San Rafael History: Community Leaders Championed Chinese Mission

China Camp comes first to mind when we think of the Chinese in Marin County’s past. Remains of the once-active shrimp fishing community are now on display at .

Yet Chinese workers also built the county's infrastructure and tended to its wealthy inhabitants. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chinese could be found throughout the county as farm workers, railroad laborers, and gardeners, cooks and other domestic servants on the area’s lavish estates. Robert Trumbull, Jr.  notes in his oral history that his Novato ranch employed seven or eight Chinese cooks for the ranch hands.

Jung Gang

Many Chinese worked for the area’s wealthy estate owners. One of these immigrants was Jung Gang, head gardener for 18 years at Fairhills, the 180-acre estate of railroad and banking tycoon Arthur William Foster. 

Jung Gang was also a silent partner in the Fat Chong Company, a business that made and sold ladies and children’s clothing. This partnership enabled him to travel back and forth to China, as merchants, along with teachers, missionaries and students, were exempt from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Anti-Chinese Sentiment

Rampant discrimination against Chinese in the late 1800s led to this strict immigration policy aimed on keeping Chinese out of the country. San Rafael was not immune from anti-Chinese sentiment. According to The Marin Journal, in 1878 Denis Kearney, a politician known for his racism, spoke in San Rafael and an “anti-Coolie Club of San Rafael” was organized with 140 members, which advocated a boycott against patronizing Chinese or anyone employing them.

The Exclusion Act and the Anti-Chinese Leagues did not stop Arthur William Foster, President of the San Francisco and North Pacific Coast Railroad Company. In 1903 he brought to America his cook Jung Gang’s son, 17-year-old Soo Chong, ostensibly as  a student at the Mt. Tamalpais Military Academy. Young Soo Chong didn’t actually become a student, but he did help out the Academy’s chef, Fon Ton Jue, in the kitchen and dining room. 

Fon Ton Jue

Fon Ton Jue immigrated from China in 1881.  His first job required him to stay in a cabin at West Point and  “supervise the deer herds” for Mr. William Kent. He also worked for the Gerstle family before he became chef and head of the commissary for the Mt. Tamalpais Military Academy. 

Fon Ton Jue remained in that capacity for 41 years. His six children were born on the Academy premises.  According to a biography written by Mr. Jue’s son Arthur, Mr. Jue influenced Reverend Arthur Crosby, the Academy founder, to allow immigrant Chinese youths to work and study at the Academy. One of those boys was Soo Chong.

Soo Chong

Soo Chong eventually took over from his father the Fat Chong Company, located at 905 B St. He married a young immigrant woman named Pearl with whom he had four children: Harry, Arthur, Frances and Edmond.

Soo Chong’s descendents have recorded their family’s history and the family’s life in early San Rafael with photographs and documents. Soo Chong’s son, Dr. Harry Chong, who was born July 30, 1912 at Cottage Hospital, recalls, “At first, we lived in the back of the store on B Street. I cannot remember living there, however. My parents were on very good terms with the Italian community…My mother (Pearl Chong) came to the store to supplement Josephine, the daughter of (Fon) Ton Jue; she was the lady clerk. The two (clerks) fitted many Italian ladies with corsets and other garments.” 

Fong Ton Jue’s history is also documented through the writings of his son, Arthur. Both the Chong and the Jue families are justly proud of their ancestors’ roles in San Rafael’s past, particularly as active members of the First Presbyterian Church and supporters of the Chinese Mission.

First Presbyterian Church

San Rafael’s , founded in 1869, had reached out to the Chinese community in missionary work since the 1870s. Reverend James McDonald noted the opening of a mission school in 1876 “in the rear of a new mission house on C Street near Fourth.”

Chinese members of First Presbyterian’s congregation were mainly cooks and domestic workers who worked for Marin’s wealthy estate owners. According to Arthur Jue, “The congregation of Chinese were family cooks from prominent families of Marin. Once a year a party was given and all the Chinese would invite their boss to the party. It was the greatest party ever seen and the food was upper superb. All the cooks took a pride in presenting their favors of cakes and other goodies.”

The Chinese Mission

The  mission provided Chinese immigrants with a gathering place and lessons in English and religion. The 1890 Report of the Boards of the Presbyterian Church in the USA General Assembly summarizes activity at the San Rafael Chinese Mission:

“The Sabbath school and the prayer-meetings have been encouraging. Arthur Crosby (a minister and founder of the Tamalpais Military Academy) and Elder Charles H. Fish have done much by their teaching and kind words. The scholars meet a part of the expense of the school. Contributions for all purposes were $ 191.”

Purchase of Mission Building

The year 1893 saw the founding of a Chinese Young Men’s Christian Association composed of First Presbyterian Church members.

In 1902 church elder Charles H. Fish and Reverend Nan D. Soo, with several supporters, including Fon Ton Jue, Nettie Shaver and Mrs. Harriot B. Shaver, raised $1,988 to purchase a building to house the mission at 926 C Street.

According to church notes, “At that time in San Rafael there were many Chinese young men. They had no wholesome place to gather and consequently no effective uplift work was done.”

The mission made rooms available for those in need. At first, a minister from San Francisco visited the mission bi-weekly. Eventually Reverend Soo Hoo Nam Art, the third Chinese to become a minister in the U.S., took responsibility for the mission.

1906 Earthquake and Fire

During the summer after the 1906 Great Fire and Earthquake, the mission provided housing for Donaldina Cameron and her ‘mission family’ of 60 young girls and women whom she had rescued from forced prostitution in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The group first found shelter at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, then moved to the San Rafael Mission on C Street.

According to the 1907 Report of the Boards, “Three more young girls were rescued the week before (the 1906 Earthquake), one a little child four years old whom Miss Cameron found in a disreputable house.”

The report describes the post-earthquake conditions, “San Rafael opened wide its doors and proved a peaceful haven during a very turbulent summer…Rooms were scarce as the house was small, but the grounds were large and tents and outbuildings were filled with refugees. The rose arbor was pressed into service for the Occidental School. The Home School had a spacious tent for shelter from the burning rays of the sun.”

In the fall, Donaldina Cameron moved her group to Oakland and finally returned to San Francisco in March, 1908.

Bronze Bells

Both Soo Chong  and Fon Ton Jue were long-time trustees of the mission. First Presbyterian Church’s ten bronze bells, originally donated to the church by steamship and lumber magnate Captain Robert Dollar and his wife, were reinstalled when the church was renovated. The largest of these bronze bells was dedicated as a memorial “in honor of the San Rafael Chinese Mission by Mr. and Mrs. Soo Chong and Mr. Ton Jue, Trustees.”

It’s not clear when the Chinese Mission was closed. Some records state that the Mission building was sold in 1928, although newspaper records mention the Chinese Mission in 1939.

Chinatown

C Street remained the center of San Rafael’s Chinatown throughout the 1930s.  According to Arthur Jue, “hundreds of Chinese resided in a small area of C Street between Third and Fourth Streets.”

Along with several dry goods establishments and laundries, C Street was also site of gambling dens. The Marin News Digest of Jan. 26, 1933, described a raid on “the one really black spot of Marin – the widely advertised Chinese gambling house at 912 C Street, San Rafael, known as the 'Red Star.'"

Counteracting these bad acts of a few were Soo Chong, Fon Ton Jue, and the many Chinese who led exemplary lives of good will and service. Their descendents include physicians, teachers, engineers and other professionals whose contributions can be traced to their immigrant ancestors who braved hardship and discrimination to grow roots in a new world.

One of these photographs was provided by the . If you are interested in purchasing this photograph or others from their collection, please call 415-382.0770x3 or email photoservices@marinhistory.org."