author
Zoeth Skinner Eldredge
1846–1915
A California history enthusiast with a day job in banking, he turned his attention to San Francisco’s early years and left behind detailed books on the city and region. His work helped preserve stories of Gold Rush-era California for later readers.
1 Audiobook
The March of Portola and the Discovery of the Bay of San Francisco
by Zoeth Skinner Eldredge, E. J. (Eusebius Joseph) Molera
About the author
Born in Buffalo, New York, Zoeth Skinner Eldredge (1846–1915) became an American banker who was also known as an amateur historian of California. He is remembered less for public fame than for the historical curiosity that led him to write about San Francisco and the wider story of California.
Eldredge appears to have published several works focused on local and regional history, including books on the beginnings of San Francisco and a multi-volume history of California. That combination of careful collecting and enthusiastic storytelling gave readers in the early twentieth century a way to revisit the people and events that shaped the state.
For audiobook listeners, his appeal lies in that sense of closeness to the past: his books reflect a writer deeply interested in how California grew, who its early figures were, and how memory becomes history.