John Harmon Charles Bonté (1831–1896) was a lawyer, Episcopal priest, and secretary of the board of regents of the University of California from 1881 to 1896. He also held the offices of land agent, superintendent of buildings and grounds, and secretary of the academic senate. He was a professor of legal ethics at the university's affiliate, Hastings College of the Law. He worked tirelessly for the independence and advancement of the university for 15 crucial years in its early development.
Early life and education Bonté was born in Circleville, Ohio, in 1831 and received his early education in Cincinnati. He attended St. John's College there and continued his education by way of private instruction. After studying law in an eastern law school and with Bellamy Storer in Cincinnati, he was admitted to the practice of law at age 20 and married Storer's daughter, Emily Woodbury Storer, in 1851. They had four children: Frances (b. 1853), Charles (b. 1857), Eliza (b. 1858) and Mary (b. 1861). After practicing law for several years, which included a term as Justice of the Peace in Knox County, Ohio in 1856,Miller, H. N. History of Knox County, Ohio. Mt. Vernon, Ohio: 1881. Bonté then attended Kenyon College where he studied for the Episcopal priesthood. He was ordained in 1857. He was subsequently elected as one of the Trustees of Kenyon College.A Frisian Family: The Banta Genealogy, Theodore M. Banta, New York 1893, pp. 335-336
During the U.S. Civil War, Bonté volunteered as chaplain for the 43d Ohio Regiment for nine months. He was stationed near New Madrid, Missouri, where he participated in the Battle of Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River in April 1862. He resigned his position after suffering from fever.
He was then rector of Old Christ Church in Georgetown, D.C. (1864–1866) and later rector of the Church of the Evangelist in Oswego, New York.Jones, Willam Carey. Illustrated History of the University of California Berkeley: 1901; p. 382
Sacramento years Bonté moved with his family to Sacramento, California, to be rector of Grace Episcopal Church in 1870, possibly for health reasons. Notable parishioners included Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker.St. Paul's Episcopal Church "History" While in Sacramento, he was involved in many civic activities, serving as Chaplain of the California State Assembly (1871–1872),California Blue Book or State Roster, Sacramento: 1893, p. 317. Grand Orator of the Grand Lodge of California (Masonic order) in 1876.Grand Orations of California In 1879 he was nominated by the Workingmen's Party to run for Superintendent of Schools, which he declined.Sacramento Daily Record-Union, November 13, 1879. He gave testimony to the California Special Committee on Chinese Immigration, to whom he recommended education, restricted immigration, and conversion to Christianity for Chinese in California.Report to the California State Senate: Special Committee on Chinese Immigration, Sacramento, 1878, pp. 228-231. Concerned that anti-immigrant sentiment could lead to the "wholesale slaughter" of the Chinese population, Bonté transmitted a letter via Columbus Delano to President Ulysses S. Grant in 1876 recommending Presidential intervention. No action was taken.The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Vol. 27 January 1-Oct 31, 1876; John Y. Simon, ed. Southern Illinois University Press, 2005, pp. 5-6. He also served as Chaplain of the State Senate for four years.
He was a dedicated outdoorsman and enjoyed fishing in the Big Meadows area in Plumas County now covered by Lake Almanor. An article published in the Sacramento Union in December 1881 has been cited as an indication of 19th-century salmon population.State of California Department of Fish and Game, Fish Bulletin 176, Volume 1, p. 124. He was often accompanied by his friend Dr. H. W. Harkness and civil engineer Arthur W. Keddie. Keddie named Bonté Peak, now in Lassen National Park, and Mt. Harkness for his two friends.Lassen National Park Archives, Letter from Harmon S. Bonte to G.A. Steiger, Lassen Museum, August 14, 1948.
In 1880, Kenyon College conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.
He served as rector of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Redwood CityHistory of St. Peter's Parish, Redwood City, 1964, p. 5. briefly after leaving the rectorship in Sacramento. He left Redwood City to accept the appointment to be Secretary of the Board of Regents of the University of California at Berkeley in August 1881, having left the pulpit because of the failure of his voice. In appointing J.H.C. Bonté, the Regents recruited a man who "fiercely guarded his prerogatives in all (his) capacities. There were proprieties, rules, and procedures he expected to be observed. He observed them meticulously himself. Only those who did not know him or who had skins thick enough to withstand the heat of his wrath evaded his dicta."The University of California, 1868-1968, A Centennial History, Verne A. Steadman, McGraw-Hill, 1968, p. 114.
The University in 1881 There were 224 students enrolled at Berkeley in the academic year of 1881–1882. 52 of them were women; three were graduate students. The faculty numbered 30.Centennial Record of the University of California, Verne A. Steadman, ed., Berkeley, 1967, pp. 214, 267. The major buildings on the campus were North Hall, South Hall, the Bacon Library and the Harmon Gymnasium. The office of the Secretary was located in South Hall, the only one of these buildings which still stands.
It was a tumultuous time. The nation was in financial crisis, and student conduct was out of hand at Berkeley. Fraternity hi-jinks resulted in the Regents' suspension of secret societies in 1879. That year, the sophomore class published a parody of the Junior Class Day program, considered "obscene" by the standards of the day, and President John LeConte suspended most of the sophomore class. These events, and the University's own financial difficulties, led to his resignation as President in 1881.The University of California, 1868-1968, A Centennial History, Verne A. Steadman, McGraw-Hill 1968, pp. 89-90.
President LeConte's weakness was hardly his fault. The years 1875-1900 have been termed "The Era of Powerless Presidents" by University historian Verne Steadman.The University of California 1868-1968, A Centennial History, McGraw-Hill 1968, Chapter 7, pp. 88-105. The Board of Regents ran the school, hiring and firing faculty, and attending to details in a way that can only be termed "micromanagement".Shared Governance at the University of California: An Historical Review, John Aubrey Douglass, Research and Occasional Papers Series: CSHE.1.198, March 1998. The University President was largely a figurehead: fundraiser, PR man, and liaison between the Regents and faculty.The University of California 1869-1968, a Centennial History, Verne A. Steadman, McGraw-Hill 1968, p. 88 Presidents Reid (1881–1885), Holden (1885–1888) and Davis (1881–1890) each complained of the interference of the Regents and the powerlessness of the Presidency. In 1891 President Kellog was the first to gain some limited authority over the Regents, and in particular, over the Secretary.The University of California, 1868-1968, a Centennial History, Verne A. Steadman, McGraw-Hill 1968, 105-106. In his memoir, Clark Kerr calls this the 'first major decentralization' of Regental authority.The Gold and Blue, a Personal Memoir of the University of California 1949-1967, Clark Kerr, p. 195.
The real power in those years lay in the office of the Secretary of the Board of Regents, who was responsible for keeping the records of the Regents' transactions, corresponding with learned, professional, and technical societies, collecting seeds and plants from all over the world, as well as being the chief accounting officer and business manager for the University.University of California Digital Archives, It was a nearly impossible task. In time J.H.C. Bonté also served as Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds, Land Agent, Secretary of the Academic Senate, and Professor of Legal Ethics at Hastings College of the Law.Illustrated History of the University of California (Revised 1901), William Carey Jones, Berkeley, 1901, p. 368.
When J.H.C. Bonté began his years at Berkeley, the University had recently survived political attacks from the State Grange and the Workingmen's Party in the 1870s that attempted to abolish the Regents (claimed by them to be corrupt)Creating a Fourth Branch of State Government: The University of California and the Constitutional Convention of 1879, John Aubrey Douglass, History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Spring, 1992) p. 31. and to establish a school of agriculture, mining, and mechanical arts, more in keeping with the needs of a growing state than a school of 'Eastern' and 'gentlemanly training.' Fortunately, the state constitution of 1879 established the University as a "public trust" and gave it such independence that it has been termed "the fourth branch of state government".Creating a Fourth Branch of State Government: The University of California and the Constitutional Convention of 1879, John Aubrey Douglass, History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Spring 1992) p. 31.
Campus life While University presidents came and went, Dr. Bonté exercised considerable authority over University affairs for fifteen years. Because of his righteous bearing, personal integrity, and intolerance for slackers, the students referred to him as the "Chief Cop" and nicknamed him "Jesus H. Christ Bonté". There is much presumably good-natured ribbing in the 'Blue and Gold' annuals published by the students in those years. Lincoln Steffens, in his autobiography, reports a humorous incident when he and his fraternity brothers were invited to the Bonté house to be fed some chickens that they didn't quite steal from the Bonté henhouse. Steffens describes Bonté as "the popular treasurer (sic) of the University" and portrays a man with a keen sense of humor and intellect.Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens, Harcourt Brace and Company, Lincoln Steffens, 1931, pp. 121-122.
The 1892 'Blue and Gold' parodies J.H.C. Bonté in the farcical Junior Class play depicting the University as a 'headless' institution with no president and "The Rev. U. B. Blode" as an officious, ambitious little man, nailing signs on everything and every person declaring "PROPERTY OF THE STATE" and telling all who will or won't listen that "I AM THE SECRETARY!" and in general making a nuisance of himself. At one point he is about to be boiled in an iron pot by the natives (students) and but is rescued by the Regents, only to be eventually vanquished by the Alumni.Blue and Gold, 1892, Vol XVIII, pp. 122-144.
Bonté did not shirk from his considerable power whenever he thought it should be exercised. He decreed in 1896 that no baseball would be played on University grounds on Sundays when it was discovered that two teams unaffiliated with the University scheduled a game on campus. Tickets had been printed and sold (ten cents each). Bonté announced that the University police officer (there was only one) would arrest anyone who showed up to the game. There were, in those years, no activities at all on campus on Sundays. Visitors and families "enjoy the quietness and beauty of the place, and to allow a baseball game to intrude on such a scene would be monstrous", he said. There were no arrests; the organizers of the game wisely made other arrangements.San Francisco Call, June 21, 1896, p. 15.