USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume II > Part 20
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The marriage of Mr. Hubbard with Catherine Maclay, a native of Santa Clara county and a daughter of former Senator Maclay, and the member of a pioneer family, took place in 1884, and they are the parents of two children, namely : Catherine P., now Mrs. J. L. Egbert and the mother of one daughter, Catherine; and Wright Hubbard, a student at the University of Cali- fornia, where he is taking an agricultural course.
GEORGE A. NADEAU. To mention the name of Nadeau to any one familiar with the history of Los Angeles county immediately calls to mind the old Nadeau ranch, the great vine- yard of that name, the hotel which was at one time the finest in Los Angeles, and a multitude of splendid enterprises and projects that the bearers of this name have engaged in since com- ing to California to make their home. George A. Nadeau, one of two remaining descendants of the founder of the family in California, is now living in retirement on his home farm near Compton, which is a part of the old Nadeau ranch, which at one time numbered many hundreds of acres. He is a prosperous and successful rancher and real estate dealer, and has been intimately as- sociated with the upbuilding of the city, as was his father before him. He is a native of the province of Quebec, Canada, born March 27, 1850, and the son of Remi Nadeau, also a native of Canada, and a millwright by trade.
In 1860 Remi Nadeau came to California across the plains, stopping enroute for several months in Salt Lake City, and arriving in Los Angeles in the fall of 1861. With this city as his headquar- ters, for several years he engaged in freighting
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in various parts of the state and in Montana, re- turning to Los Angeles to establish a permanent residence in 1866. Here he engaged in teaming, conducting a line of teams into the Owens river country, and in 1873 he organized the Cerro Gordo Freighting Company, which conducted an extensive and prosperous business until the coming of the railroads. He early began to purchase land with all his surplus money, and continued to add to his holdings until he was the owner of thirty- two hundred and fifty acres. Also interested in grape culture he owned the largest vineyard in the state at one time, having planted two thou- sand acres to this fruit. His confidence in the future of Los Angeles, city and county, was al- ways firm and serene, and his money was always invested and re-invested, he believing that the safest way to keep it was to keep it in circulation. He became prominent among the upbuilding in- fluences of the county and for many years was regarded as one of the most influential citizens of Los Angeles. He built the Nadeau Hotel, at the corner of First and Spring streets, in 1884, meet- ing with much opposition in his determination to erect a three-story structure instead of the cus- tomary two-story building of that period. He was a stanch Republican and took an active part in the political affairs of his day. The marriage of Remi Nadeau occurred in New Hampshire, of which state his wife, formerly Miss Martha F. Frye, was a native. They were the parents of seven children, only two of whom now survive, they being George A., the subject of this article, and Mary R., now Mrs. Bell, located on a farm adjoining her brother. The father and mother are both now deceased, death coming to Mr. Nadeau in 1886, at the age of sixty-eight years, while the wife survived until January 18, 1904, passing away at the age of eighty-four years.
George A. Nadeau, although a Canadian by birth, has passed the greater part of his lifetime in the United States, having come to this coun- try with his parents when he was but seven years of age. His boyhood was passed in Chicago, and Faribault, Minn., where he received his education in the public schools. The family remained in the east for a number of years after the father came to California, and there George A. made his first business ventures. In 1868 they spent a short time in New Hampshire, where they were with the mother's people, and thence sailed for San Francisco, by way of the Isthmus of Panama,
returning by water from San Francisco to San Pedro, and thence to Los Angeles. For a time Mr. Nadeau was associated with his father in the freighting business and six years later went to Modoc county, near the Oregon line, where he engaged in the stock business for a year. He then disposed of his interests there, and return- ing to Los Angeles county, engaged in the same line here, meeting with much success. His present ranch, where he has made his home for many years, was purchased by his father in 1875, and at the time of his death was divided among the heirs. At present Mr. Nadeau owns thirty acres, his sister, Mrs. Bell, owns fifty acres, and the remaining eighty acres have been subdivided and sold. In addition to the home place Mr. Nadeau also owns property located at the corner of Long Beach and Nadeau avenues, which is handsomely improved. There is property on Central avenue and Twentieth street which is very valuable; and also valuable property in Long Beach. At one time he owned sixty-three acres on Central ave- nue, about three-quarters of a mile from the city limits of Los Angeles, located at the corner of Florence and Central avenues, which was recently sold. He has also been actively interested in a number of subdivision projects, probably the best known of these being Nadeau Villa tract, a forty- acre subdivision which has all been disposed of.
The marriage of Mr. Nadeau united him with Miss Nellie Tyler in 1881, since which time they have made their home on the property before inentioned, where Mr. Nadeau was engaged in farming until recently, when he rented the acreage and retired from active business, although he still makes his home on the farm. Mrs. Nadeau is a native of Iowa, although she came to California with her parents when she was but three years of age, and was reared and educated here. She bore her husband four children, all born on the old home place, and educated in Los Angeles county. They are: Joseph G., Delbert G., Grace, and Stella Maie, the latter now the wife of Ray Mathis, a dentist in Los Angeles. Mr. Nadeau has always taken a prominent part in the public affairs of the county and is recognized as a man of great ability. He is a Republican and a loyal supporter of the party principles. He is also a member of the Pioneer Society of Los Angeles County, and one of its most loyal supporters, being especially active in the accumulation of valuable data and the preservation of the associa-
Melvina adele Lott
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tions of the past. He is broad minded and pro- gressive in his ideas, and the home place is one of the most attractive in the community, being handsomely improved and well kept up. He has taken a keen interest in the welfare of the com- munity at large and given his co-operation to all movements for the public improvement and good of the county and state.
MRS. MELVINA ADELE LOTT. The element of romance has entered into the life of Mrs. Lott and has thrown a rich coloring over her eventful experiences, dating back to a childhood partly spent in the midst of an in- teresting French-Canadian population in the city of Montreal, where she was born Febru- ary 19, 1865, and where she gained a rudimen- tary education in private schools. The family was one of considerable prominence in circles to which culture and character rather than wealth proved the open sesame. Her parents, Michel and Adele (Nadeau) LaPointe, were natives of the vicinity of Quebec and the mother was the youngest in a family of fifteen children, one of whom, Remi Nadeau, came to Los Angeles as early as 1852, becoming inter- ested in many of the incipient business enter- prises of the nascent metropolis and building the Nadeau hotel, for many years the favorite headquarters of western travelers and still in successful operation, forming not only a land- mark of note, but also a link between the old Spanish pueblo and the twentieth-century American city.
After the arrival of the LaPointe family in Los Angeles in 1875, the daughter, then ten years of age, was sent to the local schools and completed her studies with a course of two years in the Los Angeles Academy, the fore- runner of the University of Southern Cali- fornia (then situated near Fourth street on Broadway, or Fort street, as it was called). Three years after coming to Los Angeles she was converted and entered the First Methodist Church, of which she has been a member con- tinuously since 1878 and in all of whose societies she is a life member as well as at times an officer. In 1884 she became the bride of Austin E. Lott, a native of New York state and for more than twenty years a resident of Los An- geles, where he died in 1903. Later Mrs. Lott
was united with George F. Lott, a native of Michigan and a pioneer of Los Angeles, where his death occurred in 1910. Although bearing the same family name, the two gentlemen were not related and even a study of remote gen- ealogy indicated no connection. Of the first mar- riage there is a son, Esperance A., also a daughter, Theodora Adele, now the wife of Harry M. Kel- ler, a nephew of the late George F. Lott.
The busy years as home-maker, wife and mother were not allowed by Mrs. Lott to crowd out all association with charities, busi- ness enterprises and progressive movements. From girlhood she has been interested in the growth of the city and the activities of the church During 1884 she was given deeds of properties, the most valuable of which, on Olive street facing Central Park, she still holds. Some of her earlier holdings have been sold and oth- ers improved with substantial buildings, but in their entirety they represent an amount far in excess of their original value and indicate the keen business insight of Mrs. Lott in retaining possessions of such promise. With her own increased valuations her charities have become larger, although at all times they have been characterized by lack of ostentation and a de- sire that all philanthropic effort might be hid- den from public notice. When the First Meth- odist edifice was erected on the corner of Sixth and Hill streets in 1900 she was a liberal con- ributor, and when, owing to the need of larger space for a growing work under the talented oversight of Dr. Charles Edward Locke, she generously championed the movement, offer- ing to donate to the new structure as fine a chime of bells as could be secured, she realized that such a gift would satisfy her own taste for the beautiful, as well as prove a most ser- viceable acquisition to a massive structure of architectural elegance.
WILLIAM A. HENRY. One of the sons of Iowa, a state which has sent many of her people to add to the population of Los Angeles, the most thriving city in Southern California, is William A. Henry, who was born in Clinton county, Iowa, June 30, 1856, the son of Daniel and Sabrina (McKeen) Henry, who were among the pioneer settlers of the West. The early education of Mr. Henry was received in his native state. In 1867
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his parents left Iowa for California by a round- about route, such as the modern conveniences of travel obviate. In these days comfortable Pull- man cars make the journey west one of continued enjoyment, every comfort being provided by the railroad companies, but in olden times things were different, and the journey of Mr. Henry's family to California was a long and tedious one, made by way of the Isthmus of Panama. They made a long trip up the coast from Panama, remaining for two years in Sonoma county and later making their permanent home in San Luis Obispo county in the central part of the state, both of which counties are situated on the coast. The son con- tinned his education by attending school in both these counties, and at the age of fifteen left school and for a short time worked for his father in the stock raising business. Following the occupation which he had thoroughly learned while assisting his father, Mr. Henry went into business for him- self after a time, in which he continued for a period of ten years. But the opportunities of business in a large city attracted him then and brought him to Los Angeles, where he set himself up in the wholesale produce business on South Los Angeles street, at which location he remained for fourteen years, carrying on a successful busi- ness. Becoming interested in the Public Market Company of this city in 1903, he associated him- self with that firm, of which he has acted as super- intendent ever since, bringing to this office the efficiency which has always marked his business career.
While living in San Luis Obispo county Mr. Henry married, November 20, 1878, Miss Florence Wassum, a native daughter of Califor- nia, and they are the parents of five children : Louis; Leslie; Ada, now Mrs. A. E. Austin; Howard, who is a student at the Leland Stanford, Jr., University ; and Wilbur, attending the Los Angeles high school. Mr. Henry has many in- terests aside from his business activities. He is interested in the management of the schools of the city, having served on the Board of Educa- tion during the years 1901 and 1902. Politically he is allied with the Republican party, and his religious affiliations are with the Central Presby- terian church. In Masonry he has attained the Scottish Rite degree, and is further identified fraternally with the Odd Fellows (having passed through all the chairs in the lodge with which he is affiliated) and the Fraternal Brotherhood.
JOHN BLOESER. A man whose business career has been a story of continued progress in his chosen occupation, is John Bloeser, an indus- trious business man of Los Angeles who died September 27, 1912, his business having been con- ducted by his son since his own retirement from business in 1907.
A native of Pennsylvania, Mr. Bloeser was born in Erie, that state, October 30, 1852, the son of John and Elizabeth (Long) Bloeser, and received his education in his native city until, at the age of twelve years, he began to learn the trade of upholstering, which he followed in Erie until he reached the age of twenty years. At that time he went to San Francisco, the occupation which he had learned at home supporting him in the new city of his choice for three years, when he decided to remove to Los Angeles. Here he came in 1875, and found employment with the firm of Dotter & Bradley, general merchandise store, soon after this, however, going into partner- ship with Mr. Sharp in the manufacture of parlor sets and other furniture. On the retirement of Mr. Sharp from the business Mr. Bloeser carried it on alone, under his own name, his factory and work room being located at No. 510 South Pearl street, now Figueroa street, and to his business he added carpet cleaning, erecting the first carpet- cleaning machinery in Los Angeles. Later he moved his place of business to Fifth and Spring streets, continuing there several years, until he erected a large building on Sacramento street where the business has been conducted ever since, a specialty being made of carpet cleaning and laying. Upon his retirement in 1907 his son John, a native son of the state of California, became sole owner of his father's business, which has been conducted under his supervision ever since.
Mr. Bloeser's wife was Miss Adell Condit, to whom he was married in Los Angeles, October 30, 1881, and by whom he had two sons, John and William, the elder having married Miss Mary Armstrong and being the father of three children, Elizabeth, Jack and Donald. William is attend- ing Stanford University. Mr. Bloeser attended the Lutheran church, and in his political prefer- ences he was an active Republican. He was Cap- tain of the Seventh California National Guards, and a member of the early Volunteer Firemen, and was fraternally associated with the Knights of Pythias.
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GOTTFRIED LAURITZ SCHMIDT. Al- though a native of Denmark, Gottfried Lauritz Schmidt was nevertheless one of the sturdy pioneers of California, and especially of Los An- geles, having come to this city when he was still a youth in his teens and having made his home here for the greater part of his life since that time. For many years he was in the hotel busi- ness and acted as manager for several of the lead- ing commercial hotels at various times during his career. He also invested heavily in real estate and owned one of the finest dairy ranches in the county, where he engaged in dairy farming for many years. In 1906 he retired from business and erected a handsome home in South Pasadena, where he resided until his death in 1909, and where his widow and his daughter Harriet still make their home.
Mr. Schmidt was born in Copenhagen, Den- mark, March 18, 1845, the son of Wilhelm and Emilie Schmidt, both natives of Denmark. He spent his early life in his native city, and attended the public schools there until he was about fifteen. Leaving school at that age he secured employment in a wholesale house and remained for some two years. When he was seventeen he determined to seek his fortune in the United States, hoping for the larger opportunities which the new land afforded, and accordingly he crossed the Atlantic and landed at Boston. There for a year he was variously employed, at the same time familiariz- ing himself with the language and customs of the new land. The far west, however, was calling him, and at the end of a year he came to San Francisco, soon afterward coming to Los Angeles county. The trip was made by water, landing him at Wilmington, which was then the seaport of Los Angeles. Here he secured employment and remained for four and a half years, most of this time as manager of the leading hotel, and it was here that he commenced his career as a hotel manager.
There was, however, a girl in Denmark who claimed a large share of the interest of the young Schmidt, and he finally returned to his native country and was married to Hulda Francisca Volchsen in Copenhagen, September 15, 1868. Later he returned to the United States and for a short time engaged in the hat framing business in Boston. It was in 1869 that Mr. Schmidt finally returned to Los Angeles county, where he con- tinued to reside for the remainder of his life.
He bought one hundred and sixty acres of land and his brothers Edward and Frederick later bought adjoining property and on their land all of the brothers engaged in dairying. This did not occupy all of our subject's time, however, and he gave much attention to other enterprises. For a number of years he was proprietor of the Grand Central hotel, and from 1894 to 1897 was pro- prietor of the United States hotel, being in part- nership with Ivor A. Weid in the latter venture. In 1897 he disposed of his hotel interests and returned to his ranch, and within a short time he retired from active business life.
Aside from his extensive business enterprises Mr. Schmidt was well known among a wide circle of friends throughout the city and county, and his family are well and favorably known, his chil- dren having been born and reared within Los Angeles county, and having received their edu- cation in the local public schools and colleges. There are five children, namely: Valdemar, who is married and has one child; Helm, who married Josie Simmons and has four children; Harriet, who is unmarried and makes her home with her mother in South Pasadena; Stella, the wife of Willard P. Hatch, of San Francisco, and the mother of one child; and Reuben S., an attorney with offices in the Union Oil building, Los An- geles ; he married Katherine R. George and they have one child.
For many years Mr. Schmidt was a prominent Mason and was a Republican in politics, but was never actively associated with the affairs of his party.
HON. MATTHEW THOMPSON ALLEN. The brilliant jurist who served as presiding justice of the court of appeals of the second dis- trict from November, 1906, until his demise was born near Greenville, Ohio, September 17, 1848, and died at Los Angeles October 10, 1913. During boyhood he was sent to the public schools of Darke county by his parents, Rev. John and Elizabeth (Ash) Allen, and his rudimentary studies inspired him with a love of learning and a desire to attain a broad education. Ambitious to become the possessor of a classical education, he carried on a thorough course of study in Otter- bein University at Westerville, Ohio, later direct- ing his mental efforts toward the law as a student under Hon. D. M. Bradbury, at Winchester, Ind.,
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and securing admission to the Indiana bar Sep- tember 17, 1869. After a period of service as assistant prosecuting attorney of the Nineteenth Indiana circuit he returned to Ohio in 1872 and took up professional work at Greenville, where, April 23, 1879, he married Miss Mary Whiteside. Two daughters blessed their union, Mrs. Henry N. Jenson and Mrs. Harold B. Wrenn.
Scarcely had the young attorney established a profitable law practice in Ohio when a threatened failure of health rendered a change of climate advisable and led to his removal to California during 1886. The following year he took up law practice and in 1890-91 was associated with Hon. N. P. Conrey, later a judge of the superior court, and Clarence A. Miller. At the same time he became interested in official life as United States district attorney for the southern district of Cali- fornia. A period of professional success as a law partner of Hon. Frank P. Flint was followed by his election in 1897 as judge of the superior court of Los Angeles county, in which office he served for two terms of four years each. The extremely large majorities he received at these two elections established his reputation as one of the most popu- lar jurists in Southern California. At the expira- tion of his second term he was appointed by Governor Pardee associate judge of the district court of appeals for the second district in April, 1905. The following year he was elected presiding judge of the second district court, receiving the allotment of the term of eight years, but before the expiration of the term he had answered the supreme summons from the high court of death. Although a very stanch Republican, he was the nominee of both the Democratic and Republican parties at his last election and his popularity knew no partisan boundaries or political limits.
Throughout the greater part of his long identi- fication with Los Angeles Judge Allen owned a residence at the corner of Pasadena avenue and Avenue 50, where in one of the most charming homes of the city he and his family extended to a large circle of intimate friends a hospitality both cordial and cultured. The privilege of enjoying his friendship was highly prized by those with whom he shared his delightful life and to whom he gave of the riches of his well-stored mind. A citizen so high-minded, so beloved and so widely known naturally had many intimate associations outside of those of the bench and bar. Numerous social and fraternal organizations, notably the
San Gabriel Valley Country Club and the Annan- dale Club, the Knights Templar and Shriners, had the privilege of his active co-operation, and in addition he was a distinguished member of the Los Angeles Bar Association. While yet in Ohio he officiated as president of the Greenville Board of Education from 1883 until his removal from the town in 1886. For years after he had re- gained his strength in the balmy air of the south- west he retained the best health and was physical- ly as well as professionally able to discharge an enormous amount of work, but finally he was seriously injured in a trolley collision on West Sixteenth street and never afterward fully re- covered his health. Some months later he suc- cumbed to an attack of pneumonia. News of his death came as a shock to members of the bench and bar. In his memory all of the departments of the superior court were adjourned until after the funeral, which was held at the family resi- dence, with old friends as pall bearers, namely : Former United States Senator Flint, Congress- man W. D. Stephens, W. D. Shearer, Harold B. Wrenn (his son-in-law) and Judge W. P. James and Judge Victor E. Shaw, his former associates on the appellate bench.
In the broad sense of that term Judge Allen was a typical Californian. Although the early part of his life had been passed in the east, he impressed strangers as essentially of western sympathies and temperament. In the light of his energy and his unstinted hospitality he showed the traits that mark and individualize Cali- fornians. Yet no narrowness or provincialism marred the beauty of his fine character. Repre- sentative of the type of men who have made California what it is today, he was also a type of our national citizenship, of the broad-minded, high-spirited, patriotic Americans who are the foundation of our country's prosperity. Qualities of character steadfastly disciplined and honestly manifested qualified him for the jurist's chair, while his thorough familiarity with every depart- ment of the law, his logical reasoning and unerr- ing discrimination caused his decisions to be ac- cepted by higher courts and to be regarded as authority by the lower courts. At the bar he was a capable counselor-on the bench a wise jurist- and in every department of human activity a leader of men. In the annals of his chosen city his name is well worthy of a permanent place.
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