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 WILLIAM J. DUFFY, JR. (1892 ~ 1976) Bill was born in San Pablo. In 1895, at the age of three, his family moved to Point San Quentin. His father was William J. Duffy, a justice of the peace, in San Pablo, for 10 years, and a guard at the prison from 1894 until 1913. From 1913 until his retirement, in 1925, he was Chief Steward of the prison mess.

Bill lived at San Quentin for about 18 years. He married and moved into the central California valley to farm. Often, during the hot summers, he would take his family to San Quentin for a week or two to visit with his younger brother Clint and his wife Gladys. Often, they would return during the year end holidays. They continued this arrangement for many years. When Clinton became warden, Bill, and his family, would stay at the warden's mansion.

In the 1970's, Bill began putting his memoirs together. He had accumulated a lot of history on point San Quentin, and the prison, including much of his own experiences as a youth. Unfortunately, Bill died before he could publish his work. By permission of his two daughters, a portion of his memoirs are presented here.

DONALD E. ZUBLER (1918 ~2000) Born in San Rafael, CA but was only a few days old when he arrived at San Quentin. He lived there until 1940. He returned in the mid 1970's and lived there until 1999. He had always been interested in the area and became a historian of the San Quentin area. He collected numerous pictures of the past and and many of the photos shown at this web site are from his collection.

PHILIP ZUBLER (1923 ~ ) Born in SanFrancisco, arrived at San Quentin on his eleventh day. He lived there until 1947. Recently, Philip has been doing genealogy on the Duffy and Zubler families and came across quite a bit of information about San Quentin. He put together this web site so that others could read some of the history of this area.

DOROTHY COWAN Over the years, Dorothy's mother, accumulated numerous articles and photos of the San Quentin area and she has graciously consented to make them available on this web site.

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Last Revision March 2001