USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume III > Part 31
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Because of the fact that this company manu- facture all of their product in Los Angeles and employ only local workmen, they have been awarded large contracts by the local architects and owners, who know the work will be kept at home; and they also pride themselves on paying the highest wages and salaries in Southern Cali- fornia, thereby securing the best skilled labor in the market.
The officers of the Southern California Hard- wood and Manufacturing Company are as fol- lows: R. H. Raphael, president ; Mark Turnbull, first vice-president; Earl M. Champion, second vice-president and general superintendent; D. Woodhead, secretary and director, who was for- merly with the Beaumont Lumber Company, at Beaumont, Tex .; Louis Machol, treasurer and director, who began with this company in 1903 as cashier and bookkeeper, and was elected to his present offices in 1905.
Mr. Champion, who fills the offices of second vice-president and general superintendent in the company, was born at Aiken, S. C., and came to Los Angeles in 1903, when he engaged with the J. M. Griffith Mill Company as superintendent and remained until December, 1905. At that time he became general superintendent of the South- ern California Hardwood and Manufacturing Company, of which in 1913 he was elected second vice-president.
CHARLES W. BOHNHOFF. A native of Germany, where he was born September 9, 1870, the son of Frederick Bohnhoff, C. W. Bohnhoff, now a wholesale lumber dealer in Los Angeles, came to this country with his parents in 1872 and settled in Saginaw, Mich., where he received his education in the public schools. At the age of fifteen years Mr. Bohnhoff engaged with the Ger- main Sash, Door and Box Company as an appren- tice, at the small sum of fifty cents per day, re- maining with this firm for three years, when he was employed as shipping clerk by the Walter A. Avery Lumber Company, where he also acted as salesman, leaving that company in 1899, which was the year of his removal to Los Angeles. Arriving in this city, he found employment for two months with the Alta Planing Mill as grader, at the end of which time he became general man- ager for a large Los Angeles lumber company, an office which he filled until the year 1911, when he
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went into the wholesale lumber business inde- pendently, under the name of C. W. Bohnhoff, and he has continued in the business ever since, employing from ten to fifteen men and doing a large business in both Southern California and Arizona. He carries a large stock of sugar and white pine, of which woods he furnishes an an- nual contract to the public schools of the city, also dealing extensively in high grade hardwood lum- ber, manufacturing panels and veneers, handling fancy veneers and fancy woods of all kinds, for the production of which he has the most up-to- date machinery.
In his fraternal interests Mr. Bohnhoff is as- sociated with the Maccabees and the Fraternal Brotherhood. He was married in Saginaw, Mich., and with his wife makes his home at No. 925 Judson street, Los Angeles.
GEORGE IRA HAM. Mexico City has attracted many of the brightest and brainest men of the United States and Canada through the splendid opportunities that, in happier years gone by, she held out to the man of ability and application, and not a few have later re- turned to Southern California to enjoy the fruits of years of profitable business application in the southern republic. Among these may be mentioned the late George Ira Ham, who for many years took an active part in the busi- ness affairs of the Mexican capital, being one of its ablest financiers. He was a native of Canada, born at Napanee, Ontario, the son of Ira Ham, who for many years was reeve of the county and a very prominent citizen and an extensive land owner. The son was reared and educated in his native province, and later en- gaged for himself in the grocery business there. He desired larger opportunities, however, and felt that these could be found best in Mexico. Accordingly, in 1891, he went to Mexico City, where he engaged first in the insurance busi- ness with much success, later transferring his interests to the railroad business, where he was prominent for many years, eventually becom- ing engaged in brokerage and banking. He at one time made a decided financial success of all these undertakings and accumulated an appre- ciable fortune. Later he returned to the United States, locating in Southern California, where death found him in April, 1914.
With Mr. Ham throughout his years in Mexico was his wife, whom he had espoused in 1884 in Canada, where she was well known as Miss Margaret Breden. In 1906 he gave her, as a birthday gift, a tract of sixty-four acres, near Whittier, this county, set to walnuts. Mrs. Ham has taken a great interest in the property, where she now makes her home, and which she has named Rose Hedge Grove, in honor of the beautiful rose hedge with which she has or- namented the roadway. She has added to her holdings until at this time she has eighty-six acres, all in walnuts, part of these being in the budded walnuts which are bringing fancy prices in the present markets. She has made a suc- cess of her venture in walnut culture and is one of the most prominent walnut growers in the Whittier district, her crop for 1914 having been over sixteen hundred marketed sacks. She has the modern "Sidwell" system for cleaning, sorting and packing installed in her packing house and all the work of handling the crop is carried on in the most scientific manner.
Another interest of Mrs. Ham is exhibited in the breeding of thoroughbred chickens, her favorite strains being Leghorns, Black Minor- cas and Plymouth Rocks, in all of which she has some exceptionally handsome birds, of which she is justly proud.
Mr. and Mrs. Ham were the parents of two children, a son and a daughter. Of these the son, Harry Breden Ham, owns a large lemon orchard near Rose Hedge Grove, while the daughter is the wife of E. Elliot Palmer, the vice-consul-general of Paris, France.
HARRY S. HITCHCOCK. The treasurer of the Baker Iron Works of Los Angeles, Cal., Harry S. Hitchcock, is a man who received only a public school education, yet has worked himself up in the business world. He has had wide and prac- tical experience in the manufacture of machinery. The son of Abraham and Mary F. Hitchcock, he was born in Cecil county, Md., February 18, 1869, and attended school until the age of ten years, when he was employed by the Mccullough Iron Company as office boy, where he worked himself up to the position of assistant manager, having continued his education by attending a night school while employed by the Mccullough Iron
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Company during the day. In 1893 he resigned his position as assistant manager with this firm to become manager of the Elwood Steel Company at Elwood City, Pa., where he remained one year, going thence to New York city, where he held the office of systematizer with the Mergenthaler Linotype Company for five years, a position which he later filled for two years in the Buffalo Forge Company, at Buffalo, N. Y., and for one year in the Baldwin Locomotive Works, at Philadel- phia. Coming to Los Angeles, he engaged as purchasing agent and treasurer with the Baker Iron Works of this city, at the present time hav- ing charge of the purchasing of all material and supplies for the company.
Mr. Hitchcock is a Mason, member of Pen- talpha Lodge No. 202, and holds membership also in the Jonathan and Sierra Madre Clubs of Los Angeles. He is a member of the First Congrega- tional Church, and in his political interests is allied with the Republicans. He was united in marriage in 1910 with Aileen Potts, whose father was the late A. W. Potts, of Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock are the parents of three daughters, Edith, Helen and Mildred.
WILL P. STEVENS. Until the year 1903, Will P. Stevens, of Los Angeles, was engaged in the manufacture of mining machinery, but since that time has confined himself to building re- trigerating machinery at his factory situated at Nos. 1630 to 1636 Long Beach avenue, Los Angeles. When he commenced his business, Mr. Stevens performed all the work alone, but now he has thirty people in his employ, and the in- dustry has so increased that he is now seeking larger and more commodious quarters. Mr. Stevens' ice-making machinery can be found throughout Arizona, Nevada, Mexico and Hono- lulu, as well as California, his product being pur- chased by hotels, restaurants, clubs, butchers, grocers, ice factories and creameries, among his patrons being the Hotel Alexandria, Los Angeles ; the Maryland Hotel, Pasadena; the Alpine Tav- ern, Mount Lowe; the Virginia Hotel, Long Beach ; the U. S. Grant Hotel, San Diego, and El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon, Ariz .; Casa Blanca Hotel, Ontario, Cal .; the Elks Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club and the California Club of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Country Club and the Pilgrim Club of Southern California, the
Annandale Country Club, Pasadena ; the Crescent Creamery, Newberry & Co., Bishop & Co., Mess- more & Sons, Al Levy, and the Southern Pacific Railroad depot restaurant, all of Los Angeles ; the Tulare County Co-operative Creamery, in Tulare county, Cal .; the Lucerne Creamery at Hanford, Cal .; the Co-operative Creamery at Visalia, Cal .; the Cream Supply at Angiola, Cal .; the Snowden Creamery at Lancaster, Cal .; the Flowing Well Creamery at Tucson, Ariz., and Vogel's Meat Market at Buckeye, Ariz.
Mr. Stevens, whose manufacturing work along this line has become so well and so widely known, is a native of Minnesota, where he was born in the city of Jackson, in September, 1863, the son of Solon P. Stevens. He attended the public schools at Mankato, Minn., and the high school at Sioux City, Iowa, at the age of fifteen years be- coming apprenticed to the machinist's trade, where he was employed in a boiler shop for a period of seven years, after which he traveled all over the country as a machinist. In 1886 he was employed by the Interstate Cooling Association in Chicago, as erecting engineer, a position which he held for three years, going thence to New York city and engaging in the same capacity for nine years with the Delavergne Ice Machinery Company, and con- tinuing this line of work with Fred W. Wolf for the two years succeeding, later establishing him- self independently in the same business, where he continued for the space of two years. Removing to St. Louis, Mo., Mr. Stevens engaged with the St. Louis Ice, Coal and Machine Company as erecting engineer, leaving their employ in 1894, when he came west to Portland, Ore., and became consulting engineer with the Blue Mountain Ice Company, later acting in the capacity of assistant manager of the firm for two years. Thence he came to Los Angeles and engaged as consulting engineer with the Los Angeles Ice and Cold Stor- age Company, in 1901 setting up in business for himself as a builder of mining machinery, two years later devoting himself entirely to the man- ufacture of ice machinery, an occupation in which he has met with remarkable success, he now be- ing well known as a manufacturer of this line of machinery.
A member of the National Association of Stationary Engineers, Mr. Stevens is also inter- ested in fraternal affairs, being a Mason of the Scottish Rite degree and a Shriner, as well as a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Benev-
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olent and Protective Order of Elks. By his mar- riage in Sioux City, Iowa, June 20, 1886, Mr. Stevens was united with Miss Cora E. Willey, and they are the parents of four children, namely : Loren E., Leon J., Irene Gertrude and Will P., Jr., the three sons being in business with their father, the daughter making her home with her parents.
EDWARD S. IRVIN. In 1903 the Los An- geles Can Company was started by F. F. Stetson and T. J. Spencer, under the name of the Stetson- Spencer Can Company, being incorporated in 1904, at which time F. F. Stetson was elected president, T. J. Spencer vice-president, E. S. Irvin secretary and F. B. McCrosky treasurer. When they started in business the company em- ployed only twenty-five people, while today they employ one hundred and fifty, and the industry, which comprises the manufacture of a general line of tin cans, is well known all over Southern California.
The secretary of the Los Angeles Can Com- pany, Mr. Irvin, was born at Valparaiso, Ind., January 19, 1860, the son of Samuel and Catha- rine (Keller) Irvin, and received his education in the public schools, at the age of seventeen com- mencing to teach school, which pursuit he fol- lowed until twenty years of age, when he became engaged as a clerk in a drug store. After follow- ing this profession for five years, Mr. Irvin en- tered the dry goods business, being for three years employed as a clerk in a dry goods store. Remov- ing to Los Angeles, he continued in the dry goods business, as clerk in the store of H. C. Worland for three years, after which he was for two years a chainman in the city engineer's department. At the close of that period he became associated with the business of the manufacture of cans, being first engaged in the cost department of the Ameri- can Can Company until the year 1903, when he associated himself with the Los Angeles Can Company, of which firm he was the succeeding year elected secretary.
The marriage of Mr. Irvin with Hattie Bryant was solemnized in Hebron, Ind., in January, 1884, and they are the parents of a son and daughter, namely, Samuel B. and Ruth H. Irvin. In his political interests Mr. Irvin is allied with the Democratic party, and in his fraternal associations he is a member of the Masons.
WILLIAM LEONARD ROBEY. William Leonard Robey, the superintendent of the Pa- cific Metal Products Company at Torrance, Cal., was born June 26, 1870, in Ardington, Berkshire, England, the only son of the late Wil- liam Robey; was educated at Ardington school and the Wantage High School. At the age of fifteen years, finding employment with Gibbons & Robinson, Limited, general engineers, manu- facturers of steam, oil and gas tractors, at Wantage, Berkshire, England, Mr. Robey re- mained with this company seven years, being first an apprentice, and later a machinist. At the close of his employment with this firm he went to Hampshire, England, and engaged with Wallis & Steevens, Ltd., engineers and machinists, manu- facturers of motor wagons and tractors, both steam and oil, in a line of work similar to his first employment. Mr. Robey remained one year as a machinist, going thence to Devizes, Wilt- shire, England, in the employ of Brown & May, Ltd., general engineers, manufacturers of gas, oil and steam motor wagons and traction engines, re- maining with this company for ten years; leaving them to enter the employ of John Spencer, Ltd., engineers and machinists, Melksham, Wiltshire, England, where Mr. Robey remained two years.
Thence going to Bishop's Stortford, Herts, England, in the employ of George Featherby Company, manufacturers of deep well machinery, general engineers, motor wagons and motor cars, holding the position of superintendent ; leaving this company after a period of three years. Mr. Robey came to California in the year 1909. Arriving in Los Angeles, he entered the employ of the Pio- neer Commercial Auto Company, agents for White and G. M. C. motor trucks. At the end of one year he was employed by F. L. Moore to assist him to design and build the first Moore motor truck. At the end of one year Mr. Robey returned to the employ of the Pioneer Commer- cial Auto Company as superintendent. At the end of another year he accepted the position of superintendent of automobiles for the Pacific Light and Power Corporation. After a year's service with this company F. L. Moore, then man- ager of the Pacific Metal Products Company, secured the services of Mr. Robey, to take the position of factory superintendent, to supervise the manufacture of the Moore motor truck, which position he now holds.
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While residing in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, Mr. Robey was united in marriage, August 4, 1896, with Eva, the youngest daughter of the late William Pitt of Garsdon, Wiltshire, England. They are the parents of three children: Dorothy Eva, William Leonard and Ernest Arthur.
JOHN M. BOWEN. Of the many able young lawyers of the Los Angeles county bar John M. Bowen stands out prominently as one who has made rapid strides towards the top, both politically and professionally. He is engaged in general law practice, having recently resigned a good position as a special attorney in the Department of Justice of the federal government in order to be free to take up the broader field of the regular prac- titioner.
J. M. Bowen was born at Boston, Mass., Sep- tember 10, 1881, the son of Marcus and Josephine M. Bowen. His early education was received in the grammar and high schools of his native city. Graduating at the age of seventeen, he held the office of secretary to Congressman John A. Keli- her of Boston for a year and a half, after which he turned his attention to the law, taking a course in the law department of the University of Michi- gan, from which he was graduated in 1905. Re- turning to Boston, he resumed his position as secretary to Congressman Keliher, in the mean- time taking an additional degree at the George- town University Law School. In 1909 he gave up the secretaryship and undertook the practice of law in Boston, after one year being appointed special agent in the Department of Justice at Washington, D. C., with stations at Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland, Cincinnati and many other large cities of the United States. In 1911 Mr. Bowen assumed charge of the Middle Western District of the same bureau, with head- quarters at St. Paul, Minn., which he left in July, 1913, to take charge of the Southwestern District, the fourth largest and most important district in the United States, and making his headquarters at Los Angeles.
Mr. Bowen did valuable work under the direct supervision of A. B. Bielaski, Chief of the Bureau of Investigation of the United States Govern- ment, which bureau was organized in 1908 for the purpose of investigating violations under the federal anti-trust, white slave, fugitive and neu-
trality laws. It was from this important position that he resigned in 1915 in order to take up a more general law practice as hereinbefore stated. Recently he has secured office connection with Oscar Lawler, formerly assistant attorney-general at Washington under President Roosevelt. Mr. Bowen engages in a general law practice and is meeting with good success. The office is located at 518 Security building.
Mr. Bowen's record has been one of steady advancement. His continued study of the law during the years of his secretaryship won his de- gree in that profession and laid the foundation upon which his present splendid work is built. In political life, his interests are with the Democratic party ; fraternally he is identified with the Knights of Columbus; and his religious affiliations are with the Catholic church. He was married on April 17, 1908, to Miss Alice C. Farrell in Wash- ington, D. C.
WILLIAM HOWE KENNEDY. Before coming to Los Angeles, William Howe Kennedy had won his spurs as a man of large affairs, having been variously connected with "big busi- ness" and capitalists in New York, Boston, Phila- delphia and other eastern centers, and being also well known in the West, having been located at Denver, Colo., for some time. Mr. Kennedy has been especially active in the mortgage business, insurance, stocks and bonds, and in extensive real estate transactions throughout the country. Since coming to Los Angeles he has assumed a promi- nent place in the financial life of the city and state and is recognized as a man of more than ordinary ability and worth. He is at present vice-president and manager of the Fifty Associates of Cali- fornia, formerly the Pierce-Kennedy Company, and is interested with wealthy Pasadena men in the development of several large mineral deposits.
Mr. Kennedy is of Scotch-Irish descent, and is a native of Iowa, having been born at Des Moines, February 12, 1872, the son of Josiah Forest and Mary (Riegart) Kennedy, his father being a prominent physician in Des Moines. He attended the public schools of his native city, and later also attended the Highland Park College and the Baptist College at Des Moines. At an early age he displayed an aptitude for financial matters, and was scarcely out of college when he was assuming a prominent place in the business life of his home
spitalch
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city. In 1895, when he was but twenty-three years of age, he assumed the management of the Northwestern Life and Savings Company, a posi- tion which he occupied until 1900. He then moved to Denver, Colo., where he took over the western management for the same company, his territory being the states west of the Missouri river. In 1902 he returned to the east, locating in Philadelphia, where he was manager for the National Life Insurance Company, for eastern states, and from 1904 to 1907 he was manager for the agencies in the United States for the Middle- sex Banking Company of New York. In 1907 he went into the general bond and stock business in New York, remaining thus for four years, and in 1909 became associated with Dr. V. Mott Pierce and other eastern capitalists in the opera- tion of coal lands and timber lands in the southern states, being in this connection for two years.
It was in 1911 that Mr. Kennedy came to Cali- fornia, locating in Los Angeles, where he has since made his home. He immediately organized the Pierce-Kennedy Company, of which he be- came a director and also vice-president and man- ager, and in this capacity has kept his fingers always on the financial pulse of the Southland. He has been identified with several large financial transactions, having been instrumental in floating the stock of the Provident Pledge Corporation, the Prudential Loan and Savings Corporation and the United States Mortgage Company.
The marriage of Mr. Kennedy and Miss Adelle Satterlee occurred at Dunlap, Iowa, in 1897. Of their union have been born two sons, Donald and William, both attending high school in Los An- geles. Both Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy have many warm personal friends in the city, and Mr. Ken- nedy is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Gamut Club and the Sierra Madre Club, and an associate member of the Realty Board.
HON. DAVID PATTERSON HATCH. Not far distant from the rugged and deeply indented coast of Maine, equally removed from the placid waters of the Kennebec river and the swelling waves of the Atlantic ocean, stands the little village of Dresden, Lincoln county, where Judge Hatch was born November 22, 1846. There several generations of the family had lived and labored, and there he passed his
own uneventful but plastic years of youth. Love of learning, a trait distinctly characteristic of preceding generations of the family, impelled him toward self-culture and led him to seek the highest educational advantages the state af- forded. After he had graduated from the Maine Wesleyan Seminary in 1871 he matriculated in the law school connected with the University of Michigan, from which he received the degree of LL.B. in 1872. During the fall of the same year he was admitted to practice before the supreme court of the state of Minnesota and opened an office in St. Paul, but soon removed to Fergus Falls, Ottertail county, in the same state. Recognition of his legal knowledge came in 1873 with his election to the office of district attorney. During the next year he was united in marriage with Miss Ida Stilphen, who survives him, together with their three chil- dren : Bruce, formerly labor commissioner of California, but now of New York City ; Mrs. Ida (Hatch) Thurber, of Los Angeles; and David P., Jr., an attorney-at-law, who has car- ried on his father's work since the latter's death.
On April 1, 1875, Judge Hatch arrived in California and established a home in Santa Barbara, where he gave some time to the re- cuperation of his health, impaired by the rigor- ous climate of his far northern environment. He was at once admitted to the California bar and immediately became engaged in profes- sional work. In San Francisco, on January 21, 1880, he was admitted to practice in the United States district and circuit courts, later being admitted to the United States Supreme Court at Washington, D. C.
In October, 1875, he formed a partnership with Hon. E. B. Hall of West Virginia. The firm of Hall & Hatch continued until he was appointed by Governor William Irwin to fill a vacancy on the Santa Barbara county superior court bench, caused by the death of Hon. Eugene Fawcett. Judge Hatch was elected superior judge of Santa Barbara county in November, 1880, and re- elected in 1884. He was a learned, just and im- partial judge, and at the same time a faithful type of citizen, interested always in the com- munity welfare. Deep knowledge of fundamental law was evidenced in all his decisions, as he never was reversed while on the bench. At the request of Judge Anson Bronson of the Los Angeles county bench, he was retired by the Governor
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