USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume III > Part 46
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It was in November, 1914, that Father Galla- gher came to Hollywood, Cal., to take charge of the parish which now (1915) has a membership of five hundred families and a church that is filled every Sunday, and bids fair to prosper equally as well under the guidance of Father Gallagher as have the churches that formerly were in his care. The church, with its attractive grounds containing many varieties of trees, shrubs and flowers, offers a pleasing prospect as well as a busy field of labor.
The parochial school, which was opened to the children of the parish February 1, 1915, was due to the efforts of the Jesuit Fathers, assisted by the able and energetic people of the parish, and is in charge of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart, whose work along educational lines has become widely known for its efficiency. The parish feels greatly indebted to Rev. D. O. Crowley, of San Francisco, for his great interest in the school.
AUBREY E. AUSTIN. Amos M. Austin, the father of Aubrey E. Austin, although a Canadian by birth, was active in forwarding the interests of California towns in the early days of the progress of the state. Removing to the United States in 1863 from Canada, where he was born
August 15, 1844, and educated in Hamilton Col- lege, Amos M. Austin first settled in Kansas City, Mo., where for a while he taught school, later making his home near San Francisco, Cal., where he engaged in farming until 1878, in which year he removed to Monterey, the old capital of Cali- fornia. There he engaged in railroad contracting, building the first railway between Salinas and Monterey, which he completed in 1881, thereafter being engaged in the grain business until in 1885 he sold out his business and came to Los Angeles, Cal., engaging here in paving contracting until his death, which occurred in 1907.
The son, A. E. Austin, was born November 10, 1880, during the residence of his parents, Amos M. and Amy Jean (Strachan) Austin, in Monte- rey, and received his education in the grammar and high schools. At the age of seventeen he engaged in the real estate business with the firm of Drew & Lapworth as salesman, remaining with them until 1900. In that year he entered the em- ploy of Edward D. Silent & Co., real estate deal- ers, continuing as salesman with this firm until 1903, at the time of his resignation having risen to the position of manager of the real estate department of the company. Mr. Austin next associated himself with the real estate firm of C. J. Hyler & Co., of which he became vice-president, in 1905 entering into partnership with a Mr. Dolton in the same business, under the name of Dolton & Austin, a partnership which continued until 1907. In that year Mr. Austin sold his interest and went into the paving contracting busi- ness with William F. Bryant, the firm being known as the Bryant & Austin Company. Under this partnership they carried on the business left by Amos M. Austin at his death, the latter's son being vice-president of the company, and after the death of his partner, in April, 1915, Mr. Austin became president of the firm. From a small beginning, with only thirty men in its employ, the Bryant & Austin Paving Company has become a large concern, employing today an aver- age of from three to four hundred men, and is the owner of its asphalt plant, the yards covering four acres. Besides the presidency of this firm, Mr. Austin is also prominently connected with other large business interests, being president of the Austin, Bryant & Carter Oil Company, vice- president of the Holloway Paving Company, of Pasadena, Cal., and secretary and treasurer of the Braun, Bryant & Austin Company, of Venice, Cal.
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He holds membership in the Los Angeles Cham- ber of Commerce, the Municipal League, Union League, the San Gabriel Valley Country Club and the Native Sons of California. In his political interests he is a member of the Republican party, and his religious associations are with the Presby- terian Church. By his marriage to Miss Ada H. Henry in Los Angeles, January 30, 1911, he is the father of one child, Audrey Bell Austin.
CHARLES H. SHARP. One of the promi- nent railroad contractors of Los Angeles, Cal., is Charles H. Sharp, president of the Sharp & Fel- lows Company, who has been in the railroad busi- ness since the age of twenty-three years. Born in Athens, Ohio, March 3, 1859, the son of John and Martha (Arbaugh) Sharp, he received his education in the public schools of Washington, D. C., until the age of ten years, and at a district school in Vinton county, Ohio. During his school years he worked on his father's farm, and at the age of fifteen drove a team for a few months, hauling ore. For five years thereafter he was clerk in a general merchandise store in Valesville, Ohio, returning then to Vinton, in the same state, where he entered into partnership with Samuel Smith in the same line of business, selling out at the age of twenty-one to go to Hope, N. D., there working for the Canadian Pacific. After a few weeks he purchased a team and continued in the same work for two years, when he removed to Anoka, Minn., and worked on the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad for six months, being engaged for the year following at Chadron, Neb., in the construction of the Elkhorn Railroad. For another six months he was employed in Western Nebraska in work on the Chicago, Bur- lington & Quincy Railroad, after which he was engaged in sub-contract work on different rail- roads until 1888, making his headquarters at Billings, Mont., while employed on contract work for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy road. In 1902 Mr. Sharp removed to Kansas City, Mo. opening offices there and doing most of the rail- road construction work for the Santa Fe road, as well as repair work. Still maintaining his offices in that city, in 1904 he came to Los Angeles, where he opened a branch office, taking in a Mr. Lantry as partner in this city, under the firm name of Lan- try & Sharp. Buying out his partner in 1905, he
continued the business as the C. H. Sharp Con- tracting Company, the California branch being incorporated, in 1909 associating himself with a Mr. Hauser, the business then being known as the Sharp & Hauser Contracting Company. In 1912 the firm name changed to Sharp & Fellows, under which title it is at present known, its loca- tion being in the Central building, Los Angeles. Mr. Sharp is still sole owner of the Kansas City company organized by himself, which was con- sidered the largest individual firm in that business at the time that they completed the line between Belin and Texico for the Santa Fe Railroad, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles. For that piece of work they had as equipment eleven steam shovels, three hundred standard cars, two hundred small cars, twenty-nine locomotives and five rock-crushing plants. Mr. Sharp is the owner of thirty miles of railroad between Ore Bed and Long View, Tex., known as the Port Bolivar and Iron Ore Railroad, which is leased to the Santa Fe Railroad.
The marriage of Mr. Sharp took place in Omaha, Neb., November 8, 1896, uniting him with Miss Catherine Showers. Mr. Sharp is a Scottish and York Rite Mason and a Shriner, while the social clubs with which he is associated are the Jonathan, Los Angeles Country, Los An- geles Athletic, Midwick Country and the Gamut Clubs, and the Mid-Day and Kansas City Clubs, the two latter being organizations in Kansas City, Mo. Politically Mr. Sharp is a Republican.
RALPH RICHARD DEMING. Although a native of Louisiana, born at Shreveport, January 11, 1882, Ralph Richard Deming has been a resi- dent of Los Angeles since he was a youth, and is well known throughout the southwest at this time. He has been associated with the Los Angeles Gas Company for many years, and is also interested in the theatrical business in South- ern California. His wife, who was the widow of the late John A. Mason, founder of the Mason Opera House building, on South Broadway, is now the sole owner of that building. John A. Mason's father, Charles G. Mason, was the dis- coverer and owner of the famous Silver King inine in Arizona, which produced for him a hand- some fortune, which his son afterwards inherited. The Mason opera house was erected in 1902, and
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is now one of the best known theaters in the country, and is acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful on the coast.
Mr. Deming is the son of Ralph Richard and Jennie (Howell) Deming, his father having been a prominent banker at Shreveport, La., for many years. His early education was received at Shreveport, and later he attended school at San Antonio, Tex., and after coming to Los Angeles with his parents in 1888, he completed his educa- tion in this city. He has been prominent in local affairs for many years and is known as one of the progressive and energetic young men of the Southwest. He is Republican in his political preferences, and is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and other prominent organizations.
The marriage of Mr. Deming took place in San Rafael February 16, 1911, uniting him with Kate (Wynn) Mason, the daughter of J. F. Wynn, who for many years was a large Southern planter, and a descendant of one of the old South- ern planter families of an early day.
J. G. GORDON, JR. An engineer and one of the directors in the Layne & Bowler Corporation, located at No. 900 Santa Fe street, Los Angeles, Cal., J. G. Gordon, Jr., was born at St. Louis, Mo., December 15, 1885, and received his early education in the grammar and manual training schools, graduating from the latter in 1902, after which he attended the Colorado School of Mines at Golden, Colo., graduating therefrom in 1906 with the degree of Engineer of Mines.
The first business association of Mr. Gordon was with the Oliver Iron Mining Company at Hibbing, Minn., where for eight months he was assistant engineer on the Mesabi Iron Range, after which he went to Cananea, Mex., as assistant engineer for the Cananea Consolidated Copper Company for another eight months, his next en- gagement being at Elliston, Mont., where he was superintendent of the Beatrice Mining and Milling Company. Returning to Mexico after a year and a half, he spent the next two years as superin- tendent of the Peregrine Mining and Milling Company at Guanajuato, coming thence to Los Angeles, where he entered into his present en- gagement with the Layne & Bowler Corporation, as engineer and director of that large manufac- tory of oil well machinery.
Besides his business interests, Mr. Gordon is a member of two fraternities, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon and the Tau Beta Pi. His marriage with Miss Mauro took place in Burlington, Iowa, on February 11, 1910, and they are the parents of one son, J. G. Gordon, the third of the name.
JOHN A. WINTROATH. The son of Mar- tin and Lydia Wintroath, John A. Wintroath, now the superintendent and director of the Layne & Bowler Corporation, was born at Oil City, Pa., April 5, 1882, and received his education in the grammar and high schools of Siverly, Pa., until the age of eighteen years, when he engaged with his father for a year and a half, taking charge of pumping oil wells. The next three years were spent as apprentice machinist with the Condron Machine Company, after which he was employed for a year as a machinist with the Simons Ma- chine Company, engaging thereafter with the Westinghouse Electric Company, at East Pitts- burg, Pa., as machinist for a year, and for a year and a half with the American Steel and Wire Company, at Sharon, Pa., in the same capacity, and also as night foreman. Removing thence to Houston, Tex., Mr. Wintroath found employment as machinist for the Dixon Car Wheel Company for a year, during which time he took a course in mechanical engineering in the International Cor- respondence Schools. Continuing the occupation of machinist, he was next employed by the Union Iron Works for a year and later with the Layne & Bowler Corporation, where he rose to the posi- tion of foreman, resigning this office in 1909 to come to Los Angeles and to found here the Layne & Bowler Company, a separate corporation, of which he became general mechanical superin- tendent and director. In connection with his work, Mr. Wintroath has put out four very im- portant patents, namely : The Patented Oil Bear- ing Head, used on deep turbine centrifugal pumps ; the Automatic Aligning Bearings, for use on pumping machinery; the Patented Bottom Bear- ing, for turbine and centrifugal pumps; and the Patented Well Drilling Tool Joint.
Aside from his business interests, Mr. Win- troath is a member of two fraternities, the Knights of Columbus and the Woodmen of the World, while in his political preferences he up- holds the principles of the Republican party. His
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marriage to Miss Bertha Lutenbacher took place in Houston, Tex., on February 14, 1904, and they are the parents of four children, namely, Gladys, Agnes, Mary and Frances Wintroath.
W. I. HOLLINGSWORTH. Among those interested in the development of Southern Cali- fornia during the last twenty-five years, the name of W. I. Hollingsworth should be mentioned.
Mr. Hollingsworth was born in the year 1862, near Lafayette, Tippecanoe county, Ind., his parents being members of the Quaker band who left Manchester, England, in 1662 under the leadership of William Penn and settled in Chester, Pa. Mr. and Mrs. Hollingsworth were married in Lexington, Ky., Mrs. Hollingsworth's maiden name being Hattie G. Hord.
Mr. Hollingsworth came to Los Angeles in the year 1888 and has been active in its develop- ment ever since that date. He is president of the firm of W. I. Hollingsworth & Co., real estate operators, and has been interested in many large and successful projects, not only in the city of Los Angeles, but in Southern and Central Cali- fornia. He also has constructed a number of buildings, the best known of which is the Hol- lingsworth Building, located at the corner of Sixth and Hill streets, which is recognized as being one of the finest office buildings on the Pacific Coast. He has made real estate a study and his judgment in values is recognized everywhere.
Besides being a member of a number of the city and country clubs, Mr. Hollingsworth finds time to give some attention to music and art. He has taken a deep interest in the Los Angeles Sym- phony, and has enjoyed the benefit of extensive travel, not only in this country, but abroad.
MRS. W. D. ROOT. The quest for health brought Mrs. W. D. Root to Southern California in 1907, when she made her start in the poultry business which has proved such a great success, her plant alone, aside from the real estate, being at present worth $3000, and she being well known as a breeder of Single Comb Black Minorcas and Mammoth White Holland Turkeys.
The life of Mrs. Root has been a varied and an interesting one. A native of New York city, when a child she removed with her family to
South Dakota, and there on the farm she re- ceived her initial experience in poultry raising by assisting her mother. After nine years spent as a business woman in South Dakota, she devoted a period of four years to missionary work in Japan, in 1907 coming to California, where for four years she was located at Newman, in Stani- slaus county. There, in a small way, she made her start in the poultry business, removing in 1911 to Glendale, one of the suburbs of Los Angeles, where her present fine ranch is situated. Having commenced the business without money and in debt, much praise is due Mrs. Root for what she has accomplished. Beginning on a small town lot, with a dozen and a half Single Comb Black Minorcas, she had eight years of experience in the raising of this variety of fowl, as well as experimenting with six other breeds, and she has come to the decision that the Minorcas are the best all-round bird for this part of the country. During her first year in the business she took in $5 over the feed bill, the second year she trebled the business with no added expense, and the third and fourth years trebled the preceding years, with very little added expense.
Mrs. Root has three branches in her industry, commercial, utility and show fowls, and by com- bining the three, has made her success in the busi- ness, but it is by the Minorcas that she has made her reputation. She now has five hundred laying hens and the same number of pigeons, as well as the White Holland Turkeys for which she is also noted. The hens in her breeding pens weigh from six and one-half pounds to eight pounds and are mated to first-class males. The pullets begin lay- ing at the age of six months, eggs from the laying- pens averaging twenty-eight ounces to the dozen, some of the hens having laid eggs that averaged thirty-four ounces to the dozen. In September, 1914, Mrs. Root shipped two dozen Black Minorca pullets six months old to H. F. Fisher, Hilo, Hawaiian Islands, without the loss of a bird, Mr. Fisher being so much pleased with the same that he gave her a large order on March 1, 1915, for three hundred pullets and twenty-six breeders, at a cost of $600, these to be hatched in April and shipped in July. Her eggs and stock have also been shipped to all parts of California, Arizona, Washington and Oregon, and she has filled orders from New York, Utah, British Columbia and Mexico. She has also been very successful in raising heavy turkey females weigh-
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ing eighteen pounds and males weighing as high as thirty-eight pounds, the females having sold for $12 each, the males for from $15 to $25. For four years Mrs. Root has had experience with White Holland turkeys, the business for the past two years requiring four or five breeding pens, and she has recently furnished nearly two hun- dred turkey eggs of this variety for hatching pur- poses to one of the largest Bronze turkey breeders on the west coast. The equipment at her ranch, which comprises large yards, breeding houses, a brooder house, lighted with electricity and with a system that is her own invention, and eight Jubilee and Cyphers incubators with a capacity of two thousand eggs and operated eight months of the year, is valued at $1500. In March, 1914, she added to her stock two hundred and fifty pigeons, of the Homer and Carneau varieties, which have now increased in number to five hun- dred, and she grows barley, alfalfa, clover and several kinds of vegetables for the use of her chickens and turkeys.
One of the best known poultry women of Southern California, Mrs. Root is one of the few women who have made a financial success of the industry, her monthly receipts having gone as high as $900. Her stock has taken blue ribbons at several poultry shows, and she has won prizes on every one of her turkeys exhibited at the shows. A writer and speaker of note, she has lec- tured before the Women's Congress of Reform at Berkeley, and in 1914 addressed the colony of the Little Landers, near Glendale, on the subject of poultry raising, her start and experience in the business furnishing much practical advice and information for the members of that colony who devote themselves to market gardening and the raising of poultry. Besides furnishing articles for many other of the poultry journals of the country, Mrs. Root contributes an article each month to the Pacific Poultrycraft, many of which have been copied by Eastern papers, some of her topics being Sense and Nonsense in Poultry, Poultry as a Vocation for Women and What Some of Them are Doing in It, Hints on Incubating, Brooding and Raising Turkeys, Feed and Care of Baby Chicks, and How a Novice Raised In- cubator Turkeys by Hand, and in a clear and entertaining way she gives many of her own early experiences and misfortunes, as illustrations of the points she wishes to emphasize in her articles. With her actual care and work in poultry raising
and her prolific writings on the same subject, Mrs. Root yet finds time for membership and active participation in several associations in the inter- ests of poultry raising, she being a member of the American Black Minorca Club, the Poultry Breeders' Association of Southern California, the Pacific Minorca Club and the California State Poultry Association.
COL. JOHN M. C. MARBLE. Among the prominent financiers of Los Angeles mention belongs to the late Col. John M. C. Marble, who was a resident of the city and an upbuilder for nearly twenty years. Mr. Marble was the descendant of two old Eastern families, among the earliest settlers of New England. The paternal ancestor, his great-grandfather, was born in Boston and married Sally Bullard. They had a son, Eleazer, born May 4, 1762, who became a resident of Vermont, and removed from that state to Wyoming Valley, Pa., and married a widow Thompson, whose maiden name was May Richards. Their youngest son was Ebenezer Marble, born in Wilkesbarre, Pa., in 1805; he went to the Indian wars and was never afterward heard from. He married Hannah Carey, of Careytown, now a part of Wilkesbarre; their second child, the subject of this sketch, was born July 27, 1833, and having lost his father in in- fancy, was then reared by his mother's family until the death of his mother's grandfather, John Carey, of Careytown, in 1844.
The Carey family is of English origin; good authority in the mother country says they have nothing to oppose that the family was founded in England by the son of the Roman general, Carus, who was a general in Briton in A. D. 282. The pedigree of the family was drawn up by the Royal College of Heralds by command of Queen Anne Boleyn, commencing with date 1170, Adam de Kari.
The emigrating ancestor was John Carey, a descendant of Sir Robert Carey, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth of England, who upon the com- pletion of his education in France sailed for the new world to try his fortune. He landed in Massachusetts in 1634 and soon after joined the Plymouth colony, where he became active in public affairs, was highly respected and influential. He married Elizabeth Godfrey, daughter of
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Francis Godfrey, and early acquired large land holdings at Bridgewater. He reared a large family of sons and daughters, of whom Francis, his second son, was born in Duxbury, Mass., January 19, 1649, and was reared in Bridgewater, where he married Hannah, daughter of William Brett. Born of this union were two sons and four daughters, of whom Samuel, the eldest, a native of Bridgewater, married Mary Poole in 1704. With the removal of his son, Eleazer (next to the youngest in a family of nine children), to Dover, Dutchess county, N. Y. (Eleazer married Miss Sturdevant), the name was carried west- ward, for from Dutchess county he went on to Wyoming Valley, Pa., in 1769. The family suf- fered in common with all the pioneers of that valley, so awfully stricken by privations and by Indian atrocities during the Pennemyte and Revo- lutionary wars. One of the family, Samuel, was captured at the Wyoming massacre; was first adopted in the family of a chief, later bartered back and forth and held in bondage by his savage captors ; finally turned over to the British as a prisoner of war and at the close of the war liberated as such. The second son, John, was born at Bonds Bridge, Dutchess county, N. Y., in 1756, came with his father to Wyoming Valley in 1769, enlisted in boyhood in the Continental service, serving during the entire Revolutionary war. He was with Washington at Valley Forge and participated in many of the important en- gagements of the struggle. He was in the com- panies that were ordered to the relief of the Wyoming Valley settlers, and although they made forced marches, still arrived too late to prevent the massacre. He owned considerable land in Luzerne county and was a man and citizen widely respected and esteemed. He reared a family of children, one son, John, marrying in young man- hood and passing away at an early age. He left a daughter, Hannah, who was reared by her grandfather; she married Ebenezer Marble and was left a widow in early womanhood.
Their son, John Minor Carey Marble, as has been previously stated, was reared in the home of his great-grandfather until he was in his twelfth year, when the latter passed to his reward. With his mother he then removed to Putnam county, Ohio, where two of his uncles had located; his education was received in the private schools of the period and Wilkesbarre Academy, later sup- plementing this training with a course in the
Wyoming Seminary at Kingston, and the public schools of Ohio. In Ohio he accepted a position as clerk in a mercantile establishment, after which, at the age of seventeen years, he became a partner in the business at Kalida, and the fol- lowing year went to New York City and pur- chased his first stock of goods. His first mar- riage occurred in 1861 and united him with Mary L. Coleman, daughter of Dr. G. D. Coleman, of Maysville, Ky., her grandparents being residents of Lebanon, Ohio. At her death in Delphos, she left one son, Guilford, who became a prominent attorney and politician of Ohio, and died at the age of forty years.
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