USA > California > A history of the new California, its resources and people; Vol II > Part 19
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Mr. Ehrhorn was born in San Francisco on the 24th of January, 1862, and is a son of Adolph and Louisa M. (Macfarlane) Ehrhorn. The father was a native of Hamburg, Germany, and in 1850 sailed for California, be- coming one of the first merchants and importers of San Francisco, as a member of the firm of Hellman Brothers & Company. This firm is still in existence, and with the business Mr. Adolph Ehrhorn continued his connec- tion up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1873. His wife was a native of Tacna, Peru, and came to California in 1852 with her sister. It was here that she was married, although she had formerly made the acquaint- ance of her husband while he was engaged in business in South America. She died in Santa Clara county at the advanced age of seventy-seven years.
Mr. Ehrhorn had four brothers and four sisters. When a youth of eight years he was sent to Germany by his parents, going to the home of an uncle in Hamburg in order that he might be educated there. He attended the public schools of Germany and later became a student in leading colleges of Switzer- land and England. In 1881 he returned to California and for a short period was employed as a salesman in a mercantile house in San Francisco. His education had been largely along scientific lines and well qualified him for the work which he soon undertook. Going to Sonoma county he there en- gaged in the production of grapes and the manufacture of wine. Subse- quently, in the year 1883, he took up his abode in the Santa Clara valley, and has since extensively engaged in fruit culture. He is a member of most of the scientific societies on the coast, and his business activity has always been directed along scientific lines. He holds membership relations with the Academy of Sciences at San Francisco, the San Francisco Microscopical Society, the Pacific Coast Entomological Society and the American Associa- tion for the Advancement of Sciences. He pursued a special course in ento- mology at Stanford University under Professor John H. Comstock, the noted entomologist, studying principally the scale insects, their habits and the detri-
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ment which they caused to fruit. Since leaving the university he has con- tinued his investigations and researches along that line, and is regarded as authority on the subject throughout the entire west. Shortly after leaving Stanford he was appointed in 1893 as horticultural commissioner of Santa Clara county and has held that position up to the present time. During this period he has done much work in economic entomology, studying the various pests which have threatened the fruit industries. As the result of a discov- ery he has caused the importation of parasite of the black scale from South Africa, which is now effecting a marvelous work in the eradication of the pests throughout the state. In 1890 he was appointed deputy quarantine officer and assistant entomologist of the state board of horticulture and acted in that capacity for three years, but through an act of the legislature the ap- propriation of the board was cut off and his term of service was then closed. He has been a frequent contributor to the scientific journals throughout the United States and Canada and is considered an authority on the scale insects.
Mr. Ehrhorn has various fraternal relations, belonging to the Masonic Lodge, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Woodmen of the World and to the Grange. In politics he is a Republican and takes an active interest in the welfare, growth and success of his party. A man of broad and liberal education, his ability and talents have been of marked benefit to his fellow men and in scientific circles he has gained an honored name.
HENRY VINSON MOREHOUSE.
On the pages of the history of jurisprudence in California there are found no names more distinguished than that of Henry Vinson Morehouse, to-day one of the most prominent lawyers of San Francisco. He has also been connected with political and military affairs of the state and has thus left the impress of his individuality on many lines affecting the progress and prosperity of the commonwealth. He was born on the Ist of April, 1849, in Elkhart, Elkhart county, Indiana. His father, Nathan B. Morehouse, was a native of New Orleans and was of Welsh descent, belonging to an old family that was established in the United States at a very early period in the colonization of the new world. The first settlement of his ancestors was made in New York, but at a later date representatives of the name went to New Orleans. The father was a steamboat captain on the Mississippi river in his younger days, but subsequently turned his attention to farming. He came to California in 1867 and spent his remaining days on the Pacific coast, passing away in Santa Cruz county, this state, in 1892. His wife was Susan Feese, a native of Holland, who came to America with her par- ents, the family home being established in Ashland, North Carolina. Mrs. Morehouse passed away in 1894. In the family were three daughters.
Henry Vinson Morehouse, the only son, pursued his education in the public schools until seventeen years of age, and putting aside his text-books he began working on a farm. Not content, however, to make the labor of the fields his life occupation, he devoted his leisure hours during this period to preparation for the practice of teaching. He afterward secured a school
A. V. Marchouse
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and continued teaching in Mendocino county for the year of 1868. In 1869 he went to Salinas City in Monterey county, where he was employed at farm labor for a year. He then engaged in teaching school between the years 1871 and 1877, and at the same time pursued the study of law, devoting his leisure hours to the mastery of the principles of jurisprudence. He had progressed so far in his knowledge that in 1874 he was admitted to the bar, but did not enter upon the active practice of his profession until 1877. In that year he was chosen district attorney of Monterey county, and he also performed other official service there, having been a member of the county board of education from 1871 until 1877. He continued in the practice of law at that place until 1890, when he removed to San Jose, California, where he spent about eleven years. In April, 1901, he came to San Francisco, and ranks to-day as one of the most distinguished representatives of the bar in this city. He has for eighteen years been attorney for the Southern Pa- cific Railroad Company and is the representative of various corporations, as well as important private litigated interests. He has won special fame as a criminal lawyer, and was connected with the case of the people versus John A. Prewitt, which was a murder trial in San Benito county. This case was tried five times, and after exhausting the entire qualified jurymen of that county it was removed to Monterey county, where the case was acquitted. Mr. Morehouse was attorney for the defense, and thus won a most signal victory. His reputation as a lawyer has been won through earnest, per- sistent effort, careful preparation and marked ability. His knowledge of the law is comprehensive, and he marshals the facts of every case with the precision of a general upon the field of battle, giving to each its due promi- nence, presenting them with regard to their relative value, and never for a single moment losing sight of the important point upon which the decision of every case finally turns. In his presentation of a case to court or jury he employs his oratorical powers with excellent effect, but never for a mo- ment deviates from the truth which he wishes to present by the grace of rhetoric.
In October, 1871, occurred the marriage of Mr. Morehouse and Miss Jennie F. DeWitt, a native of Savannah, Missouri, and a daughter of William and Galusha DeWitt, who were early settlers of Missouri. They had two children, Evelena E. and Sybil. In his social relations Mr. Morehouse is a Mason, an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythias and an Elk, and is much esteemed in the various fraternities with which he is connected. His political allegiance has long been given to the Republican party and he has been hon- ored with official preferment aside from the positions already mentioned. In 1897 he was elected to represent the thirty-fourth district in the state senate, and was a member of the upper house of the California assembly for four years. During the administration of Governor Stone he served as judge advocate of the Fifth Regiment of the National Guard of California, with the rank of major. He has for a number of years occupied a promi- nent position in the foremost ranks of the leading practitioners of central California, and his life of untiring activity has been crowned with a high
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degree of success. He is not the less esteemed as a citizen than as a lawyer, and his pleasing manner and charming cordiality have rendered him exceed- ingly popular among all classes.
JOHN CONRAD.
John Conrad, chief of police, Alameda, California, was born in New York city fifty years ago, the date of his birth being July 18, 1854.
Mr. Conrad's parents, Louis and Phillipina (Bubble) Conrad, were natives respectively of New York state and Germany. They had two chil- dren, John and Mary. The latter is now Mrs. Quast, of Alameda, California. The father, an architect by profession, died when his son John was four years old.
John Conrad was educated in the common and high schools of his native city. He remained in New York until he reached his majority, when, in 1875, he came to California and located in Alameda, where he has since resided. Before leaving New York he served an apprenticeship to the trade of ship joiner, and after coming to California he worked at the carpenter's trade for several years, up to 1886, when, on May 21, he was appointed a patrolman on the city police force. April 12, 1894, he was appointed ser- geant, and filled that position up to January, 1899, when he received the appointment of chief of police to fill an unexpired term, and in April of the same year he was elected to the office. He was re-elected in 1901 and again in 1903, and is now serving his fifth year as the incumbent of this office.
Mr. Conrad married, in 1878, Miss Frances Elizabeth Roberts, a native of New York city and a daughter of Samuel H. Roberts of that place. They have three children, Ada Emma, George Edgar and Harriet Ida. Mr. Conrad is a member of the F. and A. M., W. of W. and the I. O. R. M. Politically he is a Republican.
FRANK W. LEAVITT.
Frank W. Leavitt, of San Francisco, is a man well known in California, where he has spent the greater part of his life and where he has for several years been prominently identified with public affairs.
Mr. Leavitt, however, is a native of Indiana. He was born in Indiana- polis, March 24, 1866, son of William and Emma ( Bruce) Leavitt, early settlers of the Hoosier state. In the Leavitt family were two sons and one daughter. The latter is deceased. The son, James B. Leavitt, is manager for the Poc Press Publishing Company of Oakland, California. In 1870 the family left Indiana and moved to Oregon, where they remained until 1881. that year coming to California and locating in Oakland. Here the aged father died in 1903. He was by trade a carpenter, which he followed during the active years of his life.
Frank W. Leavitt may well be termed a self-made man, in the true sense of that word, for he left school at the age of ten years and went to work in a printing office, and from "printer's devil" he worked his way up
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to an honored seat among the lawmakers of the state. It was in the office of the Salem Statesman that he began work when a boy, and he remained in the employ of that paper until he came with the family to Oakland, in 1881, as above stated. He worked in printing offices in Oakland and San Fran- cisco until 1890, as a type-setter, and that year he accepted a position in the business department of the Oakland Tribune, and later was with the Oakland Times. From 1896 to 1900 he conducted a printing establishment of his own.
From his early boyhood Mr. Leavitt took and enthusiastic interest in political affairs and when he became a voter he gave his support to the Re- publican party. To this party he has ever been loyal. In 1896 he was elected a representative to the California state legislature, for one term of two years, at the end of which time he was elected to the state senate. At the close of his four years' term in the senate, he was in 1902 elected for an- other term.
Believing in reform measures for the voting system of the country, Mr. Leavitt, in the summer of 1903, accepted the appointment of general man- ager for the Pacific coast for the Columbia Voting Machine Company, of Indiana, and is now directing his energies in this direction.
Mr. Leavitt married, in 1891, Miss Bonnie Steele, a native of New York and a daughter of Mrs. E. J. Foster, of San Francisco. They have one son, Donald, seven years of age.
The Elks and the Eagles have in Mr. Leavitt a worthy member.
J. A. FULLER.
J. A. Fuller, the honorable mayor of Napa, California, is a man of mark among the pioneers of the Pacific coast. After a life of adventure and varied experiences in other parts of the world, he came to California in the middle year of the last century, and was concerned in many of the affairs of the young state, with a full share in the adventures and hardships of the miner. His center of activity was afterward transferred to the territory of Alaska, where he was influential and able in various enterprises connected with the commerce and the industrial development of that region. Since his return to California he has had a more tranquil but not less useful career, and has been prominent in public affairs for many years. Al- though now well past the age of threescore and ten, his Nestorian coun- sel and sage ability are still prominent factors in the city of Napa, where he is held in the highest esteem by all classes of citizens, and where his place as the executive head of the city seems but the well deserved compli- ment to a fulness of years marked with integrity of character and whole- hearted and upright action.
Mayor Fuller was born on the east coast of England, in the town of Louth, Lincolnshire, September 12, 1828. He went to sea at an early age, being a bound apprentice in the old East India Company's service, running between London, Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. After serving his time he made voyages to Australia and to many ports of the globe. He was in Syd-
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ney, Australia, when the last attempt to locate a penal colony in Botany Bay was made. The convicts were Smith, O'Brien, Mahers and three others, transported for leading riotous assemblies against the government in Hyde Park, London, in 1846.
After voyaging around the world Mr. Fuller arrived in San Francisco in 1850, previous to the admission of the territory to the Union. He went directly to the mines of Calaveras county, and while there witnessed some of Joaquin Muriatta's escapades, the then much dreaded bandit of those regions. He met with indifferent success, and, returning to San Francisco in March, 1851, took passage on board the steamer Sea Gull for the then famed Gold Bluff mines off Trinidad. Through stress of weather the ship was obliged to put into Eureka, and escaped destruction by crossing Hum- boldt bar. During the March storms Mr. Fuller was one of the party that blazed the trails over the Trinity mountains into the Trinity river valleys. He mined at the Big bar and the Big bottom, where General Denver, of Denver city fame, was keeping a canvas store for miners' merchandise. He engaged in fluming the river in 1851, and, with many others, lost his last nickel in that precarious occupation. In the fall he left with his worldly possessions on his back (consisting of a pair of blankets and a frying pan), and crossed the Sacramento valley to Foster's bar, at a point about thirty miles north of Marysville, where he once more tried his luck in the search for the precious metal.
In the fall of 1852 he cast his first vote in the United States, giving it to Franklin Pierce. He was in the mines of Nevada county until 1866, working in many of the deepest mines, and while there located one of the most valuable water rights in that region, comprising the waters of the north fork of the Middle Yuba river. He was one of the original discoverers of Camptonville, in Yuba county, and mined there with varied success. On his return to San Francisco in the fall of 1866 he entered the employ of the United States government as clerk in their clothing depot on Market street.
At the time of the purchase of Alaska from Russia by the United States, he went to Sitka on the steamer John L. Stephens, in company with the officers and soldiers under the command of Jefferson C. Davis, arriving Octo- ber 8, 1867. There they awaited the arrival of the United States steamer Ossipee, bringing General L. H. Rousseau, of the United States army, who had been sent as commissioner to receive from Captain Pesterschoff the Alaska territory. Mr. Fuller remained in Alaska seven years, and became interested in the earliest exploitations of the commercial and industrial re- sources of the territory, being connected with the Russian American Com- mercial Company, of San Francisco, whose president was J. Mora Moss. He also received from the postmaster general the appointment as postmaster of Sitka, thus having the honor of being the pioneer postmaster of the terri- tory. He was also appointed government coal agent by Admiral Winslow, who visited the territory in 1870 in command of the Saranac. He estab- lished the first drug store and the first circulating library in Sitka. He aided in the issuing of the first newspaper ever written and the first one ever printed in Alaska, the Sitka Times being the first written sheet and the Alaska
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Times being the first printed. He contributed a poem for the first column of each paper, and he still has the two pioneer papers in his possession.
He had the honor of entertaining Lady Jane Franklin, the wife of the Arctic explorer, and her niece, Miss Sophie Craycroft. He was a witness of the total eclipse of the sun in August, 1869, from the observatory erected by Professor George H. Davidson, of San Francisco; the observatory was at the head of Lynn canal, along the line of the recently disputed possessions of Canada and the United States.
Mr. Fuller was elected surveyor of the town of Sitka in November, 1867, and for several years following was a city councilman. During his seven years' stay he was agent for the Commercial Company, and directed all their operations in the fishing and lumber industries. He shipped into San Fran- cisco the first invoice of salt salmon after the cession. He also erected the first circular sawmill which lessened the price of manufactured lumber so that the poorer classes were enabled to exchange the wretched, crowded huts for comfortable cottages; during the Russian regime the lumber mill had an old sash saw, cutting but two hundred feet per day. All the logs were purchased from the Indians, who managed to keep the mill running. He dealt with the Alaskan Indians in such a manner as to win their entire confi- dence, and, in fact, during a strike of the Russian fishermen one season, he had no other assistance than that of the red men in completing his invoice of salmon. During the visit of Governor W. H. Seward, and at the latter's desire, Mr. Fuller sawed nineteen thousand feet of the yellow cedar as a present to the governor, who wished to use it to wainscot his library in Auburn, New York.
Mr. Fuller had the ability to master all the details of a situation and to win out just as matters evolved themselves around him, so that his service was always efficient and timely, and he left a good record as an administrator and commercial factor during his work in the territory. However, he gave up his duties there in 1874, and returned to California, buying himself a home in Napa, Napa county, where he was content to begin the routine of a quiet life.
Mr. Fuller was present during the exciting times in San Francisco, and was at the notable flag-raising in that city, on October 18, 1850. Although California was admitted to the Union on September 9 of that year, the news did not become known in the state until the old steamer Oregon brought the tidings, via Panama. And by a curious coincidence, just seventeen years from that date, October 18, 1867, he was at the raising of the stars and stripes in Sitka, in commemoration of the purchase of Alaska. Further- more, on a return trip from the Fraser river country in British Columbia, he witnessed the ascending of the glorious old banner which waved Oregon into a state, February 14, 1859.
In 1884, after he had become permanently settled in Napa, he was elected a member of the city council for one year, and in the following year was defeated by two votes; but in 1886 was re-elected, and held the honorable position as president of the board until 1897, when a new city charter was
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voted upon. In 1899 he was elected to the office of mayor, which position he still holds, having yet a four years' tenure before him.
Mr. Fuller celebrated his marriage to Miss Emma Waite, of Shoreham, Vermont, in 1890. She was of an old New England family.
GEORGE GRANT GERE, M. D.
Dr. George Grant Gere, who is occupying the chair of surgery in the California Medical College in San Francisco, was born on the 27th of Decem- ber, 1848, in New York. The family is of English lineage and was estab- lished in the new world about 1600 by representatives of the name who settled in Massachusetts. Horatio Nelson Gere, the father of Dr. Gere, was a farmer by occupation and in early life also engaged in teaching school. He married Miss Juliana D. Grant, a native of New York and a representa- tive of an old American family descended from Mathew Grant, who settled in Windsor, Connecticut, early in the seventeenth century. To Mr. and Mrs. Horatio N. Gere were born five sons and two daughters.
Dr. Gere, spending his boyhood days under the parental roof, pursued his education in the common and high schools of New York and Nebraska, having in the meantime accompanied his parents on their removal to the lat- ter state. He was a youth of sixteen years when, in February, 1865, he enlisted in Company F of the First Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry under Col- onel Thayer, thus serving until the close of the war. He continued after- ward with his company, which was engaged in fighting Indians in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas. In 1866 he returned to his father's home in Nebraska and resumed his education, but his desire to serve his country in a military capacity was not yet quelled, and in 1868 he enlisted in the militia and again went to central Nebraska and Kansas in order to crush out the insurrection among Indians in those sections of the country. He was in active service for about six months, after which he returned home. In 1870 he was appointed deputy United States marshal and took the census of the locality in which he resided.
Determined upon a professional career and having already studied medi- cine several years under the tuition of Dr. A. S. Stewart, Dr. Gere in the fall of 1870 matriculated in the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was graduated with the class of 1871. He engaged in practice in Nebraska for four years, from 1871 until 1875, and in the fall of the latter year removed to Utah, where he entered upon a successful professional service. In 1877, however, he came to California, settling first in Tulare county, where he practiced for four years. In 1881 he came to San Fran- cisco, where he entered upon professional duties that have since occupied his time and attention. He has enjoyed a constantly growing practice and at the same time has ably served the profession as a medical educator. On removing to this city he accepted the chair of anatomy in the California Medical College, being thus a representative of its faculty from 1881 until 1886. In the latter year he was appointed to the chair of surgery, which he has occupied continuously since. He has a clear, concise and forcible
Seo. S. Gere
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style in his lectures and a ready adaptability which enables him to impress upon the minds of his students the essential thoughts concerning surgery, which he wishes to convey.
In 1890 Dr. Gere was united in marriage to Miss S. J. Wood, a native of New York, as was her father, William H. Wood, who settled in Califor- nia about 1863. Dr. and Mrs. Gere have become the parents of four chil- dren: Harrison, Florence C., George G. and Raymond. The doctor is a member of the Masonic order, the Knights of Pythias lodge and a number of other fraternal societies. He likewise belongs to Lincoln Post, G. A. R., of which he served as surgeon for a number of years. His effort and talent, however, have chiefly been directed in the line of his chosen calling, and that he ranks high with the profession is indicated by the fact that for two years he was honored with the presidency of the California Eclectic Medical Soci- ety. For twenty years he was a member of the board of examiners of the Eclectic Medical Society of the state of California, and in 1901, following the passage of the new medical law, he became a member of and is the present secretary of the board of medical examiners of this state. To a man of Dr. Gere's nature mediocrity would be utterly impossible, and throughout his professional career his labors have been characterized by continued advance along scientific lines. He has carried his investigation far beyond that of the average practitioner and as an educator and active member of the medical profession has made for himself an honored name and gained a position of distinction.
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