By Thomas K. Pendergast

The City will be considering input from the public on a new name for Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park after revelations that its traditional moniker honors a virulent anti-Semite led to a resolution to change it. 

District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar is highlighting a survey by SF Standard on which about a dozen replacement names now proposed should be considered by a special committee, then eventually presented to the SF Recreation and Park Commission to make the final choice or choose something else. 

William W. Stow was elected to the California Assembly in 1854 (although his 1895 obituary states he was elected to the Legislature in 1853) to represent Santa Cruz County and he became the speaker of the Assembly in 1855.

While serving in the Assembly he “made headlines for his anti-Semitism, speaking against Jewish people directly from the Assembly floor,” the resolution states.

Stow attempted, unsuccessfully, to pass a Sunday “closing law” for businesses in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, both of which he represented at the time.

During one of the assembly sessions Stow went on record to openly declare, “I have no sympathy with the Jews, and (I would) enforce a regulation that would eliminate them from not only our county but from the entire state. I am for a Jew tax that is so high that (Jews) would not be able to operate any more shops. They are a class of people here only to make money and who leave the country as soon as they make money.”

The resolution also states that he did in fact propose such a tax, claiming it would “act as a prohibition to their residence amongst us.”

Furthermore, there is evidence that his intolerance was probably not limited to Jewish people.

In the 19th century, an organization called the Know-Nothing Party appeared that was notorious for its xenophobia. Its members were sworn to secrecy. When asked anything by outsiders, they would respond with “I know nothing.”

According to the resolution, the Know-Nothing Party supported the deportation of “foreign beggars” and “criminals”; a 21-year naturalization period for immigrants; mandatory Bible reading in schools; and the elimination of all Catholics from public office.

In 1856, Stow ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor of California on the Know-Nothing Party ticket.

He moved to San Francisco and, in 1889, was appointed to the San Francisco Park Commission. What records remain from that time show he significantly led and fundraised for the development of the lake.

The recent movement to rename the lake was initiated by Stephen J. Miller, who has been lobbying to change the name for a few years. 

“You’re talking about someone, as far as I’m concerned, who had no redeeming qualities to have something named after him in San Francisco,” Miller said. “And so it’s not like somebody that may have said something and then apologized later and was really a changed person. That’s not what we’re talking about. 

“To me it was a slam dunk that should have been corrected years ago,” Miller said.

At first, Miller did not get much support and the idea of changing the name was not getting much traction. 

“I kept going but I was thinking that this may not ever happen,” he said. 

But then because of redistricting, the lake was moved into District 7, represented by Melgar.  

“I heard from Supervisor Melgar that somehow she found out about it and that’s when things turned around,” he said. “That was huge. She became the champion on the Board of Supervisors and so I met with her a couple of times and met with her chief-of-staff. 

“If I had felt this was years ago, that anti-Semitism was a thing of the past and we never needed to worry about it ever, I probably would have let this thing go and said ‘OK, it’s something from the past that will never come back again,’” he said. “But it seemed to me at that time that anti-Semitism was becoming a bigger problem in this country, and that by speaking out against this instance was a way of shining a light on that.”

Here is the list of contenders now vying for the honor: 

• Ho Feng-Shan was a Chinese diplomat and the consul-general in Vienna during World War II who risked his life and career to save Jews by issuing them visas while disobeying the instruction of his superiors. He is reported to have issued the 200th visa in June 1938, signed the 1,906th visa on Oct. 27, 1938, and was recalled to China in May 1940.

It is unknown how many of these visas he eventually issued.  

At the time the only way for Jews to escape from Nazism was to leave Europe. In order to leave, they had to provide proof of emigration, usually a visa from a foreign nation, or a valid boat ticket. Acting against the orders of his superior, Feng-Shan issued transit visas to Shanghai, then under Japanese occupation. 

Although it was not necessary to have a visa to enter Shanghai, the visas allowed the Jews to leave Austria.

Feng-Shan died on Sept. 28, 1997, in San Francisco at the age of 96.

• Mary Ellen Pleasant is known as the Rosa Parks of San Francisco after she was denied a ride on a trolley car in 1867. 

At a recent meeting in Temple Beth Sholom, Franklin Marshall said he wrote a children’s book about Mary Ellen Pleasant. 

“I was so impressed with Mary Pleasant and all of the things that she did,” Franklin said. “One of the things that I was extremely impressed about was she sued San Francisco in 1867 for not letting her ride on the trolley. 

“And Thurgood Marshall got the message and the story of Mary Pleasant and used it for (the) Rosa Parks case.”

Aurion Wiley-Green mentioned that today Pleasant is only honored by a small plaque. 

“It’s cracked and there are trees and it’s pretty bad,” Wiley-Green said. “She was one of the founding members of the Civil Rights movement here in San Francisco. She fought numerous lawsuits helping Black people get their rights established here. 

“When I look around the City, as a young Black woman, I see nothing of myself. So, I think that this is a great opportunity for us to change the narrative of what Black San Francisco is,” Wiley-Green said.

• William Hammond Hall designed Golden Gate Park and was its first superintendent. 

By 1879, about 155,000 trees were planted in the park under his direction. 

In 1876, he was elected a member of the California Academy of Sciences and was also California’s first state engineer. 

• Patrick Quigley was one of the park’s first employees, according to Angus Macfarlane who wrote a letter to the editor of this publication nominating Quigley. 

Quigley was the head of the park’s crews of laborers and teamsters, supervising all the work.  

“It would be a tribute to the workers, all the workers, who put together the Golden Gate Park that we know today, that we come seeking recreation, relaxation and rejuvenation. So we owe Patrick a debt of gratitude and his spirit permeates the park and I hope his name can be associated with part of the park,” Macfarlane said. 

• Joan Edelstein Davenny was among five people killed by a suicide bus-bombing in Jerusalem on Aug. 21, 1995, at the age of 47.

She was a third-generation San Franciscan who attended George Washington High School.

Her grandparents, George and Pauline Edelstein, founded Temple Beth Sholom in San Francisco.          

• Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco in 1873 to Chinese immigrants, traveled to China in 1894 but when he returned a year later was denied reentry because of the Chinese Exclusion Act. 

His case went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that Wong was, in fact, a natural born citizen of the United States as he was physically born on U.S. soil regardless of his parents’ origins. 

United States vs. Wong Kim Ark provided, and remains today, the definitive interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s birthright provision.

• Other contenders for the honor include Ramaytush Ohlone Lake, who were the indigenous people that inhabited San Francisco when the Spaniards arrived; Mikveh Lake, a Jewish word for “bath” that refers to immersion rituals once held at the lake; Blue Heron or Heron Lake, referring to the birds that nest there every year; Turtle Lake, for reasons obvious to those who have been there; and Strawberry Lake, because that is the name of the island in the lake. 

One argument for naming the lake after an animal and not a person is that in the future something might come out about any given candidate that might require yet another renaming. 

As one of Melgar’s aides recently quipped, “turtles are above reproach.” 

The results of the online survey will be presented to the Recreation and Park Commission for their consideration on January 18 at 10 a.m. in San Francisco City Hall, Room 416. It may choose any of the names recommended or another name of their choosing. 

Members of the public can email their input to the Recreation and Park Commission: recpark.commission@sfgov.org.