. Ellen’s story starts falling apart. The night she allegedly was shot she stayed at Mrs. John McDonald’s house nearby. Mrs. McDonald said she saw Ellen undress and change into her night clothes and she did not have a bullet wound at the time, nor bruises from a beating, nor was there any blood.

In addition, witnesses said that Ellen had stated that when Thomas told her to leave the cottage that she pulled out a pistol and fired three shots off the porch. Constable Tom Ladd who was first on scene and lived off Park avenue searched the cabin and found a .22 pistol under the bed with a recently discharged round. Thomas insists that Ellen had threatened to shoot herself, which the neighbors corroborated.

Sheriff Trafton determined that there was no evidence that Ellen was shot in Boulder Creek at all and that it must have happened sometime after they left Boulder Creek. New witnesses in Oakland, a mother and daughter, say that Thomas is innocent and it is all just a big misunderstanding and ‘mysterious developments’ will soon exonerate him. However, the daughter confides to the sheriff that her mother is actually engaged to Thomas and that she was with Thomas at Bracken Brae during the alleged incident. Her mother denies the allegations.

After that, all mentions of the shooting in the newspapers stop. However, just a few months later a real estate transaction in the newspapers indicate that Thomas gifted the house at 511 Hazel Brake to his new wife who only months earlier denied that she was in any way romantically involved with him. The mystery of where and by whom Ellen is shot is never revealed.

In October 1918, the cabin is gifted to Thomas Wilson’s new wife Anne Elizabeth Wilson (McMurtry)

In July of 1922, the house is sold to the Reverend Leroy Fulmer family

In 1922 the daughter of Thomas’s new wife, Mrs. Alton McMurtry, sells the cabin to Reverend Leroy Fulmer and Family.

In 1945 the Fulmer family sells the cabin to Reverend N. F. Sanderson

Sanderson sells to J. H. Davidson

Davidson dies and house is sold to George Pilger

In 1962, the house is sold to the Smeaton Family

Marion Smeaton wrote the History of Bracken Brae. The last date she wrote anything was 1967. Someone else took over for a few years after. I am assuming it was pieced together using meeting minutes. All the original Bracken Brae records were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.