USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume III > Part 4
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ANDREW MULLEN. Many years ago there might have been seen in a humble Irish home in county Mayo, and later in a more sub- stantial American home at Albany, N. Y., a family of ten sons, who supplemented the Celtic temperament with American enterprise. Concerning the next to the youngest of the
ten, Andrew Mullen, a stranger even then might have predicted a bright future for a lad so quick in perception, so intelligent in thought and so favored with sterling qualities of mind, yet perhaps few would have prog- nosticated that for the child in the lowly home fortune waited to bestow gifts rare and precious and greatly to be desired. A forceful intellect found avenues of development and growth notwithstanding the handicap of pri- vation. The coming of the family to America when he was quite small (he was born in county Mayo October 4, 1832) proved a dis- tinct forward step, as it gave him the advan- tage of an American training and an early experience in the commercial lines of enter- prise that have made our country great. Hav- ing endowed him with the Celtic temperament and favored him with an American training, destiny still further assisted him by implant- ing within his mind a powerful commercial instinct, a pronounced business ability, which during early life he developed by practical ex- perience in mercantile pursuits. Self-reliance, always a most conspicuous trait in his char- acter, impelled him to embark in a wholesale woolen business in Milwaukee, Wis., when his capital was so small that his chief asset was the confidence of bankers and business men. In due time he removed his headquar- ters to Chicago and there with a brother he engaged in the importing of woolens. Through energy and capability he rose to substantial prominence among leaders in com- merce and finance, and nothing less serious than the failure of his health would have im- pelled him to sever connections so congenial and profitable. Seeking the climate of Los Angeles from considerations of health alone, he soon regained his former strength and then associated himself with the upbuilding of what he believed would become ultimately the metropolis of the Pacific coast.
From the incorporation of the Mullen- Bluett Clothing Company in 1890 until the death of Mr. Mullen March 4, 1899, he re- mained its president and was to be found each day at his business headquarters, on the cor- ner of First and Spring streets. Other large business enterprises claimed his attention and enlisted his co-operation. Not only was he an organizer and promoter of the California Clay
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Manufacturing Company, but in addition he con- tinned to be a member of its directorate until his death. As an organizer and director he also was associated with the Columbia Trust Company and Citizens National Bank of Los Angeles. Be- lieving that the welfare of the city would be pro- moted by a Chamber of Commerce, he worked tirelessly for such an organization and when it had been organized he officiated as treasurer for some years. Governor Markham chose him as a member of the board of trustees of the Whittier state school and later he was elected president of the board. This service was distinctly non-partisan, for he was a Democrat politically, while the administration was Republican. His choice for the responsi- ble position was primarily a recognition of his executive ability and exceptional business qualifications.
The marriage of Mr. Mullen was sol- emnized in Brooklyn, N. Y., and united him with Miss Mary Teresa Deane, who was born in county Galway, daughter of Hon. Edward Deane, for years a prominent jurist in that part of Ireland. Eight children were born of their union. Only three are now living : Edward Francis, No. 4927 Rosewood avenue; Miss Marie Rose Mullen; and Mrs. George Allan Hancock, No. 3189 Wilshire boulevard, all of Los Angeles.
SUMNER J. QUINT, M. D. Descended from the old New England family of Went- worths, the first member of which came from England early in the seventeenth century, and from other ancestors who fought in the Revolu- tionary war, Dr. Sumner J. Quint, now of Los Angeles, was born in Lawrence, Mass., April 28, 1872, the son of Charles M. and Maria (Bur- roughs) Quint. The early education of Dr. Quint was received in the high school at Sanford, Me., and at the Y. M. C. A. night school at Ports- mouth, N. H. From 1893 to 1895 he also at- tended the New Hampshire Conference Seminary, and removing to Pomona, Cal., in 1895 he entered Pomona College and in the following year com- menced his course at the College of Medicine of the University of California, from which he was graduated in 1899 with the degree of M. D.
Immediately after graduation Dr. Quint be- came an interne in the California Hospital of Los Angeles, where he remained until 1900, at which time he became associated with the United States Marine Hospital, and in 1901 received the appointment to the office of assistant health officer of Los Angeles, which position he held until 1905. In that year he became junior chief police surgeon of Los Angeles, being appointed soon after to the post of senior chief police surgeon, in which position he made a remarkable record, it being due to his influence that the receiving hos- pital was separated from the police station and a new building erected for it. He resigned the post of chief surgeon in 1910, after about five years of important and successful work, and ac- cepted the position of chief surgeon of the French Hospital of Los Angeles, also acting as medical examiner for the Provident Savings Life As- surance Company of New York and for the Oc- cidental Life Insurance Company of California. During his university career he held the office of official druggist of the college and in 1901 was appointed instructor in materia medica, which position he resigned in 1907 to accept the post of instructor in surgery. He is still regarded as one of the most valuable members of the faculty of the University of California, with which college the medical college of the University of Southern California has been united.
Dr. Quint has been a prolific writer on sur- gery for the Los Angeles County Medical Society and his opinions on medical matters stand high in this state, he being a charter member of the Los Angeles Clinical and Pathological Society as well as a member of a number of other medical societies, namely : the American Medical Asso- ciation, the Los Angeles County Medical Asso- ciation, the Medical Society of the State of Cali- fornia and the Alumni Association of the Uni- versity of Southern California. During his col- lege days he became a member of Nu Sigma Nu and Theta Nn Epsilon and has later become a member also of the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks, the Royal Arch Masons (thirty-second degree) and the Mystic Shrine. His love of outdoor sports has led him to join the Automobile Club of Southern California and the American Automobile Asso- ciation, and his social clubs include the University, Union League, Knickerbocker, Pomona College and San Gabriel Country Clubs. At the Los
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Angeles aviation meets and at many of the auto- mobile races he has been chief surgeon and is also connected with the Red Cross and numer- ous charitable organizations.
The marriage of Dr. Quint in Los Angeles, June 11, 1902, united him with Miss Stella Mar- garet Wilson, and they are the parents of two children, George Waldo and Sumner Wilson Quint.
ARTHUR F. MORLAN. As secretary, gen- eral manager and a director of the Title Guar- antee and Trust Company of Los Angeles, which position he has held since 1913, Arthur F. Mor- lan occupies a high place in the confidence and esteem of the leading business men of this city. For many years he was associated with the ab- stract business in Los Angeles, first being identi- fied with the Los Angeles Abstract Company as a searcher of records, and later, when that com- pany merged with the Title Insurance and Trust Company, Mr. Morlan served in various capac- ities, rising eventually to the position of manager of the searching department, in which capacity he was occupied when he resigned, February 15, 1913, to accept his present position with the Title Guarantee and Trust Company. The reputation which Mr. Morlan has builded for himself during the long years of his residence in the City of the Angels is one of which he may justly be proud, and which gives him an enviable position among his fellow citizens.
Mr. Morlan is a native of Ohio, born in Salem, April 10, 1861, the son of N. A. and Emily F. Morlan. He attended the public and high schools of his native state until he was sixteen years of age, and then worked at the plumbing trade in Buffalo, N. Y., for two years, after which he became salesman for a wholesale grocery firm. This he followed for two years and then engaged in the retail grocery business for himself for a year, selling at the end of that time, and for three years engaging with Watts & Curtin, pri- vate detectives. He then came to Los Angeles and assumed the management of the retail grocery interests of George W. Kenyon, continuing in this capacity until 1888, when he returned to Buffalo, N. Y., and two years later entered the employ of the Buffalo Hammer Company as superintendent of their factory. It was in 1890 that Mr. Morlan returned to Los Angeles to make his per-
manent home here, having since that time resided continuously in this city. He at once entered the service of the Los Angeles Abstract Company as searcher of records, remaining in this same ca- pacity when this company merged with the Title Insurance and Trust Company, from which he re- signed in 1913 to accept his present position as secretary and general manager of the Title Guar- antee and Trust Company, of which he is also one of the directors.
Mr. Morlan is well known throughout the city in a social and fraternal way, quite apart from his business associations. He is a member of a num- ber of exclusive social organizations, including the Jonathan Club and the Los Angeles Country Club, also a member of the California Society Sons of the Revolution, and in his political affilia- tions is a Republican, although he has never been especially active in the affairs of his party. His marriage occurred in Buffalo, N. Y., July 20, 1887, uniting him with Miss Margaret W. Nicholls, of that city. Of their union has been born one child, a daughter, now Mrs. Stanley A. Visel, of Los Angeles.
HARVEY H. COX. Few men were better known in the real estate circles of the city of Los Angeles than the late Harvey H. Cox, who for more than twenty years had been interested in the progress and upbuilding of the city. He was born in Lafayette, Ind., March 30, 1867, the son of Edward E. and Mary Elizabeth (Smock) Cox. The latter came from an old New York family, and one-third of the estate of Trinity Church in that city belonged to the family. Harvey H. was educated in the public schools of La- fayette, and soon after he had completed the high school course he came to Los Angeles and became identified with the firm of A. Hamburger & Sons as manager of their shoe department. He soon became interested in real estate enterprises and after several years secured a position with Althouse Bros., remaining in their employ for almost twelve years. During this time he had saved some money and had become familiar with values, and foreseeing the great possibilities of the city, with a partner, E. F. Koster, he em- barked in the real estate business under the firm name of Koster & Cox, being connected with the office of W. I. Hollingsworth, an association that
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continued until the death of Mr. Cox. During the many years he was in the real estate business he put through many very important deals and he was always interested in every movement that had for its ultimate object the furthering of the best interests of the city and its people, and gave of his time and means toward worthy measures. He was a Republican in politics and was a mem- ber of the Independent Order of Foresters, hav- ing served five years as chief ranger of Court Morris Vineyard No. 152, of Los Angeles. On account of his cheery nature and jovial disposition he was known among his associates as "Happy Harvey."
Mr. Cox was united in marriage with Miss Jennie Reese, daughter of George W. and Elenor (Horton) Reese, the latter of London, England. The ceremony was celebrated October 30, 1888, in Los Angeles. Mr. Reese was a prominent citizen of St. Paul, Minn., serving as city treas- urer for a number of years, and also followed the contracting business in that city for twenty-five years. Two children were born of the union of Harvey H. Cox and his wife : Charlotte May, now the wife of James Donahue, and Shirley, attend- ing school in this city.
Mr. Cox had never known what it was to be ill, and when the last sickness came upon him he made light of it to his friends, and always had a cheery smile and joyful greeting for all. His wife and daughter had planned a trip to Alaska for a two months' stay and had reached their destination when Mrs. Cox felt uneasy about her husband's condition, he having been taken ill in the meantime, and immediately returned to his bedside and was with him at the end. Shortly before his death he was converted to the Catholic faith. At the passing of Harvey Cox Los Angeles lost one of her best and foremost citizens and his family a loving husband and father.
E. ROGER STEARNS. There is scarcely a business at the present time which is attracting to itself men of greater ability and commercial strength than is the automobile business in its several departments. The opportunities offered are such as to give wide scope for the exercise of many faculties and men of the highest type are engaging both in the manufacturing and selling end of the enterprise. One such who was for a
number of years a well-known and influential citizen of Los Angeles was E. Roger Stearns, who was for the last few years of his life vice- president and general manager of the Pacific Kissel Kar Company, whose headquarters are in this city. Previous to that he had been associated with several different automobile companies, both here and in the east, and was known as one of the best informed and most thoroughly reliable automobile men in the west. He was active in all lines of interest to motorists, and his death, which occurred July 29, 1913, was a severe loss to the industry on the coast and especially in Los Angeles.
Mr. Stearns was a native of Massachusetts, born in Newton, June 25, 1883, the son of Walter H. and Jessie L. (Bowker) Stearns, both well known in Newton and Boston, the father being engaged in the automobile business in the latter city for many years. The son received his edu- cation in the public schools of Boston and after completing his schooling began working for his father, learning all the details of the business in which he afterward proved such an important factor. After a year spent in the business with his father in New York City he later became associated with the Ford people, taking charge of their business, which was then located in the basement of Wanamaker's store. Six months later he opened the Ford agency on Broadway in New York and sold cars for them for three years, when he went to Buffalo and took charge of their branch there, meeting with splendid success dur- ing the year that he filled that position.
It was in 1909 that Mr. Stearns came from Buffalo to Los Angeles as manager of the Ford agency here. At that time the company handling the Ford cars here was known as the Standard Motor Car Company, and they also handled the Baker Electric. Later they relinquished the Ford agency and took up the Stoddard-Dayton with the Baker Electric. Six months after Mr. Stearns took over the management of the Ford concern they took the agency for the Kissel Kar and the name was changed to the Pacific Kissel Kar Com- pany, of which he was elected vice-president and general manager, and continued as such until the time of his death.
Aside from his sterling business qualities, Mr. Stearns was in the broadest sense of the word a citizen of worth and was popular with a wide circle of friends. He was especially interested in
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all questions of value to the motorist and for some time was president of the Automobile Dealers' Association of Southern California. He was also a member of the Athletic Club and of the Jona- than Club, was a thirty-second degree Mason and a member of Al Malaikah Shrine of Los Angeles.
The marriage of Mr. Stearns took place in New York City, March 22, 1903, uniting him with Madeline E. Gerhardt, a native of that city and the daughter of Jacob and Louise (Hubert) Ger- hardt. She is the mother of two children, a daughter, Madeline, aged nine years, and a son, E. Roger, Jr., aged five. Since the death of her husband Mrs. Stearns has continued to make her home in Los Angeles, where she is widely known in social circles and a general favorite with many friends.
JAMES MARTIN PEEBLES, M. D., M. A., Ph. D. The ancestry of this remarkable man is as interesting and unusual as his life itself. Since the fourteenth century the Peebles clan has been identified with Scottish history. Those who wore the colors of the clan made their rallying place at Peebles castle on the Tweed. Sir Walter Scott depicts Earl John Peebles as a doughty warrior, while Burns, the favorite poet of Dr. Peebles, alludes in musical terms to the brave clan of Peebleshire. It was in the ancient town of Peebles in the shire of the same name that the first records of the family history emerge from traditional lore into au- thenticity and that the members received titles making them eligible to seats in the national parliament. There is reason to believe that, prior to recorded history and even as far back as the era of Julius Caesar, the family had its habitat in Italy. The name (from the Roman, meaning "mingling of the bloods") was a prophecy of the restless activity of the family, which in every generation has given to the world a large number of independent thinkers, social reformers and revolutionary leaders.
As early as 1718 some who bore the name crossed the ocean to the Massachusetts colony and under Rev. Mr. Abercrombie bore a part in establishing a settlement at Pelham. Later generations became identified with Vermont, where, at Whitingham, Windham county, March 23, 1822, James Martin Peebles was born into the home of James and Nancy (Brown) 22
Peebles. That same village was the birthplace of Brigham Young, for years the president of the Mormon church. The Peebles home at Whitingham was a log cabin, wherein the mother of seven children did all of her house- work, spun the flax for the household linen and helped raise the flocks from whose backs the wool was clipped that with her own hands she made into cloth, then cut and sewed into garments for the entire family. At night the only light was the glow of candles dipped by her own hands. When the children were ill the only medicine used came from her herbs, drying in bunches over the fireplace, where also hung strings of red peppers and dried apples as well as ears of corn for seed and ( most import- ant of all) the old flint-lock rifle of Revolutionary fame, with the powder horn. The mother was a woman of noble character and stern but kindly temperament, rearing her five sons and two daughters to be obedient, industrious and honest, teaching them less by precept than by the example of her own blameless life. Her children never saw her with idle hands. Al- though she lived to be eighty-eight, to the last she was capable and energetic ; her only day of rest was on Sunday, when with a rose in her hand she went to church and led the choir. With the aid of her little tuning fork and her own excellent ear for music, she led in the singing of the great old hymns of faith and worship. In the neighborhood Aunt Nancy (for by that title she was lovingly called) was sum- moned to the bedside of the suffering and to aid in the last offices for the dead. In sickness her herbs were administered with judgment, but even more helpful was the power of her capable assistance and personal sympathy. Her husband, a farmer and for some years a captain of militia in the southern division of Vermont, held several town offices and was liked as an honest and good-natured man, but, lacking in judgment, at last his land slipped away from him. The mother and the growing children made another home and eventually became in- dependent under their own rooftree. While aiding them to escape from poverty the mother taught her children to be self-reliant, ambitious and purposeful in life, and as she had been an excellent disciplinarian as a schoolteacher in her girlhood days, so also she was most efficient in the rearing of her own children. Much of
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their later success they owed to her stern but affectionate upbringing and to the inculcation of sound moral tenets in their character. It was her desire that they should early learn the Bible and, with them at her side, she daily read from her large black-letter Scriptures, follow- ing text after text with her first finger, while reading aloud the words of wisdom.
When scarcely more than ten years of age Dr. Peebles began to attend anti-slavery meet- ings, where he formed the acquaintance of William Lloyd Garrison, later an intimate friend and co-worker. It was during the '30s indeed that he began to form positive convic- tions concerning the abolition of slavery and from these opinions he never wavered, even when they brought him the most intense criti- cism and personal danger. Advancing mentally far more rapidly than others of his age, he was able to teach school with success at the age of sixteen. The schools of that period were quite dissimilar from those of the present era. Each morning it was the custom to devote con- siderable time to the mending of the quills used for pens. The standard text-books were Daboll's arithmetic, Gould-Browne's grammar and Greenleaf's speller. Many of the pupils were older and larger than the teacher, who conquered usually by kindness instead of the ferule and won the ardent friendship of the young people in his charge. The money earned by teaching was utilized in the advancement of his own studies and after studying in a select school at Binghamton, N. Y., and in Oxford Academy in the same state, he entered the Uni- versalist ministry at the age of twenty. The decision to enter the ministry of a denomination alien to the orthodox faith of that day came about through a number of circumstances, chief among these being the death and funeral of his chum, Jerry Brown, a youth of excellent character and irreproachable conduct, but not identified with any church. The preacher de- livered a terrifying sermon that so wrought upon the heart of the bereaved and anguished mother that she suddenly shrieked out, "Will I never see my darling boy again?" "Perhaps, for a few minutes only, on the day of judgment," thundered forth the elder from the pulpit, "but then you will go one way and Jerry another, for the boy is eternally damned because he died without religion !" On hearing these dread-
ful words the poor mother lost her mind and never regained her senses to the day of her death, some years afterward.
The first sermon of the young Universalist preacher was delivered at McLean, N. Y., and he held pastorates at Kelloggsville, Elmira, Oswego and other points. Adopting as his motto, "The world is my parish and truth my authority," and taking as his creed the phrase "Freedom of thought is the birthright of the soul," he became one of the leaders in the re- ligious, temperance, anti-slavery, suffrage and social reformations that began to sweep over the land and that brought him into intimate friendship with Theodore Parker, Phillips, Foster, Rev. Samuel J. May, Henry C. Wright, Lucretia Mott, John Brown, Dr. Chapin, Horace Mann and Thomas K. Beecher, a half- brother of Henry Ward Beecher. While T. K. Beecher was pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Elmira, N. Y., he became much attracted by the profound mind of Dr. Peebles, then pas- tor of the Universalist Church in the same city, while the latter in turn appreciated the great- hearted charity of the other minister and his progressive spirit in fitting up an institutional church with library, gymnasium, free baths and meals, as well as a free employment bureau that found work for the temporary recipients of its benefactions. These reformers in re- ligion, education and anti-slavery were far from popular in their day, but their unconquerable determination and invincible force of character were largely effective in changing the history of our nation. Of them all Dr. Peebles most resembled Theodore Parker in type of mind and clearness of thought. The two were intellectual brothers, alike in their desire to serve humanity. In later years Dr. Peebles, during one of his five trips around the world, made a special trip to the grave of his one-time co-worker and breathed a prayer over the reformer's last rest- ing place, in Florence, not far from the broad smooth stone marked, "E. B. B.," the tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
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