Call of the Wild: Jack London’s famous book that we all likely had to read in high school. What I didn’t realize in high school, however, was that the story started in Santa Clara Valley. As a student at SCU, this is much more interesting to me now. When I did a little research, I found out that Buck and Judge Miller, two main characters in the novel, were based off of real people. What’s even more fascinating is that they were based off of members of the Bond family, whose familial papers live in our very own archives.

Judge Bond and his son Louis’ dog, Jack, were London’s inspiration for Judge Miller and Buck. As a literature nut, I was instantly fascinated, so I did a little more research on London’s relationship to the family. London was a frequent visitor to the Bond estate because of his friendship with Louis and Marshall, whom he met during the gold rush of 1897. The author begins Call of the Wild with a description of the Bond estate, which is in our very own Santa Clara Valley. 

But who was Judge Bond really, other than a source of inspiration for a famous book? Before he was a judge, Hiram Gilbert Bond was born in 1838 in Cattaraugus County, New York. He was well educated on the east coast, jumping around from profession to profession, and eventually graduated from Harvard Law School. At the age of 30, President Ulysses S. Grant actually made him the Master of Bankruptcy for the state of Virginia. His business endeavors took him all across the United States, and Bond and his family moved from Denver, Colorado, before moving on to Des Moines, Alabama, Tennessee, Boston, Santa Clara, and ended up in Seattle.

Judge Bond married Laura Higgins, and the couple had two sons: Louis (the friend of Jack London) and Marshall. In 1895, Bond bought a 95-acre estate called New Park in the Santa Clara Valley. The estate featured vineyards, a winery, orchards, a pool, and an 18 bedroom house, which was home to Judge Bond, his wife, their two sons, and their son’s wives, Amy L. Bond (wife of Marshall), and Mary Bond (wife of Louis). 

If you’re like me and read Call of the Wild, the description of that estate sounds familiar: it’s where the entire story kicks off. We couldn’t fit all of the pictures into this post, but feel free to come check out the personal papers, memorabilia, and original photos in our archival collection.

Header Image:
Black-and-white photograph of the Bond Residence, Franklin Street, Santa Clara, California, 1898. Image from SCU Digital Collections.