USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume II > Part 4
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served as park commissioner, assisting mate- rially in the laying out of the city park system and in its establishment and execution. Char- ities, philanthropies, churches, colleges, schools have all felt the impulse of this man's power, while the commercial and legal history of the city could in no wise be correctly recorded with- out a full account of his many achievements in the fields of endeavor.
Judge Hubbell is descended from a long line of illustrious ancestors, the genealogy of the family being easily traced to before the Nor- man conquest, and recently among the ruins of Asia has been discovered a buried city bear- ing the name of the ancient family. The infer- ence naturally follows that some adventure- some member of the name journeyed into the far north, seeking new fields to conquer, and settled in Denmark, where the first authentic trace of this branch is found. The name itself was originally Hubba, and the present name of Hubbell is derived from a corruption of Hubba and hill, there having been known to be at one time in England several eminences known as Hubba's Hill, these being places where the Danish chief of that name and the progenitor of the family in England had en- camped. This was finally corrupted into Hub- bahill and later into the present form of Hubbell. This Hubba was a celebrated Danish chieftain, who came to England at an early date, and took an active part in the affairs of the period.
Richard Hubbell was the first member of the family to come to America and is the pro- genitor of the American branch of the Hubbell family. He was born in England in 1627 or 1628, the records varying slightly on this point. On March 7, 1647, he took the oath of fealty to the government of the New Haven colony. Of his early history there is little known, and the date of his arrival in America has not been preserved, but it must have been between 1645 and 1647. Like many of the inhabitants of Britain at that time, he could neither read nor write his own name. He settled at Pequonnock, Fairfield county, Conn., at which place he died October 23. 1699. From him has grown the large and illustrious family of Hubbells, now in its tenth generation from this same Richard . Hubbell. This family have figured very actively jand prominently in the history of Connecticut 'and other New England states, New York,
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Michigan, Iowa, and in fact almost every state in the Union. Many members of this family have achieved military distinction. In the pro- fessions of medicine and the law they have ex- celled. It appears that the family have shown a strong inclination toward farming and the professions, and in all fields of endeavor they have been largely prosperous and prominent.
Judge Hubbell, the present distinguished rep- resentative of this family in Los Angeles, is the son of Eli Hubbell, a farmer of Cattaraugus county, N. Y., and a member of the sixth gen- eration from Richard Hubbell, the American progenitor of the family. His mother was Mary Huxley, a native of New York, born at Avon, Livingston county, in 1802. She was married to Eli Hubbell in 1820 and became the mother of nine children, all of whom were liv- ing at the time of her death, which occurred when she was eighty-one years old. Her hus- band outlived her only two months, passing away at the age of eighty-seven years. Their chil- dren were Schuyler Philip, Nancy Ann, Chaun- cey Staple, Eli Sanford, Mary Alma, Lovisa M., Lodisa A., Stephen Charles, and Spencer Eph- raim. Of these all the brothers are now dead except Stephen Charles (Judge Hubbell of Los Angeles), while of the daughters, Lovisa M. is now Mrs. George Gladding, of Napoli, Cattaraugus county, N. Y .; Lodisa A. is Mrs. William H. Mills, of South Dayton, Cattarau- gus county, N. Y., and the others are deceased.
Judge Stephen Charles Hubbell was born in Cattaraugus county, N. Y., May 31, 1841, the eighth child in the family. His early boyhood was passed in his native county on his father's farm, he attending the school in that district. Later he graduated from what is now known as Chamberlain Institute at Randolph, N. Y., and for a number of years taught in the public schools under a state diploma while he pursued his law studies. His progress was rapid and he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the state of New York in 1863, and later was admitted to the Federal courts of the United States, including the Supreme Courts of the United States, and settled in Jamestown, N. Y., where he practiced for six years, meet- ing with much success. He was then appointed Surrogate and has since that time borne the title of Judge Hubbell.
Judge Hubbell has been twice married. The first marriage took place at Jamestown, Janu- ary 6, 1868, to Jane A. Works, of that place. She bore him one son, Charles E., born De- cember 6, 1868. This son is well and favor- ably known in Los Angeles, having been a resi- dent of the city for many years. He is secre- tary and general manager of the Hubbell In- vestment Company, and is also commodore of the Los Angeles Yacht Club. The first wife died in Jamestown, June 21, 1869, and the fol- lowing year Judge Hubbell came to California and entered the law office of Winans & Belknap in San Francisco as their chief clerk, in order that he might become familiar with the Cali- fornia practice.
It was in 1870 that Judge Hubbell first came to Southern California. He formed a partner- ship with Hulett Clark, the then district attor- ney of San Bernardino county, which partner- ship continued until the death of Judge Clark about a year later. He was married the second time in Manchester, Iowa, to Miss Lora A. Loomis, a graduate of Grinnell College, Iowa, and a native of Vermont. She removed to Iowa with her parents, A. R. and Phoebe Loomis, when she was still a small child, the family becoming well known in Manchester. Both her parents are now deceased, her mother having lived to be ninety-two. This second marriage occurred February 3, 1873, and shortly thereafter Judge Hubbell and his bride came to Los Angeles to make their home and have continued to reside here since that time. Mrs. Hubbell is the mother of two daughters, Lora L., born August 11, 1879, and Mary Snell, born February 20, 1886.
Since coming to Los Angeles, Judge Hub- bell has been continually active in the affairs of the city and closely associated with all af- fairs of public import and general welfare. He became president of the National Bank of Cali- fornia, of which he is now, and has been since its organization, a director. In educational affairs he has been especially prominent and active. He was one of the organizers and founders of the University of Southern Cali- fornia, was one of the first board of directors, and the first treasurer of the board. In relig- ious and philanthropic and charitable work he has also been very deeply interested. He is a member of the Immanuel Presbyterian church
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of Los Angeles and for a number of years was an elder, resigning only within recent years.
The commercial life of Los Angeles in its phase of development and general upbuilding of the city has, however, been the most directly influenced by the ability and support of this able man. Shortly after coming to the city he formed a co-partnership with Rodney Hudson, then district attorney of Los Angeles county, which lasted during the term of Judge Hudson in that office. Later he continued his practice independently and met with great success, building up a strong and wealthy clientage. His outside interests, however, soon became so heavy that they required more and more of his time and attention, and eventually he re- tired from active practice, giving his attention entirely over to the management of his busi- ness interests and to his service to the city. His participation in the upbuilding of Los Angeles has been of more than ordinary im- port. He was president of the first street rail- way company, known as the Spring and Sixth Street Railroad Company, and was one of its organizers. This was later taken over by the Los Angeles Cable Company, of which he be- came a director. He was president of the first company for more than ten years, and scarcely less active in the affairs of the Los Angeles Cable Railway Company, although not its pres- ident. This company expended $2,000,000 in the building and equipment of cable railways in Los Angeles, and as one of their strongest directors Judge Hubbell was very influential in this development work.
Another important work to which he has contributed was in the service of the city as a park commissioner. He was one of three such commissioners to be first appointed by the gov- ernor of the state for laying out a park system for Los Angeles, and in this capacity he as- sisted in laying out the leading parks of the city.
At present Judge Hubbell is treasurer of the Hubbell Investment Company and an active participant in all its affairs of moment. In 1908 he built a residence on Arapahoe street, in the exclusive residence district, which he has fitted and furnished with rare taste and beauty. This home is one of the most delightful in this city of homes, Mrs. Hubbell being a woman of charming personality and the center of
an admiring circle of friends, while the distin- guished Judge is himself a genial host and a lovable friend and companion. He is a promi- nent member of the California Club, and also well known in the inner circles of the local organizations of the Republican party, he being a consistent party man and a firm and unfal- tering supporter of the party policy in which he possesses much influence.
Judge Hubbell is most happy in having his three children all settled in Los Angeles and in being the proud grandfather of a charming younger generation of Hubbells-the tenth of this illustrious family in America. Besides the son, who is associated with him in business, the two daughters are both married to prominent Los Angeles business men. Lora is the wife of William P. Jeffries, and is the mother of four children, Allerton, Sarah E., Dorothy Jane and Lawrence Loomis. Mary, the second daughter, is now Mrs. William P. Graves, Jr., and has one son, William P. The son Charles has a son Rex and a daughter Lila. His wife, to whom he was married in Los Angeles, was Miss Anna Cohen.
HENRY KIRKE WHITE BENT. Intimate identification with Los Angeles during the forma- tive period of civic development gave the name of the late Henry Kirke White Bent an honored place in the early annals. Nor was this associa- tion limited to one line of endeavor. Education, commerce, political progress and municipal ad- vancement alike felt the impetus of his encourag- ing interest and the benefit of his fostering spirit. With a devotion to city and state that never weakened in periods of depression, but remained stanch and firm through all the varying years of progress or retrogression, he gave of his best to the home of his adoption and formed one of that heroic band whose loyalty in many a crisis laid the foundation for ultimate prosperity and ren- dered possible the development of Los Angeles into the metropolis of the western coast. But he was not satisfied to see the development a material one only. It was his ambition to see the cause of education foremost in the west, and to this end he gave most efficient service to the Los Angeles Board of Education, besides giving of his time, influence and means to the establishment of the now widely known Pomona College at Claremont,
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
an institution that he assisted in founding in 1888 as a member of the original committee and as a trustee from the first until the failure of his health forced him to retire. During that period of educational efficiency he was president of the board of trustees for a number of years and for a year held office as acting president of the col- lege. No work of his busy life afforded him greater gratification than that in connection with the college at Claremont. He felt a deep pride in its rapid growth and the scholarly culture of its faculty, and he followed with keen interest the careers of its graduates.
Descended from English ancestry and the son of parents born and reared in Massachusetts, Henry Kirke White Bent was born at Weymouth in the old Bay State, October 29, 1831. Primarily educated in local schools and afterward a student at Williston Seminary, Easthampton, and at Mon- son (Mass.) Academy, he was prevented from entering Amherst college through trouble with his eyes. After going west he took up civil engineer- ing and was the first assistant engineer of the Kenosha & Rockford Railroad in Wisconsin, also served as field engineer on location surveys through Wisconsin for the Chicago & North- western Railroad. As early as 1858 he became a mining engineer in California, where he spent a year at French Corral, Nevada county. After teaching school for eighteen months at Downie- ville, in the fall of 1861 he was elected county surveyor of Sierra county and in addition until 1866 he pursued the work of a mining engineer. During his residence in Sierra county he served as public administrator, was a member of the board of examiners of public schools and during the Civil war held the chairmanship of the Re- publican county central committee. On account of failure of health he returned to the east for medical treatment, but deriving no benefit from a residence of two years in Boston, in October, 1868, he came to Los Angeles, where he was re- stored to health. Here for a time he acted as agent for the Santa Gertrudes Land Association. Later he engaged in the sheep business.
Perhaps the most useful period in the life of Mr. Bent was that of his residence in Los Angeles. Many local enterprises were benefited by his co- operation. When a mass meeting was held in the interests of establishing a public library, General Stoneman presided, and after discussion a com- mittee was appointed consisting of Governor
Downey, Messrs. Bent, Newmark, Caswell and Broderick. This committee formulated the plan of the present public library and with others com- prised the first library board of directors. Ef- fective work in the establishment of the library was only one of the many projects fostered by Mr. Bent. Active in political affairs, at one time he served as chairman of the Republican central committee of Los Angeles county, and from 1873 until 1877 he was postmaster of Los Angeles. He was a member of the committee that drew up the Los Angeles city charter preceding for many years the charter now in force. For several years he was vice-president and acting president of the Southern California Horticultural Society, at that time an important institution, but since merged into the state organization. In 1879 he was presi- dent of the Board of Education of Los Angeles. As chairman of the board of trustees of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles and as superintendent of the Sunday school, he was for many years a prominent member of that organ- ization and none surpassed him in devotion to movements for the upbuilding of Christianity and in the exemplification of Christian principles in his own thoughts and deeds. He was a man of such friendly temperament that he inspired af- fection in all who knew him, and exercised a strong personal influence for the best things in life. When he passed away, July 29, 1902, he was most missed in those activities which demanded high vision and unselfish labor for the material and spiritual interests of the community.
The first marriage of Mr. Bent had occurred in 1852, uniting him with Miss Jennie Crawford of Oakham, Mass., who died in 1876, leaving three children, namely: Mrs. Florence P. Halstead, born in 1855; Arthur S. and Henry Stanley. The second marriage of Mr. Bent was solemnized in 1878 and united him with Miss Mattie S. Fair- man, the sons of this union being Charles Edwin and Ernest Fairman. The eldest son, Arthur S., was born in 1863 and educated in the public schools of Los Angeles. His business life has been devoted to engineering contracting. The second son, Henry Stanley, born in 1873 and edu- cated in the public schools, became associated with his brother in the Arthur S. Bent Construction Company of Los Angeles. Charles E. was born in 1879, and in 1903 was graduated from Pomona College, Claremont. Since completing his educa-
A.S. Short
Matic, L, Short
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
tion he has engaged in the insurance business in Los Angeles. Ernest F., born in 1882, attended Pomona College and has taken up citrus culture in San Bernardino county.
ANDREW STEPHEN SHORB, M.D. The genealogy of the Shorb family is traced back to Prussian nobility. The great-grandfather of Dr. Shorb married a sister of Emperor William I and thus all of the descendants were of the royal blood of the Hohenzollerns. The first to establish the name on the western hemisphere was Jacob M. Shorb, a man of considerable wealth, but whose alliance with the reigning house of Prussia was an influence not sufficiently powerful to retain his citizenship in Germany. The large fleet of trading vessels which he owned carried the royal coat of arms and evidence of his kinship with royalty appeared in many of his personal belongings. A few of these have been preserved through all the passing years and now form prized souvenirs in the posses- sion of descendants. When Prince Henry, a brother of the present reigning Emperor, was entertained on a visit of state to this country, he met at the White House a member of the American branch of the family and recognized her identification with the Hohenzollern line through certain distinguishing marks charac- teristic of the men and women of the race.
Two generations of the Shorb family lived in the upper part of Maryland and were leaders of thought and commerce there. The name in a later generation became transplanted to Ohio, where Andrew Stephen Shorb was born at Can- ton, Stark county, April 12, 1837, a son of Adam L. and Maria L. (Bowen) Shorb. All through the American residence of the family they had belonged to the cultured, aristocratic class, knowing little of the privations and sufferings of poverty except through observation. In this respect Dr. Shorb was unusually fortunate. Advantages were given to him from the first and his early aspirations to study medicine were not thwarted by lack of means. From the time he was eleven until he was nineteen years of age he was a student in the laboratory of Dr. Matthews. Another well-known surgeon of Canton, Dr. Estep by name, also aided him in gaining a rudimentary knowledge of thera- 2
peutics. His diploma and the degree of MI. D. were received from the Pulta Medical College of Cincinnati, Ohio. On selecting a location for the practice of medicine he chose the city of Topeka in Kansas, a growing town whose op- portunities for professional work were fully equal to his anticipations and whose ready appreciation of his skill gave him a foremost place among local practitioners. Believing. however, that an even greater professional opportunity awaited him in Los Angeles, he came to this city in 1871 (at which time but four American physicians had preceded him), and from that time until his retirement two years before his death he was probably the leading local representative of the school of homeopathy.
The marriage of Dr. Shorb and Miss Mattie L. Blanchard was solemnized in Newark, Ohio, March 5, 1867, and was blessed with a daugh- ter, Lillie Belle, Mrs. F. A. Barnes, there being one granddaughter, Andrea Barnes. The Blanchard family comes of ancient and honored English ancestry, but several generations have lived in the United States, and George A. Blanchard, father of Mrs. Shorb, was a promi- nent and wealthy citizen of Newark, where she was born and educated. Both in Kansas and California Dr. Shorb maintained an intimate identification with various medical societies. From early life he was a constant student of the profession. Every phase of its advance- ment was of deepest interest to him. Although a disciple of homeopathy, he was not unwilling to note any development in other schools of medicine, but on the contrary he quickly availed himself in his practice of any remedial agency or discovery of value to the world. The science of medicine interested him as a practitioner and as a constant student of its mysteries. His love of the profession led him to study medical literature, current pro- fessional periodicals and reports of clinics, as well as to associate himself with societies whose members were those who like himself aimed to be worthy of their high calling.
For sixteen years Dr. Shorb officiated as treasurer of the Unitarian Church and his con- tributions to that organization were generous, as indeed were his donations to other move- )ments for the uplifting of humanity. Probably none of his charities, however, were more far-
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reaching or were received with more gratitude than those bestowed upon patients unable to remunerate him for his services. For years he kept in close touch with Masonry. Its prin- ciples of brotherhood appealed to his broad philanthropic spirit. No meetings were more enjoyable to him than those of Pentalpha Lodge No. 202, F. & A. M., and Acacia Chapter No. 32, R. A. M., and he was also a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. The profession of physician had taught him the necessity of proper care of the body, hence he was a man of irreproachable habits. Not only did he habit- ually refuse to partake of intoxicating liquors and tobacco in any form, but he even avoided the milder stimulants of tea and coffee. believ- ing them to be deleterious to the body. Al-
though perhaps less rugged than many, by the exercise of common sense in diet and sagacity in exercise and the care of the body, he pro- longed his life to the age of seventy-five, and his death, which occurred May 13, 1912, oc- curred only after two years of retirement from a fatiguing round of professional duties, civic responsibilities, the care of business invest- ments and the supervision of ranch holdings; nor indeed did these last two years mark a complete cessation of activities, for to one of his forceful energies the happiest hours were those of responsibility rather than rest. To his wife he left city and ranch property, bank stock and various other holdings that were the result of his sagacious investments and wise provision for her physical comfort in the twi- light of her life. To other physicians and to friends of the past his memory is dear as that of a man who gave his best to the alleviating of suffering and the remedying of those physical ills to which flesh is heir.
HON. CAMERON ERSKINE THOM. De- scended from a long line of distinguished ancestry, with a forebear in each generation who won for himself distinctive honors on the field of battle, a pedigree easily traceable to the sturdy Scotch Highlanders of the good old fighting days when the clans rallied around the standards of their indomitable leaders to bleed and if need be to die for their liberty, the late Capt. Cameron E. Thom lost none of the dash and dignity and valor
of his race, and his own record as a soldier and a gentleman will stand valiantly beside that of even the bravest of his forefathers, or the court- liest. His residence in Los Angeles had been long and continuous-except for his absence during the Civil war-and he had been so closely identi- fied with the life of the city in every phase of its development that no record would be complete without a detailed account of his multitudinous activities and interesting achievements. Himself a distinguished attorney, he helped to mold the standards of the profession and of the local courts ; as a business man of more than ordinary acumen and dependability and wisdom, he had a guiding hand on the "steering-wheel" in things commercial and aided in steering a safe course through more than one troubled sea ; a Democrat in political beliefs, he sat in the inner councils of his party and lent to its aid the sagacity of his wisdom and advice, and served it with more than ordinary ability and success. As a citizen, he never faltered in his duty to the city, whether in a private or official capacity, and as friend, busi- ness associate, counselor or mere acquaintance he won for himself a record of enviable character and lasting worth among men.
The life story of Captain Thom is as full of interest as a romance and contains as many thrilling experiences as a detective story or a tale of the South Seas. It crosses the continent in '49, and again in the '60s, and on many other occasions it takes the hero through fire and famine and flood-through civil strife and Indian war- fare and pioneering perils, and the hardships of early days, and leaves him at last in a charming home, amid friends and family, in a land of sun- shine and birds and flowers, where there is no winter and where the storms never beat. It is indeed almost a fairy tale from some enchanted volume of ancient lore.
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