The Angwin Property a Better Place

Elder Haskell, president of the California Conference, recalled:6BIO 183.6

When word came to us at Washington, D.C., that the trade could not be completed because of errors in the title and other reasons, the servant of the Lord said, “If this cannot be obtained, it is because the Lord has a better place for us.”—Pacific Union Recorder, September 2, 1909.

With the time for the opening of school nearing, and now with considerable funds in hand for the purchase of a school property, the locating committee began a new search. In July, Elder H. W. Cottrell, president of the Pacific Union Conference and a member of the committee on school location, found what he considered the ideal place. S. N. Haskell wrote of it to Ellen White, who was on her protracted return journey from Washington, D.C., to California. It was Angwin's resort hotel atop Howell Mountain, about four miles beyond St. Helena Sanitarium. The property seemed most promising. So sure were the brethren that this place met, more fully than any other they had seen or perhaps could ever find, the qualifications for a college site held before them by Ellen White, that negotiations to purchase for $60,000 were commenced at once. It was with restless difficulty that they awaited Ellen White's return home in early September, to gain her full support in the steps taken.6BIO 183.7

After an absence of five months and four days, Ellen White reached her Elmshaven home on Thursday afternoon, September 9, ill and exhausted. The high altitude endured in crossing the Sierras, it seemed, almost cost her her life, and she was debilitated. Camp meeting was in progress in Fruitvale, a suburb of Oakland, and her presence was desired there. All were eager, first of all, for her to visit the Angwin school site without delay. She was too. So on Friday morning, although ill-prepared to do so, she insisted on driving the five miles past the Sanitarium and up the narrow, rocky road to the top of Howell Mountain to see the property everyone was excited about.6BIO 184.1