Welcome to the Aurantia Chapter, NSDAR

California DAR

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The Aurantia Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR or DAR), was organized on December 10, 1905. Aurantia Chapter, NSDAR, was the 694th chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution and the ninth chapter to organize in California. Riverside, California, the birthplace of the sweet, seedless, Washington Navel orange, was the "center of the greatest orange growing district in the world," according to the local advertising literature when Aurantia Chapter, NSDAR, was organized.  The name Aurantia, meaning golden, was chosen from a botanical name for the orange tree Citrus Aurantium. 

Eliza Tibbets planted the first two Washington Navel orange trees at her home in Riverside. The Parent Navel orange tree pictured below on the left was moved to Low Park, on the southwest corner of Magnolia and Arlington streets in 1902 and is marked as California State Historical Landmark no. 20. The other Parent Navel orange tree was transplanted in the courtyard of the Glenwood Mission Inn by President Theodore Roosevelt on May 8, 1903. That tree died in 1922 and was removed in 1923.

The minutes of January 9, 1924, Aurantia Chapter, NSAR, meeting record the presentation of a gavel made of wood from the Parent Navel orange tree that had stood in the courtyard of the Mission Inn.  It was presented by two chapter members. A motion to add a silver plate with an inscription to the gavel passed on June 14, 1926. This gavel is still in use by our chapter and one of our most treasured possessions.

Inscription on the gavel reads:

“Wood of Parent Navel Orange Tree

Aurantia Chapter, DAR Riverside, California

From Frank A Miller, 1924”

Photos Courtesy of Chapter Archives and Members

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Photos courtesy of chapter archives.