Chase home, 4th Avenue, & E. 10th St., built ca. 1862, photo ca. 1930's"; sign on left is a "For Sale" sign Bibliography: The Beginnings of Oakland, California A.U.C. , by Peter Thomas Conmy; Oakland Public Library-1961. Moses Chase was born in 1807 in Newberryport, Massachusetts. He became a sailor and it is reported that he was captain of a vessel before he was thirty. He was a manufacturer later. He had married on February 17, 1840 and his son was born on April 17, 1841, but his wife died less than a month later, on May 11th. These were hard years for Moses. The depression of 1847-48 fell upon him heavily. When news of the gold discovery was received he determined to come West, amass a fortune and return home and marry a Mary Ellen Clinton, to whom he was engaged. He sailed from Boston on January 15, 1849 on THE CAPITOL After a voyage of one hundred seventy six days (they sailed around the Horn) he arrived in San Francisco. He tried the gold fields briefly but drifted to the estuary of San Antonio where he was found, ill and alone, by the Patten brothers. In partnership with them he leased properties from the Peraltas. In a few years he went back to claim his bride, only to find she had passed on. He returned here and gave the square block which contains Clinton Park in her honor. The name Clinton is preserved also as that of a street, and at one time was the name of the little village on the eastern side of Lake Merritt. Moses Chase built his home at 404 East Eighth Street. This is thought to have been the first house in Oakland. He died there on February 17, 1891, aged eighty-four.