Translated from German, meerschaum means "sea foam".  Meerschaum is a light-weight, white-colored mineral (Hydrous Magnesium Silicate). It is one of the most porous substances found in nature, will not burn out, and is considered by pipe smokers as the perfect material for a cool, dry smoke. Today the highest quality Meerschaum deposits are found in the open plains of central Turkey surrounding the small city of Eskisehir. Meerschaum is mined wet from depths of up to 400 feet and is bought by carvers in various size blocks or lumps, then hand carved into what many consider one of the finest smoking pipes available. The first record of pipes made from meerschaum dates to the 1700’s.

Walton Phillips

Major S. Phillips, who donated the pipe, wrote a detailed account on his family which was published in the Russian River Recorder, Summer 1985 (Issue 30). From this article and an obituary the following information on Walton Phillips, the pipe’s owner, was extracted:

Walton Phillips was the son of Duvall Drake Phillips and Mary Terry Phillips, who crossed the plains by wagon train from Missouri in 1849. After several years in the gold mines near Placerville, where Walton was born in 1856, the family moved to the Dry Creek Valley near Healdsburg. There the family purchased acreage from the Jose German Pena family, who owned the Tzabaco Mexican Land Grant, and moved into the old Pena adobe, which had been the headquarters for the Tzabaco Rancho.

Growing up on the family ranch in Dry Creek Valley, Walton attended the one-room Dry Creek School. He was the oldest of four brothers and one sister. Farming did not appeal to him. As a young man he attended the Pacific Union College in Healdsburg. After graduating he became a traveling auditor for the Northwestern Pacific Railway, based in San Francisco. When not on the road, he sang in San Francisco's light operas, such as Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance.” In Napa in 1893, Walton married Mary Jane Miles, whose family lived just two miles south of the Phillips' ranch in Dry Creek. (Walton's brother Fred married Mary Jane's sister, Elizabeth Miles.) The couple lived in Yountville for seven years, while Walton served as the N.W.P. station agent there. In 1900 the couple moved to East Oakland where they built a house in the Fruitvale District.

After Walton’s father died, his mother persuaded him to move back with his family from Oakland to run the Dry Creek Ranch. He did this for a few years, but when his mother died, the ranch was divided between D.D. Phillips' surviving sons. Walton opted to lease his acreage to some Italian farmers, and move his family back to Oakland. Five years later, however, when the lease expired, Walton decided to try ranching again and moved the family back to Dry Creek in 1912.

Walton died at the age of 75 in San Francisco in November, 1931, and was buried in Yountville in the Napa Valley. Today the Dry Creek Ranch is still owned by descendants of D.D. Phillips.