USA > California > A history of the new California, its resources and people; Vol I > Part 53
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Mr. Hart was educated in the public schools of Sacramento, and gradu- ated from the San Francisco high school with the class of '97. He then entered the " naughty-one " class of the University of California, and grad- uated with the degree of A. B. From the university he entered the Hastings Law School in San Francisco, and was graduated May 12, 1903, with the degree of LL. B. In the month of his graduation he was admitted to the bar on the motion of Dean Edward Robson Taylor, and at once opened his office in Sacramento and began the career which has been so promising to the present and lacks only time to place him among the most successful law- yers of the state.
WILLIAM H. LEEMAN.
William H. Leeman, of the well-known firm of W. H. Leeman and Company, buyers and sellers of hops, at 425 J street, Sacramento, is a repre- sentative business man of this city, and is a man who not only has achieved his individual success but has also public-spiritedly devoted himself to the general welfare of his fellow-citizens, and has been foremost in advancing enterprises and improvements which will prove of lasting benefit to the city, county and state. He is, furthermore, a self-made man, having been pushed out of the family nest at an early age and compelled to seek his living and advancement as best he could. From the first he was possessed of ambition and determination, and his energy and courage and business judgment have brought him to a position of esteem and influence among the citizens of this state and a man of mark in all the relations of life.
Mr. Leeman was born in Dubuque, Iowa, June 24, 1857, a son of W. H. and Kate (Smith) Leeman, both of whom were of old American families and of Revolutionary stock. His father was also a native of Dubuque and of German descent, and followed the business of mason contracting until his death, which occurred in 1860. His mother was born in Wisconsin, and was a daughter of Colonel John Smith, who served in the Union army from 1861 to 1865. Mrs. Kate Leeman was again married after the death of W. H. Leeman, and she died in 1869. Mr. Leeman has one sister, Mrs. C. M. Green, of San Francisco.
After the death of his father Mr. Leeman was brought to Sacramento,
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at the age of three years, and a few years later was left an orphan. He was then compelled to earn his own living, after having received his early educa- tion in the schools of Sacramento. When seventeen years old he went on to the hop ranch of his step-father, R. J. Merkley, and by the time he was twenty-two years old was acquainted with all branches of the hop-raising business. He then began raising hops on his own account, and from small beginnings has built up his present flourishing business. He commenced with a twenty-acre field on the Riverside road below Sacramento, and grad- ually added to his holdings until he now has two hundred acres planted to hops, while four hundred acres are in alfalfa and vegetables. All this prop- erty is in Yolo county, but he has had his residence in Sacramento for some years. For the past seven years he and Flood J. Flint have been engaged in the business of buying and selling hops under the firm name of W. H. Leeman and Company, and they have built up a profitable business. Mr. Leeman, who is one of the pioneers in this industry, can recall three occasions when hops sold as high as one dollar a pound.
Mr. Leeman has been trustee of reclamation district No. 537 for the past thirteen years, and in this capacity has given service of untold value to this part of the state. He and Mr. Castleman and O. A. Lovdal were the organizers of this district, and Mr. Leeman and Attorney Neill of the Fair estate are the present trustees of the district. With the dredging that has been done it is hoped that three thousand acres of the best farming land in Yolo county will be reclaimed. This lies within the so-called hop district, and the additional land will give a great impetus to the industry of hop- raising, which has made wonderful progress since it was first started.
Mr. Leeman is a stanch Republican, and was a central committeeman in Washington, Yolo county, for three years, and has been to state and county conventions as a delegate. His fraternal affiliations are with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He was married in Sacramento, December 23, 1884, to Miss Kate Farley, a native of Sacramento. They have three children, W. W., Gertrude and Muretta.
JAMES T. MARTIN, M. D.
During the years which marked the period of Dr. Martin's professional career he has met with gratifying success and during the period of his resi- dence in Sacramento he has won the good will and patronage of many of the best citizens here. He is a thorough student and endeavors to keep abreast of the times in everything relating to the discoveries in medical science. Progressive in his ideas and favoring modern methods as a whole, he does not dispense with the time-tried systems whose value has stood the test of years. There is in his record much that is worthy of the highest commenda- tion, for the limited privileges and financial resources made it necessary that he personally meet the expenses of a college course. In doing this he dis- played the elemental strength of his character, which has been the foundation of his success. He now stands very high in the medical profession of the state, and is in the fullest sense of the term a self-made man. While pursuing his studies in an Oregon college he was associated with four other young
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men who were in similar financial circumstances to himself. They had " bachelor apartments " and put forth every effort to make the expenses of their college course as small as possible. In order to pay his way Dr. Martin worked with the surveying party on the Coast Range mountains back of Astoria, Oregon. He was also employed in the harvest fields and for one year pulled a fishing boat on the Columbia river. His companions in bach- elor quarters were John T. Whalley, now one of the leading lawyers of Port- land, Oregon; Newton McCoy, who afterward studied law under Judge Deady, and was recently assistant United States district attorney at Portland ; Calvin Barlow, a wealthy resident of Tacoma ; and A. Radcliffe, who returned to England.
Like the others of the quintette, Dr. Martin has attained success and prominence in the field of his chosen labor. He was born in Yamhill county, Oregon, November 26, 1850, near the town of Gaston. His father, Norman Martin, was born at Stornoway, Lewis Island, Scotland, and came over to Oregon territory in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1841. He afterward proceeded up the Saskatchewan river, thence making a portage over the divide to the Columbia river, and afterward by boat to Fort Van- couver, where he arrived in 1842. He remained in the employ of the Hud- son's Bay Company until 1848, and in June of that year was united in mar- riage to Miss Julia Bridgefarmer, who had come across the plains to the Pa- cific coast in 1847. In the fall of 1850 he went to the placer mines on Feather river in California, where he remained during the succeeding year, and then, returning to Oregon, he settled on Tualatin plains, where he secured a ranch under the old donation land laws of 1850, the first being located twenty-five miles from Portland in what is known as Martin valley. There he spent his remaining days, his death occurring in 1881, having survived his wife about ten years, she passing away in 1871. Donald David Martin, a brother of Dr. Martin, is now living in Seattle, Washington. There were three sis- ters, Mrs. Nancy Ann Tyler, who is a widow and resides in Palo Alto; Harriett Jane, the wife of Samuel Vestal, state senator of Washington in Snohomish; and Ellen, the wife of George H. Proctor of Seattle.
Dr. James T. Martin is indebted to the public schools of Washington county, Oregon, for the early educational privileges he enjoyed. He after- ward attended the Tualatin Academy and subsequently was a student in the Pacific University at Forest Grove, Oregon, in which he was graduated with the class of 1876, winning the degree of Bachelor of Science. The difficul- ties and hardships which he underwent in order to acquire an education are indicated elsewhere. His strong purpose and commendable ambition won him the respect of his college mates and professors, and have secured him advancement since leaving school. After completing his college course he engaged in teaching near Tacoma, Washington, and was afterward principal of the South school in Seattle for a year or more. He then resigned there in order to accept the chair of natural history in the University of Washington, where he spent one winter, after which he went to Olympia as principal of the public schools there through the winter of 1879-80.
Desiring to become a member of the medical profession, Dr. Martin made
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a trip across the plains to Cheyenne for the purpose of earning money to pay his way in college. This trip was full of interesting incidents. He entered the employ of a cattleman as a vaquero and left Olympia in March, following the old emigrant trail and taking a large drove of cattle to Cheyenne. At that place he boarded a train bound for Ann Arbor, Michigan, and was ma- triculated in the State University as a medical student. He continued his preparation for the profession until he had mastered the branches of learning constituting the curriculum, and on the 28th of June, 1883, was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Dr. Martin received the appoint- ment of physician to the Skokomish Indian reservation in Washington, where he remained for two years. In September, 1885, he came to California, lo- cating in Woodland, Yolo county, where he practiced for fourteen consecu- tive years. During that period he served for a number of years as a member of the board of health and was its president during a portion of the time.
In 1899 Dr. Martin removed to Sacramento, where he has since been engaged in general practice, securing a large patronage. He is a member of the Homeopathic State Medical Society and was at one time its president. He was formerly examiner for the Northwestern Life Insurance Company while at Woodland, and his prominence in his profession is widely acknowl- edged by his brethren of the medical fraternity and by the laity as well. He has been a contributor to some extent to medical journals and his writings have elicited deep attention because of their clear and coherent presentation of the subject treated. As the years have advanced Dr. Martin has become interested in various business enterprises and is now secretary of the Bob's Farm Mining Company, owning and operating property in Trinity county. He is also a stockholder in other companies which are contributing to the industrial and commercial development of the state.
On the 31st of March, 1885, Dr. Martin was married in Seattle, Wash- ington, to Mrs. Mary M. Huntington, who was born in Switzerland. Her first husband was Charles Huntington, a brother of Dr. I. W. Huntington, formerly of Sacramento. She is a sister of Professor Carl Gutherz, the emi- nent artist, and a second cousin of General John A. Sutter, the famous pioneer, at whose mill in California gold was first discovered. One of her sisters is the wife of General Mark B. Flower, now president of the Union Stock Yards at St. Paul. To Dr. and Mrs. Martin have been born twin daughters : Lenala Alice and Luella Avice, both in school. They also lost two children. By her first marriage Mrs. Martin had two children: Charles Frederick Huntington, who is now a traveling salesman; and Miss Henrietta L. Huntington, who is a teacher in the schools of Sacramento.
Dr. Martin has been a member of the Masonic fraternity since 1882 and is a past master of the blue lodge and a past patron of the Order of the East- ern Star. He also belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and to the Knights of Pythias fraternity and in the latter he is a past chancellor commander. Concentration of purpose and persistently applied energy rarely fail of success in the accomplishment of any task, however great, and in trac- ing the career of Dr. Martin it is plainly seen that these have been the secret of his rise to prominence.
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GENERAL THOMAS E. KETCHAM.
General Thomas E. Ketcham, of Stockton, and for over half a century prominent in the affairs of San Joaquin county and the state, is distinguished as being one of the few surviving veterans of the Mexican war. His ,mili- tary career has been especially noteworthy, for he was also in the western service throughout nearly the entire period of the rebellion, and he has been acquainted with military tactics and with army life from what we now look upon as the primitive epoch of the forties and fifties of the past century up to the twentieth century period of military development and efficiency. Gen- eral Ketcham's life has been broadly varied, and his war experiences have really been only a phase of an unusually busy career, in the course of which he has become one of the large landowners and ranchers of San Joaquin county and generally prosperous and successful in the affairs of life.
General Ketcham was born in New York city, July 8, 1821, so that he is now in the midst of the eighties of his life, a well seasoned veteran of many life campaigns. The Ketchams are of English extraction, a Ketcham fore- father having fought valiantly for the cause of the Commonwealth under the great Cromwell and having later sought home and freedom in this country. General Ketcham's parents were Israel and Alice (Case) Ketcham. The maternal grandfather Case was a Presbyterian clergyman in Dutchess county, New York, where he organized the first church in Pleasant Valley, near Poughkeepsie.
General Ketcham spent his youth in his native state, and his education was mainly acquired in a private Quaker boarding school at a place called Nine Partners in Dutchess county, but he also attended other private schools. During the course of the Mexican war, being then a young man between twenty-five and thirty, he joined a detachment of recruits for Colonel Steven- son's regiment, whose various members have played a most conspicuous part in the history of California, and many prominent men mentioned in this work will be found to have been members of that regiment. Young Ketcham joined the regiment as a second lieutenant and was in command of the second detachment of recruits forwarded from the east. He took passage on the sailing vessel Sweden at New York, sailing on September 18, 1847, and, rounding the Horn, arrived at Monterey, California, on February 22, 1848, only a short time after the discovery of gold. A few days after his arrival he was ordered to take command of the first detachment of recruits and to relieve Thomas J. Roach. With sixteen picked men from his former com- mand, added to the first detachment, he went south to La Paz, Lower Cali- fornia, where he reinforced Lieutenant Colonel H. S. Burton. Two days after his arrival at La Paz the strengthened force of Colonel Burton met the Mexicans in the battle of Todos Santos and completely routed them, thus clearing all Lower California of hostile Mexicans. Mr. Ketcham remained at La Paz with his command until September 2, 1848, and then returned on the United States battleship Ohio to Monterey, where he and his men were mustered out of service on October 22, 1848.
Thus freed from military duties he went to Woods diggings, in Tuolumne
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county, and there engaged in gold mining and general merchandising. His partner was George A. Pendleton, a first lieutenant of Company D, which also participated in the expedition into Lower California. The firm of Ketcham and Pendleton lasted from 1849 to 1853. In the latter year General Ketcham purchased a ranch of three hundred and twenty acres of land west of and near Linden, San Joaquin county, and this was the nucleus of the long-continued and prosperous business operations which have since increased that estate to nine hundred and forty acres, and he also owns another place of one hundred and twenty acres on the Linden road about four and a half miles from Stockton. General Ketcham followed active agriculture for almost half a century, only retiring from it in 1902.
During the Civil war he raised a company of eighty men, of which he became the first senior captain, and it was known as Company A, being a part of the Third California Infantry. With this company he was ordered to Fort Humboldt, California, to relieve Major Charles S. Lovell, whose com- mand of United States regulars was sent east. Throughout the early part of the war his company remained at Fort Humboldt, and was on active duty in that section of the state in quelling the outbreaks of the Digger Indians, some six hundred and fifty of which troublesome tribe were captured or killed by General Ketcham's men. He was later transferred to Camp Hooker in Stockton for a time, and thence to Fort Churchill, Nevada, where he remained from the latter part of October, 1862, until July 4, 1863. He was then with his command in Ruby valley in Nevada, and from there was ordered to Camp Douglas near Salt Lake. He was relieved at the last-named point in May, 1864, and during the remainder of his army career until his honorable discharge in October, 1864, he was engaged in recruiting service at Stockton, San Jose and San Francisco, as occasion demanded. Immediately on resum- ing life as a civilian he went to farming, and continued that, as mentioned, throughout the rest of his active life.
General Ketcham was married in October, 1852, to Miss Esther Sedg- wick, who was born in Hudson county, New York, and came to California with her parents in the spring of 1852. Her father, Thomas Sedgwick, was a pioneer of San Joaquin county. Mr. and Mrs. Ketcham had three children, two of whom are living: Frank E., in San Joaquin county; and Anna A., wife of Frank S. Israel, in San Joaquin county. The daughter Alice is de- ceased.
General Ketcham is a member of Rawlings Post No. 23, G. A. R., at Stockton, and he was the first post commander of Rawlings Post No. 9, which has since been reorganized as Post No. 23. Some years ago he was active in Grange matters, being a charter member and twice serving as master of Stockton Grange, P. of H. For three years he served as treasurer of the First Presbyterian church at Stockton. In politics he is a stanch Republican.
GUSTAVUS LINCOLN SIMMONS. M. D.
One of the pioneer representatives of the medical fraternity of California is Dr. Gustavus Lincoln Simmons, whose prominence in the profession is indicated by the fact that he was chosen by his fellow members of the fra-
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ternity to fill the position of president of the State Medical Society. He was born in Hingham, Plymouth county, Massachusetts, March 13, 1832, and is a descendant of Moses Simmons, who was a member of an English colony of Pilgrims that sailed from Holland on the ship Fortune, the vessel which followed the Mayflower to the shores of the new world, reaching Ply- mouth in 1621. In the maternal line Dr. Simmons was a representative of the Lincoln family, whose founder was a resident of Hingham, England, and on coming to the new world established the town of Hingham in Massachu- setts. His descendants have furnished to the country many examples of patriotism and of ability in various lines of life.
Gustavus L. Simmons acquired his preliminary education in the public schools of Hingham, Massachusetts, and in Derby Academy of his native town, remaining there until seventeen years of age. He then left home and sailed from Boston, Massachusetts, in 1849, in the brig Curacoa, which rounded Cape Horn, in order to join his brother-in-law, Dr. Henry B. May, in San Francisco. After a lengthy voyage of nearly nine months he reached California, which was still under territorial rule. He spent a few months in San Francisco and then made his way to Sacramento, where the cholera epidemic was still raging. This was also at a time when the excitement incident to the squatter riots was still intense. In Sacramento young Sim- mons joined his brother-in-law in the business of the old Boston drug store, which was then located on the north side of J street between First and Second streets. Owing to the lack of accommodation elsewhere in the town a large number of the prominent physicians examined their office patients in the little cloth anterooms attached to this establishment, and as the location was quite near all of the large gambling houses and hotels it was no uncommon sight during the pioneer period to see here not only the victims of cholera and kindred diseases but also those who had been shot or stabbed and needed surgical treatment. It was in this kind of a school that Dr. Simmons gained his first knowledge of the practical work of the profession which awakened an interest in the calling which he later adopted as a life work. For several years he assisted materially in the care of sick and wounded in Sacramento, and then having determined to engage in medical practice he returned to the east and entered the Tremont Street Preparatory Medical School of Boston, which was then conducted by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the noted scientist and author, and others. At a later date Dr. Simmons became a student in the medical department of Harvard University and won his degree there, it being conferred upon him by that famous institution in 1856.
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Not long after his graduation Dr. Simmons returned to Sacramento, where he has since been successfully engaged in the practice of his profession, except during the periods in which he has made extended trips to the east and to Europe, taken with a view of observing the methods of hospital practice in these places. Dr. Simmons is a member of the American Medical Association and served on the committee of arrangements at the great gath- ering of that body held in San Francisco in 1871. He is also a member of the California State Medical Society and served as its president in 1895. He also joined, after graduation, the Massachusetts State Medical Society and
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,was one of the charter members of the Sacramento Society for Medical Im- provement. In his profession he has attained high rank, winning prominence which comes in recognition of superior ability, close application and thor- ough and continuous preparation. Anything which tends to bring to man the key to that complex mystery which we call life elicits his attention and interest, and many extremely difficult medical problems have been success- fully solved by him in the course of a long, varied and important practice. He was the first surgeon in California to report a case of ovariotomy (1858), followed by one of extirpation of the spleen. He is the author of many able articles upon medical and surgical subjects. Among his many mono- graphs contributed to medical journals are a number which have attracted widespread attention and favorable comment in the profession. These have included "The Feigned Insanity of the Public Administrator and Murderer Troy Dye," "Phthisis in California," and a monograph on the use of silver wire in ruptured tendons, including the tendo .Achillis.
For more than twenty years Dr. Simmons served as a commissioner in lunacy and as a member of the board of health in Sacramento. He was also for one term county hospital physician, has been United States pension surgeon, and aside from the duties of his profession has rendered valuable service to his community. He was the first secretary of the city board of education that acted as school superintendent. He is now president of the board of trustees of the Marguerite Home for Old Ladies, founded through the munificent charity of Marguerite E. Crocker.
Dr. Simmons was married in 1862 to Miss Celia Crocker, a daughter oi the Rev. Peter Crocker, formerly of Richmond, Indiana, and of Barn- stable, Massachusetts. They have three living children, the eldest of whom is Dr. Gustavus Crocker Simmons. Dr. Samuel Ewer Simmons, the young- est son, was in the pioneer class in Stanford University that granted the degree of Master of Arts. Dr. Samuel was married in 1900 to Miss Evelyn Gladys Crow, of San Jose, and they have a son, Samuel Bradford Simmons. Both the sons graduated in medicine from Harvard University, and with their father are active practitioners in Sacramento. Cecil May, the only daughter, is the wife of Dwight H. Miller, of Sacramento.
Dr. Gustavus Crocker Simmons was born in Sacramento February 24. 1863, attended the public schools of this city and afterward the University of California. He then, like his father, became a student of the medical department of Harvard University, and was graduated with the class of 1885, receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He afterward pursued post- graduate courses of study in Europe as a student in the hospitals of Vienna and Berlin, and since that time has made five other trips to the old world, each adding greatly to his knowledge concerning the methods followed by the best practitioners of medicine and surgery. He is now practicing his profession in Sacramento, where his marked ability has gained him prestige. He was mar- ried April 11, 1895. in Sacramento to Miss Gertrude Miller, a native of this city and a daughter of Frank Miller, the president of the bank of D. O. Mills & Company, of Sacramento. Two daguhters have been born to Dr. Gustavus Crocker Simmons and his wife, Ednah and Elinor, both at school.
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