In 1880s Berkeley, a turbaned figure known only as “Old James” wandered alone through the hills, his turban and trance-like manner catching the attention of locals. Described in a newspaper as “a sort of mystic,” the “Hindu” (South Asian) immigrant worked as a milker for Pat Curran’s dairy farm, which encompassed hundreds of acres of what is today Tilden Park in Berkeley, California.
His White employers and neighbors said his real name was impossible to pronounce, and called him James instead. At a time when South Asians were a rare sight in California, his presence puzzled neighbors, who viewed him with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.
According to a 1940s interview with Jim Curran, who grew up on the farm, Old James often appeared lost in his own world. He would roam the hills down into Berkeley and Oakland, chanting “weird” songs, and sometimes reading palms.
James apparently spending much of his time in a trance—not from meditation, but from opium. As it turns out, he was dependent on the drug, a common situation among Asian laborers in California who used opium both recreationally and medicinally, providing for relief from the grueling work conditions and isolation of working class immigrant life.
According to Jim Curran, Old James’s addiction shaped their everyday lives. As a young man, Jim was frequently sent to an Oakland pharmacist to obtain a supply of the drug for the “Hindu milker.” Jim described how in those days, opium was easy to procure—no more difficult than getting a prescription for barbiturates would be decades later. Each week, Old James would receive about an ounce of the drug, carefully rolled into small balls. He rationed them out, taking two doses a day to keep his symptoms at bay and maintain the strength needed for his labor.
By Saturday, as his supply ran low, withdrawal would start to set in. His eyes would roll back, and he’d become visibly unwell. When that happened, Jim would rush back to Oakland on horseback to secure more opium, urgently seeking relief for the South Asian laborer before his condition worsened. In the meantime, James would use desperate substitutes—pills made from soap and tobacco juice—which made him ill but were just enough to stave off the worst of his symptoms until more opium arrived.
Old James’ story didn’t end there. He predicted that he would die on the first day of a month with two new moons. Remarkably, this came to pass in the late 1880s. When that day arrived, he prepared for his end in an almost ritualistic fashion, wrapping himself tightly from his feet to his waist in old ropes, resembling what Jim described to the newspaper as a “half-dead mummy.” Before he could unwind himself, he drew his last breath, fulfilling his prophecy.
Berkeley was not a center of California’s early dairy industry, but the farm employed a variety of workers in addition to James. They included, for example, two indigenous Indian men: Joe Stout, a passionate hunter, and Ramon Chavez, a skilled horse wrangler and trainer. Chavez loved to dance, and would make his way to San Pablo to a saloon and dance hall; he was eventually murdered by the owner of the dance hall for dancing with who Jim described as “a dancing senorita…the queen of the dance hall.”
Singing to himself, numbing himself with opium, Old James lived on the margins of society, marked by his foreignness—and yet integrated into the daily lives of his employers, who took pains to help him navigate his addiction. These tiny glimpses of his story give us a lens on the earliest South Asian immigrants in California, arriving a generation or more before the communities of college students or working class men who would arrive in Berkeley after 1900.
Source: “Wildcat Canyon Farmer,” Berkeley Daily Gazette, January 29, 1948 Page 6, via NewspaperArchive. I found the story in Richard Schwartz’s “Eccentrics, Heroes, and Cutthroats of Old Berkeley” (2007), which includes a chapter about the Curran Farm. The header image was generated by Dall-E 3, and depicts an older bearded South Asian farmer in 1880s Berkeley, wearing rugged farm clothing common during that period, wandering foggy East Bay hills, with Jersey-style cows behind him.
Excerpt from the 1948 newspaper story telling Old James’ story
“Old James,” a Hindu with a name no one could pronounce, came to work for Pat Curran as a milker. He was a sort of mystic, wore a turban, used to wander over the hills down into Berkeley and Oakland and read palms. He chanted weird songs. “Old James” was in a trance most of the time—not from self-hypnotism but from opium.
James Curran told us that when he was a boy, his father used to send him to a druggist in Oakland to get opium for the Hindu milker, the mystic. In the “80’s,” opium was no more difficult to get than barbiturates are today—a prescription from a doctor could be refilled indefinitely.
The Hindu’s opium ration was about an ounce a week. He rolled the drug in tiny balls, took two a day. Along about Saturday, when he ran out, his eyes began to roll! Jim Curran would hustle on horseback to Oakland. As a synthetic drug portion until Curran returned, “Old James” would roll a pill of soap and tobacco juice, which made him so ill he could complete the day without missing his opium.
The Hindu lived to be nearly 80, predicted he would die “the first day of the month that had two new moons.” One came along in the late “80’s.” That morning “Old James” made himself into a half-dead mummy by wrapping himself from his feet to his waist in old rope. Before he could be unpeeled, the Hindu breathed his last. His own death prophecy had come true.
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