USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume III > Part 47
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Mr. Marble's civic pursuits were interrupted by the Civil war, when he enlisted for service in the One Hundred Fifty-first Regiment, Ohio In- fantry, in which he was commissioned colonel, and which took a prominent part in the defense of Washington. He continued actively in the mercantile business until 1864, when with others he organized the First National Bank of Delphos, he being cashier and later president. In 1872 he removed to Van Wert, Ohio, when he purchased an interest in the First National Bank of that city and succeeded his father-in-law, Dr. Charles Emerson, who had removed to Colorado, in the presidency. He continued at the head of this institution until he disposed of his interests, when he organized the Van Wert National Bank, in which he served as president. Because of his wife's health (he having in the meantime married a daughter of Dr. Emerson) he made a trip to California, and so impressed was he with the climate and the opportunities he believed the country had in the future, that he decided to locate here permanently. He returned home and in October, 1888, having disposed of considerable of his property, he returned with his family to the Pacific coast. In Los Angeles he began at once the organization of the National Bank of California, and opened business on the corner of Second and Spring streets in September, 1889. He continued as president of this institution until 1906, when he resigned and disposed of his in- terests. In the meantime he had also been in- strumental in the organization of the Home Tele- phone Company, and served as its president from the time of inception to 1906, when he resigned ; was likewise one of the organizers of the Union Home Telephone & Telegraph Corporation, in which he acted as president until his resignation
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in September, 1907. His entire life in manhood had been passed in active business affairs, and his efforts resulted in a large development of natural resources. While a resident of Ohio he assisted in the organization of the Cincinnati, Jackson & Mackinaw Railway Company, built the first five miles of road, and remained with the enterprise until it was successfully completed to a system of three hundred and forty-six miles. He resigned the presidency when he came to Cali- fornia and was succeeded by his old friend, Hon. Calvin Brice. In Los Angeles he lent his aid freely to the advancement of public interests and no man was more depended upon to give his support as a liberal, public spirited citizen.
Mr. Marble's second marriage occurred in 1870, in Van Wert, and united him with Elizabeth Emerson, who was born in Ohio; her father, Charles Emerson, was born in Marietta, Ohio, August 6, 1812, a son of Caleb and Mary (Dana) Emerson, early settlers of Ohio from Massa- chusetts. The great-great-grandfather, William Dana, was captain of artillery during the Revolu- tionary war. Caleb Emerson was a prominent attorney and journalist of Marietta, while Charles Emerson was a physician and merchant, first in Gallatin, Ohio, and from that point he went to Van Wert, where he was active in bank- ing circles for many years, being president of the First National Bank. In 1870 he removed to Greeley, Colo., where he organized the pioneer bank of the city, and conducted same until his retirement to Denver, in which city his death occurred August 23, 1896. His wife was in maidenhood Margaret Bayman Grier, a widow when she married Dr. Emerson ; she died in 1869. Mrs. Marble received her education in the Ohio Female College at College Hill, Ohio, and became the mother of three children, namely: John Emerson, Elizabeth Dana and William Carey, the two sons engaging with their father in The John M. C. Marble Company up to the time of his death, and still continue the business. Mr. Marble was a member of the California Commandery Military Order of the Loyal Legion, Sons of the Revolution, Grand Army of the Republic, and the California Club, and in religion was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, with which organization his widow is still actively identified. Mr. Marble was an ardent supporter of Repub- lican principles in his political convictions.
EDWIN A. HARDISON. Having been variously associated with the development of the oil industry for more than thirty-five years and in Southern California for more than twenty-five years, Edwin A. Hardison is well known through- out the various oil fields of the southern district, and is classed as one of the most proficient drillers on the coast. He has been engaged on practically every field from Bakersfield south and has done his full share in forwarding this vast industry.
Mr. Hardison is a native of Maine, having been born at Caribou, February 20, 1861, the son of O. A. and Mary Hardison. His father was born in China, Me., and educated there. Later he en- gaged in farming and the lumbering business, and continued in these occupations until the time of his death in 1900. The son attended the public schools in his native state until he was nineteen, when he went to Pennsylvania. For a short time he worked on a farm, but an opportunity being offered him in the oil business, he went to Duke Center, Pa., where he was employed by various oil companies as driller until 1882. In that year he went to Allegany county, N. Y., and engaged in the oil well contracting business, continuing this until 1885, when he again ventured into the oil fields, this time in Kinzua, Pa., where he was superintendent of the Collins & Morse Oil Com- pany for a period of six months. He then went to Lima, Ohio, with the Trenton Oil Company as driller, remaining until 1886, when he was trans- ferred to Nashville, Tenn., for six months in the same capacity. From Nashville he went to May- field, Ky., and engaged as a driller with Carrol Brothers until 1889, at which time he came to California. Here he was employed by the Hardi- son & Stewart Company, now the Union Oil Company, as driller for a year, and then went over to another of the companies of these men, the Torrey Canyon Oil Company, as division superintendent, occupying this position until 1891. He then organized the Eureka Oil Company, in Ventura county, and was superintendent and part owner of this company until 1896, when he went to Peru, South America, drilling wells for Jack- son & Seward of London, and remaining for six months.
Returning to Ventura, Mr. Hardison again took charge of the Eureka Oil Company, con- tinuing until 1899, when he disposed of his inter- ests therein and came to Los Angeles to become superintendent of the Yukon Oil Company, which
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position he occupied until 1900. He then went to Bakersfield as superintendent of the Reed Oil Company, a position which he resigned at the end of four months to engage in the manufacture of the Hardison Perforator, which he himself had invented and patented and which he operated for several years. In 1904 he sold out his inter- ests in this business and became the general fore- man of the water department of the Santa Fe Railway Company, under Chief Engineer R. B. Burns. At the end of three years he again went to Bakersfield as chief inspector of construction of the pipe line to Port Costa, Cal., for the Associated Company, remaining until 1907. The said pipe line is of peculiar construc- tion, and is known as the rifled line. The pipe is spirally corrugated like the inside of a rifle-barrel and gives the substances forced through it a rapidly whirling motion. When it was found that this pipe could not be successfully laid with com- mon tongs, Mr. Hardison's inventive genius was brought into requisition, and he invented the tongs that could do this difficult work. As evi- dence of the satisfaction which the Hardison tongs give it may be said that they have been in common use ever since their invention. In the year last mentioned Mr. Hardison bought back the Hardison Perforator business and conducted it until 1909, when he again sold his interests and went to Timor Island, four hundred miles off the coast of Australia, on a business trip lasting one year in the interests of a Hong Kong company. Since his return (1912) he has lived in retirement at his home in Los Angeles, at No. 1422 Ridge Way.
Many years of active participation in the oil business in California have given Mr. Hardison an unusually broad view of the situation and also given him an extensive acquaintance among oil men, both the promoters and the actual operators. His knowledge of the details of the business is very valuable and his service in the development of the industry cannot be over-estimated. He is a Mason, having been raised in China.
The marriage of Mr. Hardison was solemnized at Santa Paula, Cal., in 1891, the bride being Miss Mary Walker, of St. Louis. They are the parents of four children, all of whom are well known in Los Angeles, where they have received their education. They are: Esa, a graduate of the State Normal School, and now engaged in teaching; Fred, with the Union Oil Company ;
Waldo, a student in high school; and Marion, a student in grammar school.
FREDERICK WILLIAM BRAUN. An im- portant feature in the commercial development of Los Angeles, and one which contributes largely to its general prosperity, has been the establishment of manufacturing industries in the city, and it will continue so to be. In this field of endeavor Frederick William Braun has been a prominent factor, having developed the manufacture and sale of assay and chemical laboratory machinery and supplies, and also several special laboratory appliances which have a nationwide sale.
Mr. Braun is a native of Illinois, born at Peru, October 6, 1858, the son of John and Katherine M. Braun. His boyhood days were passed in Illinois, and he received his early education in the public schools of Peru, and later attended the College of Pharmacy, at Chicago, Ill. After graduating he removed to Denton, Texas, where he engaged in the retail drug business, later fol- lowing the same line in Roanoke, that state. He sold his interests in Roanoke in 1883, and the same year opened a wholesale and retail drug business in Colorado City, Texas, remaining there for five years and meeting with decided success.
It was in 1888 that Mr. Braun first came to Los Angeles, and in that year he established a whole- sale drug business in this city, the first of its kind to be opened south of San Francisco in California. For the succeeding nineteen years he continued in this enterprise with success, disposing of his interests in 1907 to engage in a special line of manufacturing.
This latest undertaking of Mr. Braun has proven as profitable a venture as have previous enterprises, and is today one of the best estab- lished concerns of its kind in Los Angeles or vicinity. He is engaged in the manufacture of assay and chemical laboratory machinery and supplies, scientific instruments and apparatus for educational laboratories, as well as the importa- tion and sale of industrial chemicals and com- modities. Plants for these enterprises are located both at San Francisco and Los Angeles, and their products are known throughout the world.
Aside from his business prominence, Mr. Braun is well known to a wide circle of friends in a social and fraternal way. He is one of the
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original organizers of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and has been an influential member of that body for many years. He is also a mem- ber of the Los Angeles Chamber of Mines, Mer- chants and Manufacturers Association, and of the Associated Jobbers of Los Angeles. Of the purely social organizations of which Mr. Braun is a member may be mentioned the California, Los Angeles Athletic, Los Angeles Country and Annandale Golf Clubs of Los Angeles, and the Chemists' Club of New York.
The marriage of Mr. Braun occurred in San Francisco in 1892, uniting him with Mrs. Kathryn E. Standiford, the daughter of John W. and Mary Bear.
PATRICK J. McDONALD. Many of the handsome residences and public buildings of Los Angeles are representative of the enterprise of the Los Angeles Planing Mill Company, of which Patrick J. McDonald, a manufacturer and con- tractor of this city, is president and general man- ager, his wife being vice-president of the com- pany. In 1900 this business was bought by Mr. McDonald, who, with many years of experience to his credit, has brought the firm up to its present high standing, reincorporating it in 1905 and completing in that year a new mill fitted out with modern machinery and occupying sixty thousand square feet of land. Under the efficient manage- ment of Mr. McDonald the business has now assumed an important place among concerns of this kind in Southern California, and is owned entirely by Mr. McDonald and his family.
Born in Ireland, on St. Patrick's day, 1863, Mr. McDonald was christened with the name of the patron saint of his country. He was the son of Lawrence and Margaret (Foley) McDonald and was educated in the National School of Ireland and St. Michael's College, at New Ross, County Wexford, spending in all eight years at the last- named institution. Having completed his educa- tion, Mr. McDonald was apprenticed to learn the carpentering and contracting business, in which he remained four years. At the end of that time receiving his license as a competent workman, he began to work independently at the age of eighteen years. Not long after starting in busi- ness for himself, Mr. McDonald removed to the United States, to seek his fortune in the New
World. His first employment in this country was in 1881 in Chicago, Ill., where he was engaged by Hennessy Brothers, a firm of builders, remaining with them for three years, and leaving their employ to learn work in a mill. For three years thereafter he was employed in the mill of Campbell Brothers, Chicago, during the last year of his stay with them being foreman of the cabinet department. Mr. McDonald next set out for the southwest, in 1887 settling in San Diego, Cal., where he was employed by the L. A. Fitch Company, a firm of builders with which he remained two years, acting as foreman and superintendent in different departments of the work. Removing. to Fresno in 1889, Mr. Mc- Donald assumed the offices of foreman and esti- mator in the Mechanics' Planing Mill Company, which position he continued to fill for three years. To Madera, Cal., was his next move, and there he filled the position of superintendent of the Madera Flume and Trading Company for two years, in 1895 being chosen to the post of superin- tendent and estimator for the San Pedro Lumber Company at San Pedro, Cal., where Mr. McDon- ald became well known during the five years that followed. It will thus be seen that he brings with him to the management of his present business in Los Angeles many years of practical experience and responsibility along lines eminently fitted to adapt him to the great work he is now conducting, and to which he has of late years added a general building and contracting business.
Aside from his business interests, Mr. Mc- Donald is connected with associations that are in line with the active industries of the part of the country where he makes his home, being a mem- ber of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' As- sociation, the Builders' Exchange, the Master Builders' Association, the Credit Men's Associa- tion, the Southern California Mill Owners' As- sociation and the Los Angeles Chamber of Com- merce ; his social and fraternal associations being with the Jonathan and the Newman Clubs, the Elks, the Knights of Columbus and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The marriage of Mr. Mc- Donald with Carrie Louise Mann, a native of Ohio, took place at Fresno, Cal., on January 28, 1891, and they are the parents of four children, namely : Lawrence Earl, Ethel May, Jennie Beal and David Eugene McDonald. Lawrence E., a graduate of St. Vincent's College, took a two
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years' course in engineering and construction at Notre Dame and is now assisting his father in the business.
JOSEPH McMILLAN. Since he first started in business life at the age of fourteen years, Joseph McMillan, now the general manager of the Pacific Electric Railway at Los Angeles, Cal., has been connected with railroad interests in various capacities, from that of messenger boy, rising gradually to his present important office.
The father of Mr. McMillan, Dr. William Ryall McMillan, was a native of North Carolina and a graduate of Bellevue College, Philadelphia, where he received the degree of M. D., and he practiced medicine in Texas from the time of his graduation until his death, which occurred in 1885. His wife was Nancy Broomfield (Lively) McMillan, and their son Joseph was born at Winnsboro, Tex., and received his education at the public schools until the age of fourteen years, when he became a messenger boy in the office of the Houston & Texas Central Railroad at Kosse, Tex., at the small salary of $10 per month. After about a year his wages were advanced to $1 per day for acting in various capacities, such as station porter, general utility man about the sta- tion, etc. He spent about three years thus, during which time he applied himself to the study of telegraphy and station office work, so that at the end of about three years he was enabled to take a position with the same railroad company as tele- graph operator and station clerk at various sta- tions, work which he continued for about two years. He then left the service of the H. & T. C. R. R., to engage with the G. H. & S. A. Railway as station clerk and operator at Weimar, Tex., remaining with the latter for nearly two years. Afterward he was night ticket clerk and operator at Harrisburg, Tex., for nine or ten months, and was then made agent at Rosenburg, Tex., where he remained for eighteen months. For two years he filled the office of terminal or frontier agent over the territory from San Antonio, Tex., to the Rio Grande, and then for about seven years more was agent at Flatonia, Tex., after which he was transferred to San Antonio as train dispatcher, remaining about a year. Following this he was freight agent at San Antonio, at that time the
most important freight station on that line of road in Texas. For a year and a half he had under his supervision more than forty freight clerks and office men, nearly seventy warehouse- men and five switch engines and crews; his next position was that of commercial agent, in the same city and territory, which he held for about four years, then being made district freight and passenger agent of the territory between Houston and El Paso, Tex., and Mexico south of Chi- huahua, with headquarters at San Antonio. In 1910 the work of the freight and passenger de- partments was divided, Mr. McMillan having charge of the passenger business in the same ter- ritory until he left Texas in 1903 to come to Los Angeles, Cal., to enter the service of the Pacific Electric Railway. Arrived in this city, he became chief clerk to the vice-president and gen- eral manager of the Pacific Electric Railway Com- pany, in 1904 becoming traffic manager, which department was organized by Mr. McMillan him- self. In the year 1908 he was advanced to the office of general manager of the entire Pacific Electric Railway Company, which position he has competently filled since that time. The fact that Mr. McMillan's name has never been omitted from a month's pay-roll since he started to work as a boy speaks well for his ability and per- sistence along his chosen line of occupation, and is one of the factors which have led up to his success in his career.
In fraternal circles, as well as in the business world, Mr. McMillan is well and favorably known, being past master and a life member of Anchor Lodge No. 421, A. F. & A. M., of Texas; past high priest and life member of Burleson Chapter No. 21, R. A. M., Texas; past eminent commander of San Antonio Commandery No 7, K. T .; member of the Grand Lodge of Master Masons of Texas; the Grand Chapter R. A. M., and the Grand Commandery K. T., Texas ; also of the Scottish Rite and the Shrine in Los Angeles, and of the Jonathan Club, a social club of the same city. The marriage of Mr. McMillan with Miss Susan Grace was solemnized in Weimar, Tex., December 20, 1882, and they became the parents of one son, Jesse McDaniel, who died in Los Angeles in 1904, aged nineteen years, and two daughters, now Mrs. Borden Johnson and Mrs. Rebecca Grace Stone, both of whom reside in Los Angeles.
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THOMAS POWELL, M. D. The good that men do lives after them, is a fitting adage when applied to Dr. Thomas Powell, whose accomplish- ments along his chosen work will ever be a splen- did monument to his memory, the whole world being the beneficiary of his labors, his efforts and his untiring zeal for better conditions and standards in his profession. Distinguished for his original investigations and writings in ex- planation of the activities of life, normal and abnormal, Dr. Powell has never failed in the solution of the problems in which he became in- terested, and his achievements in the field of original research have won for him world-wide recognition.
Born September 21, 1837, in Montgomery county, Tenn., Thomas Powell was the son of William Solomon and Sallie (Holloway) Powell. Receiving the regular elementary education of the public schools, he entered and was graduated from the New York Medical College of New York City, the first institution in the United States to establish a higher standard of medical education. He entered upon his chosen career in the latter part of 1859, locating in Trigg county, Ky. In 1884, when modern medicine was rapidly approaching the zenith of its world-wide reg- nancy, Dr. Powell determined to take a post- graduate course, with the hope of meeting a long- felt want-a better understanding of medical problems than he had been able to obtain from the medical literature of the period. He chose the then-existing medical department of the University of Nebraska, an institution that appealed to him, by reason of the fact that all three of the then prevailing systems, regular, eclectic and homeopathic, were embraced therein. This institution was to all appearances well- manned and up-to-date in its equipment and teachings, and yet it served not to gratify, but to intensify Dr. Powell's professional craving, be- cause it failed to supply the missing links of the current teaching. For this reason he set out with the determination to solve if possible both the confessedly and obviously unsolved problems of modern medicine. The most important of the former class were those pertaining to the suscep- tibility of the body to morbific agencies, climatic, sporadic and bacteriologic. Authorities had gone no further than to realize and admit that both congestion and infection depend upon a pre-exist-
ing condition of which a lowered vitality is the most conspicuous feature.
In short, Dr. Powell has spent more than a quarter of a century in the attempt to remedy the deficiencies of the current teaching, and with the result of the production of a new and prac- tically complete medical philosophy, the details of which he published in 1909 in the shape of a medical work of six hundred pages, entitled "Fundamentals and Requirements of Health and Disease." His first achievement was effected in 1885 and comprised a most complete and logical solution of the problems of nutrition and muscu- lar contraction, negating the current teaching by showing: First, that nutrition consists, not in the rebuilding of wornout tissues, as authorities had asserted, but in the filling and refilling of the cells of which the motor mechanism, nervous and muscular, are composed; second, that the living machine owes its energies, mental, nervous, thermal and propulsive, to the oxidation, not of its tissues, as authorities have declared, but of the carbon of the food stored in the cells thereof ; third, that it owes its every motion to the vito- motive-power, a form of energy which evinces its capability by possessing as its maximum efficiency a dynamic equivalent of forty atmospheres or six hundred pounds to the square inch; fourth, from what element of the food it is derived, and how it sets the vital machinery in motion.
In the January, 1886, number of the Kansas City Medical Index, Dr. Powell published an illustrated article on this subject. In 1888 he discovered the great underlying cause of disease, the thing that renders the body "susceptible" to "colds" and infections; that gives rise to con- gestion, inflammation and tissue starvation, cap- ping the climax of its essential virulence by taking the shape of milliary tubercles and cancer cells. Because of its wondrous virulence and versa- tility this substance has been given the fairly distinctive name of Pathogen, a term which Dr. Powell ventured to construct from the Greek roots: path, which means to suffer, and gen, which means to generate or produce. In the latter part of 1896 he demonstrated on three separate occasions, in the presence of many reputable physicians, and by experiments made upon his own body, that he had discovered how to render the human body immune to infective organisms. A little later, in December, 1896, he was induced by persons who had heard of his
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