4363 Montgomery Avenue
This mark is at the corner of Mather and Montgomery, a prominent location where early masons were eager to put their names. I come here often and keep examining the mark in different light, but it took two years to find another example in Fruitvale from which I could identify this one.
316 63d Street
368 28th Street
My first mark from this year.
815 52d Avenue
Andrade (without Moniz) also used this escutcheon, but so far I haven’t found one with a date.
5416 Telegraph Avenue
4935 Clarke Street
Fred Ferrero was born in 1883 in Castellamonte, Italy, emigrated in 1899, and launched his business in 1920 as Fred Ferrero & Son, with his eldest son Romeo. By the time this mark was laid down, the other son Aldo must have joined the firm. Aldo, I presume, is the A. J. Ferrero of Alameda whose marks are collected here from the 1950s to the 1970s. More biographical facts about Fred are on page 527 of The History of Alameda County, California, volume II. Also treated in that book are Carl and Andrew the Sorensen Brothers (p. 121), Ed Doty (p. 350), L. J. Scaramelli (p. 384), Olaf Riechel and H. G. Bredhoff (p. 404), and Nat Lena (p. 418).
Another history book, Past and Present of Alameda County vol. II, features Anson Blake (p. 487) and Frank Bilger (p. 440) of Blake & Bilger.
