Erastus Kelsey of Oakland1 started a commune called the "The Co-operative Brotherhood of Winter Island", 1893 on Winters Island in the Suisun Bay along with Kate Lockwood Nevins.2
"Perhaps two dozen communards took up residency there, but the colony, alas, never got well established economically as the panic of 1893 swept the country. The resulting depression devastated the prices the colonists got for their onions and other crops, and things fell apart in the second half of the decade."1
"The first president of the utopian colony, Andrew J. Gregg, was from Oakland,. He was a carpenter and Populist Party candidate for lieutenant-Governor in 1894. Gregg campaigned for the elimination of private property and helped found the Carpenters Union."3
1, West of Eden: Communes and Utopia in Northern California. ed. Iain Boal, Janferie Stone, Michael Watts, and Cal Winslow. PM Press, 2012.
2, Historic Tacoma Magazine http://zine.historictacoma.org/katherine-l-squire/
3. Contra Coast County Historical Society https://www.cocohistory.org/essays-paradise.html
