A corrected history of the Heywood family

Charles W. Heywood House, 1808 Fifth Street (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2008)

Legendary Berkeley pioneer Zimri Brewer Heywood and his many sons, who included two Berkeley mayors and a California Assembly member, have accumulated a comet-like tail of stories and quasi-histories, repeated long enough to be taken for fact.

A new fortnightly series of articles on the Heywoods, published in the Berkeley Daily Planet and on the BAHA website, reconstructs the Heywood family’s history from original documents and newspaper reports, setting the record straight on what actually happened, and when.

Three articles have been published so far:

Zimri Brewer Heywood: Separating Fact From Myth

On the Trail of Zimri Brewer Heywood’s Residence

Will the Real William Heywood Stand Up?

More will follow.