Name/Title
Nilda Rego story on Fernandez romances (Kevin Shea)Description
A sailor since age 13, Portuguese immigrant Bernardo Fernandez arrived in 1854. Bernardo left Lisbon, Portugal, in 1840 on a sea-going freighter. In 1854 he landed in Pinole and joined Manuel Sueyras in shipping and trade. Bernardo soon became the area’s primary merchant and trader. He partnered with Capt. Francis E. Cruz in his bay shipping business before becoming sole owner. By 1859, he had three schooners, and had built wharves, warehouses, a store and a house. His embarcadero was called Pinole Landing. That same year, he married Carlotta Cuadra at St. Mary’s Church in San Francisco.
Charlotte (Carlotta) Cuadra Fernandez married Bernardo Fernandez in 1859 in the old St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco. They had three daughters: Maria Antonia (Mary), Anita, and Emelia; and three sons: Bernardo, Manuel, and Thomas. The first and second homes they built were destroyed by fire and flood, respectively. Their third home of 22 rooms, built in 1894, still stands at the foot of Tennent Avenue and the waterfront. It is the home of the Dr. Joseph Mariotti family, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
By 1877, Fernandez had acquired most of the valley lands and ranches. He would supervise his holdings from his black buggy. He was remembered as a kind man who would give a child a dime and an orange for opening a gate, but also as a strict businessman who wanted a penny owed to him.
Dr. Manuel Lawrence Fernandez was born in 1876 to Bernardo and Carlotta Fernandez, he graduated from the University of California with a medical degree in 1900. He was a physician in San Francisco until the 1906 earthquake, at which time he returned to Pinole, where he practiced for the rest of his life. He was the physician for Hercules Powder Company from 1906 until his death in 1954. His office was upstairs in the old Downer brick building on San Pablo Avenue. In 1894, as a young man, he teamed up with Edward M. Downer Sr. to start The Pinole Weekly Times newspaper.
Dr. Fernandez was the city’s only doctor for many years. After a 1908 train wreck at what is now Pinole Shores Drive, Dr. Fernandez took a handcart from the Southern Pacific station and pumped himself down the tracks to give medical assistance to the injured on the train. He married Bernice Burch, a pharmacist’s daughter, in 1917. They had three children, Bernardo, Carroll, and Charlotte.Copyright
Copyright Holder
Pinole Historical Society