Who would have thought a program of songs from a village in Cornwall, England, performed in Almaden Valley, would offer a Los Gatos angle?

Where there's a will, there's a way to make a story 'local'

By John S. Baggerly

'Look for a local angle," editors remind reporters headed into the field. There seemed to be little chance of finding anything pertaining to Los Gatos as four locals motored eastward on Blossom Hill Road to Almaden Hills United Methodist Church to hear the Mousehole Male Voice Choir sing on Oct. 30.

Gene Dubois, known as the Bird Man of Los Gatos, offered the Baggerlys a lift. I rode shotgun, and his wife, Pat, who walks dogs for confined neighbors and reads books recorded for the blind, and Barbara, my better half (also a better speller with a better memory, and, before the evening was over, a "better reader") were in the back seat.

Once inside the church, the wife of one of the tenors sat on my right. The thrill of her travels with the choir, she said, was seeing the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco. Her reaction seemed natural to those who recall the excitement of the Lewis and Clark exploration team when it burst upon the Pacific Ocean after months of hard traveling.

When the Mousehole Choir filed to their seats in the pulpit-choir area, the organist played a welcoming America. The choir comes from the fishing village of Mousehole (pronounced "Mouzel"), which is situated in a cove on the south coast of Cornwall, England.

On the left chest of their jackets, the singers wore a flag similar to the one seen in the artwork above. Singing ranged from solo to group, and the songs were a delightful mix.

According to the newsletter put out by Quicksilver County Park, the Cornish were major players in the quicksilver mines. In the 1870s, the work force at New Almaden consisted of 115 Mexicans and other Latin Americans, 90 American-born (some no doubt of Cornish descent) and 172 from Great Britain of whom the majority was Cornish.

It is believed that the village of Mousehole gets its name from a nearby sea cave. One of the village's claims to fame is that Dolly Pentreath, a fishwife who died in 1777, was supposed to have been the last native speaker of Cornish. A local culinary favorite features a stargazey fish pie with the heads looking skyward through the crust, according to the newsletter.

Although Cornishmen made up a large part of the workforce at New Almaden, the Mousehole Male Voice Choir has been in California as part of the Gold Rush celebration and the choir's 90th anniversary. The 50-man choir is one of the best known vocal groups in the United Kingdom.

During the concert, while I was still wondering how to give this column the required local angle, Barbara pointed to this paragraph in the newsletter:

"Arthur Berryman, for example, had arrived in Pennsylvania from Cornwall in 1854 to work as a coal miner. From 1855 to 1857 he was digging for gold in California, and from here he journeyed to Chile, Bolivia and back to California, toiling for 12 years in the New Almaden and neighbouring New Idria quicksilver mines. In 1887 he visited the gold fields of British Columbia, but was soon back in quicksilver mines. In 1876 he visited the gold fields of British Columbia then to quicksilver country, working in the mine at Guadalupe, near New Almaden. In 1887, he retired from mining to run Los Gatos Hotel, a staging inn on the road from San Jose to Santa Cruz."

Berryman became a local family man and founded Berryman Plumbing.

And that is the local angle to this musical outing.

Photo: Sunrise Cleanup

For parents, youth soccer isn't just a game

Photo: Day of the Dead

Photo: Woodhaven West concert

Picture From the Past

Sports Briefs

Wildcats win cross country championships

Los Gatos football team defeats Palo Alto

Wildcats earn field hockey division championship

Kenny Heimer leads frosh-soph to win