USA > California > A history of the new California, its resources and people; Vol II > Part 24
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The marriage of Mr. Graft was celebrated on the 7th of April, 1903, when Myma E. Royce became his wife, she being a daughter of John Royce, a retired rancher living in San Jose. Both Mr. and Mrs. Graft are held in high esteem, and the kindly social qualities with which they are endowed win for them the friendship and good will of all.
ALBERT LAKE.
Albert Lake, deceased, was for many years a prominent representative of the commercial and industrial interests of San Jose. He was born in Chautauqua, New York, in 1843, and his early educational privileges were received in the public schools of Westfield, that state. When eighteen years of age he accompanied his parents on their removal to California, the family taking up their abode in Centerville, Alameda county, and there the parents spent the remainder of their lives. The son Albert worked on his father's ranch in Centerville until 1864, and in that year went to San Francisco and entered the employ of Hobbs, Wall & Company, proprietors of a box factory. He entered the factory as an ordinary mill hand, but his ability soon won him promotion, and in 1874, when the company instituted an office in San Jose, he was made the manager of their interests here. In 1872 their buildings were ruined by a flood, but were immediately rebuilt and considerably enlarged. In 1873 Mr. Lake resigned his position as man- ager and became the proprietor of a box factory on North Fourth street, in
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connection with Hunt & Bettenger's coffee and spice house, but in the fol- lowing year, 1874, he sold this establishment and bought the factory of his former employers, Hobbs, Gilmore & Company. On the 3Ist of October, 1887, his entire plant was destroyed by fire, on which he had but small insur- ance, but with characteristic energy he immediately rebuilt the plant and was conducting a profitable business when he was again visited by the fire fiend, May 15, 1892, and his property was totally destroyed. Again Mr. Lake rebuilt his mill, and this is now one of the most modern and best equipped in this section, with a capacity of two million feet of lumber per annum, the material used being white pine and spruce. Fruit boxes of all descriptions and sizes are here manufactured from northern California ma- terial, and in addition to the large local trade its product is shipped to all parts of the state. Since its inception the business has steadily increased from year to year, and this is now one of the leading institutions of this section of the state. In 1876, while working a saw in his factory, Mr. Lake suffered the loss of his right hand, and for a year and a half following he was unable to attend to his business. During the last five years of his life he was a constant sufferer, but such was his industry that he was always found at his office whenever able to leave his bed, and so continued until his life's labors were ended in death, on January 11, 1899. He was a man of good judgment and sound financial ability, and enjoyed the unlimited con- fidence of his fellow men.
The marriage of Mr. Lake was celebrated in 1874, when Emily Morey became his wife, she being a native of Illinois, but came to California in 1868. Six children were born of that union: Sidney S., Albert, David (now deceased), Frank, Clarence and Harry. In political matters Mr. Lake gave a stanch support to Republican principles, and for one term served as a city councilman. His fraternal relations were with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. After Mr. Lake's death his widow became the manager of the business, assisted by her sons Sidney and Albert, and they have since practically rebuilt the plant, and its present success is due largely to their efforts.
NORTON P. CHIPMAN.
Norton P. Chipman, a man of state and national prominence and for many years an honored and influential citizen of California, was born in March, 1839, at Milford, Union county, Ohio, a son of Norman and Sarah (Parker) Chipman, both natives of Vermont and of old families of that state. The Chipman ancestry was identified with progress and development during the colonial days, and our institutions and social and political fabric have been strengthened by men of the name since their arrival from England during the first half of the seventeenth century. Nathaniel Chipman, an early member of the American family, wrote a treatise on the principles of government which anticipated many of the forms of the present Constitu- tion of the United States.
Norman Chipman, father of the distinguished Californian, was a pioneer settler of Union county, Ohio, and for some years conducted a gen-
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eral mercantile business at Milford. The family moved to Illinois in 1848, and a year later to Van Buren county, Iowa, residing in different parts of the latter state until the time of the Civil war, at which time the Chipman residence was in Washington of that state.
It was from Washington, Iowa, that Norton P. Chipman enlisted for service in the Union army. He became a private of Company H, Second Iowa Infantry, under Colonel Samuel R. Curtis, who was afterward pro- moted to major general. By the choice of the members of his company, Mr. Chipman was elected second lieutenant, and Colonel Curtis soon afterward appointed him adjutant of the regiment, in which capacity he served in the Missouri campaign up to the time of the appointment of his colonel as brigadier general, at which time he became, by appointment of Governor Kirkwood, major of his regiment. Major Chipman fought at Fort Donel- son and was wounded there. He returned to his regiment shortly after the battle of Shiloh. While participating in the siege of Corinth he received his promotion to the colonelcy and as aide de camp on the staff of Major Gen- eral Halleck. He was ordered to report for duty to Major General Curtis, his erstwhile colonel, then at Helena, Arkansas. He was made chief of the staff and served with General Curtis until ordered to report to the secretary of war at Washington, early in 1863, and his remaining war experience was at the national capital, where he was a not less useful figure in the struggle for the Union though in a less conspicuous department of activity. At the close of the conflict he was brevetted brigadier general. Among other im- portant duties assigned to him at Washington, was service as judge advocate of the military commission which tried and convicted the Andersonville rebel prison-keeper, Henry Wirtz, and he also served as judge advocate in other military trials.
At the close of the war General Chipman resigned his connection with the war department and entered upon the practice of law at Washington. When the District of Columbia was reorganized with territorial form of government he was chosen by the people as their delegate to Congress, serv- ing two terms, and was the first and only representative given the District, whose form of government was soon afterward changed.
In 1875, after the close of his congressional term, he came out to Cali- fornia and located at Red Bluff, Tehama county. He entered upon the practice of law and various business enterprises, and was soon an influential figure in that part of the state. In April, 1897, he was appointed commis- sioner of the supreme court of California, which post he has since held. Before becoming identified with the courts of the state he was an active leader in the affairs of the Republican party. The industrial development of the great state has been a cause especially dear to him, and for many years he has been president of the California State Board of Trade, which is the most influential organization endeavoring to promote immigration of high- class settlers and the increase of state wealth and resources.
General Chipman was married at St. Louis, during the course of the war, in 1865, to Miss Mary Isabel Holmes, a daughter of Robert Holmes, who was a prominent merchant of that city, a strong Union man and a
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member of the constitutional convention which formed the new state consti- tution. There were two children of this marriage. One is deceased, and Alice is now the wife of Mr. Chester S. Smith of San Francisco.
General Chipman is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and with the Union League Club, of which he was president for one year. He is a mem- ber of the Ohio Society. One of the foremost members of the Grand Army of the Republic, he was adjutant general of the order at a very early period in its history, when General Logan was commander in chief. He took an active part in forming the present rules and regulations and ritual govern- ing the Army. He wrote the order in 1868 which created Memorial day. now so generally observed throughout the Union, in both north and south.
LOUIS H. HARTMAN.
Louis H. Hartman, prominent among the business men of San Jose. who for a number of years has been closely identified with the business interests of the city, is a man of keen discrimination and rare judgment, and his executive ability and excellent management have brought to the brewing company with which he is connected a large degree of success. The safe policy which he inaugurated in his business career has secured to the com- pany a patronage which makes the volume of trade transacted of considera- ble magnitude.
Mr. Hartman was born in this city November 21, 1862, and is a son of Joseph and Dorothy (Messing) Hartman, both of whom are natives of Germany. The father crossed the Atlantic to New York in 1850 and in 1852 came to California, making a voyage around Cape Horn. After a short stay in San Francisco he continued his journey to San Jose and estab- lished the first brewery in Santa Clara county, manufacturing the first keg of beer in Balback's blacksmith shop. He then embarked in business on a small scale, making from twenty-five to fifty barrels per year, but his pat- ronage steadily increased and in 1856 he erected a plant at the corner of Market street and St. Carlos avenue. At the time of his demise in 1879 the product of the brewery was about three thousand barrels per year. At his death he was succeeded by his son-in-law, George Scherer, who con- ducted the business up to the time of his death in 1898, when Mrs. Scherer and Mr. Louis H. Hartman-the only son of the family-became proprietors. Mr. Hartman had been connected with the business from his boyhood days and was well qualified to assume control.
It was in the public schools of San Jose that Louis H. Hartman ac- quired his education, continuing his studies until he reached the age of sixteen years, when he entered the brewery and there served his time as a regular apprentice in order to gain a thorough and complete knowledge of the business. After a few years he was made foreman of the plant, which position he held up to the time he assumed the management upon the death of his brother-in-law. The plant now has a capacity of about twenty-five thousand barrels annually and manufactures nothing but steam beer. the product being well known throughout the country as Old Joe's Steam Beer.
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It is principally sold in Santa Clara county, there being a good home market.
In 1888 Mr. Hartman was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Bour- dette, a native of San Francisco and a daughter of Peter Bourdette, who was a California pioneer. They now have two sons, Joseph and Bourdette, both of whom are students in the College of St. Joseph. Mr. Hartman belongs to the Native Sons of the Golden West, to the Eagles, the Foresters, Herman's Sons and many other fraternal organizations.
ROBERT DENISTON HUME.
Robert Deniston Hume, president of the Klamath Packing and Trading Company, the Hume Canning and Trading Company and the Del Norte Commercial Company, and with his winter residence at 2421 Pierce street, San Francisco, and his summer home in Wedderburn, Curry county, Oregon, has been identified with the great salmon industry of the Pacific coast from almost its very inception. In fact, as he expresses it in his valuable and read- able booklet on " The Salmon of the Pacific Coast," he was " sub " under small pay with the firm of Hapgood, Hume and Company, consisting of Andrew S. Hapgood, George W. and William Hume, which began the busi- ness of canning salmon on the Pacific coast in the spring of 1864, at the town of Washington, Yolo county, California, on the banks of the Sacramento river, opposite the foot of K street in the city of Sacramento. Mr. Hume was then a young man in his nineteenth year, and had large expectations of a partnership interest in the firm when the business should prove the success anticipated, and he has subsequently not only realized this ambition, but has become one of the chief factors in the systematic, scientific and commercially profitable industry of canning and preserving the greatest food fish of the world. Mr. Hume well remembers the difficulties encountered and over- come, both mechanical and commercial, in the first place there being a lack of proper tools and contrivances to prevent waste and afford expedition in the matter of canning a perfect product; and on the other hand, it was only owing to the enthusiasm and perseverance of the principals in the business that the dark hours of lack of demand for this new article of trade were finally turned into bright day, and a steady and lucrative trade built up. From the first annual product of two thousand cases the business has for some years dealt with millions of cases, with all the consequential development and ramifica- tions of the trade which such an increase signifies. The history of the salmon industry is now a part of the history of the Pacific coast, and can only be briefly alluded to here in order that proper historical perspective may be given to the career of one who has been one of the important as well as earliest factors in the development of that enterprise.
Robert Deniston Hume was born in Augusta, Maine, October 31, 1845. His ancestral history is extensive and important in its connections and sources, and he is owner of the book, " Noble British Families," in which is contained the Hume pedigree, which, while too long to be quoted here entire, deserves some mention. In this genealogy the generation to which Mr. Hume belongs is numbered the one hundred and fiftieth from the Biblical father of mankind,
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Adam. Beginning with this Edenic ancestor, whose time is given as about 4000 B. C., the descent is brought down through the Old Testament rulers and chiefs, through the kings of Israel to Zedekiah, whose daughter married a king of Ireland about B. C. 580; thence through fifty or more generations on the Emerald Isle, to the kings of Argyleshire, beginning in A. D. 287 and numbering one hundred and fourth in the entire line: the one hundred and seventeenth descendant is King Kenneth II. of Scotland, and from him the history is traced through many well known names of Scottish history, and with connections among the old Anglo-Saxon kings and nobles and barons of earliest England-men whose very names recall the greatest and most epochal events and civic movements in the annals of the British Isles; and in the one hundred and forty-ninth generation is found the name of John Hume, the grandfather of Mr. Hume. John Hume married Nancy Webb and had eleven children.
Of these eleven children was William Hume, the father of Mr. Hume. He was born in Waterville, Maine, and was in early life a school teacher, after which he was in the shoe business the rest of his life. He was a soldier in the war of 1812, and was afterward a captain of the militia. He was born in 1794 and died in 1868. The family were all stanch patriots, and the American progenitor of this branch of the Humes came to America in 1723. William Hume married, first, Harriet Hunter, who had four children, William, John, Sophia and Harriet Hume ; and, second, Elizabeth F. (Webber) Hixon, who was born in Vassalboro, Maine, in 1809, and died in 1889. The second wife was the mother of eight children, and among them are George W. Hume, president of two large packing companies in San Francisco; Joseph Hume, who died in 1901, was also president of two large salmon canneries in Alaska; and Robert Deniston Hume.
Mr. Hume was reared on a farm at Augusta and was educated at the North Parish public schools until he was eighteen years old. In 1864 he came to California and located in Yolo county, there becoming connected with the salmon industry in the manner mentioned above, and has been engaged in promoting and opening up new fields for the enterprise in various sections of the Pacific coast. He went to Oregon in 1866, and that state has remained one of the centers of his operations ever since, although he has also pushed his forces into the Alaskan regions. While being especially interested in the canning and exportation of the salmon, with wisdom and foresight he has done much to call the attention of both producer and consumer to the danger of total extinction of this most valuable of food fishes, and provide methods and procure agitation for their preservation and lasting propagation, and the little work above quoted had this main object in view. Mr. Hume had been engaged in the study of law for twenty-five years, and in 1903 was admitted to the Oregon bar. He maintains two salmon hatcheries on the Rogue river in Oregon.
Mr. Hume was married, first, to Cecelia A. Bryant, a native of Oregon and a relative of William Cullen Bryant, and she had two children, Robert Deniston and Amelia Hume, both of whom are deceased. Mr. Hume's second wife was Mary A. Duncan, a native of Dunedin, New Zealand, and a daughter
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of George Duncan, who was provincial treasurer under Sir Julius Vogel, gov- ernor of New Zealand. Mr. Hume affiliates with Oriental Lodge, F. & A. M., at San Francisco, is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and the California Genealogical Society. In politics he is a Republican, and was a representative to the Oregon legislature for two terms, 1900-1903.
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
It is always a pleasure to see true merit suitably rewarded and behold the prosperity of those who eminently deserve success, as does the subject of this review. Early in life he learned the value of industry and enterprise as the initial step toward success, and has made these qualities his salient characteristics throughout a business career in which he has worked steadily upward. From a humble beginning he has advanced step by step until he is now manager of the Jupiter Steel Company, one of the largest and most important enterprises of San Francisco, and truly he may be called a self- made man in the best sense of that term, for he deserves all the praise that it implies.
Mr. Arnold is a native of Massachusetts, his birth having occurred in Stockbridge, Berkshire county, on the 16th of June, 1848. He is the eldest in a family of four sons and three daughters born to John and Annie (Paten) Arnold. His father was a native of the north of Ireland and belonged to a Protestant family. Crossing the Atlantic to America in early manhood, he first settled in Massachusetts in the year 1848, and continued to reside in that state for about eight years or until 1854. when he came to California, lo- cating in Tuolumne. There he engaged in mining, and was one of the original locators of the now famous Raw Hide mine, which has paid millions of dollars in dividends. Mr. John Arnold continued a resident of the Golden state until his death, which occurred in 1902, when he was seventy-nine years of age.
Matthew Arnold pursued his early education in the public schools of Stockbridge, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, continuing his studies there until he had mastered the branches of the high school course. He was reared upon his grandfather's farm, being left there at the time of the removal of his parents to California in 1854. At the age of fifteen years he put aside his text-books and came to the west with his father, who had returned to Massachusetts for the purpose of bringing his son to the Pacific coast. After his arrival in the Golden state Matthew Arnold worked for his father, underground in the Raw Hide mine, and was thus employed until 1864, when he came to San Francisco and entered upon an apprenticeship to the machinist's trade in the old Union Iron Works, now the Union Iron Works at the Potrero. He completed his apprenticeship in 1868, after which he continued as a journeyman in the shops of the company until 1870. In that year he left his position and entered the employ of the Central Pacific Railroad Company as a machinist. He was employed by that company to go from San Francisco to Wadsworth, Nevada, but on the expiration of twelve months he re-entered the employ of the Union Iron Works and for
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two years longer continued as a journeyman, after which he was appointed assistant foreman of the department. He acted in the latter capacity for three years, and in 1876 was made superintendent of the entire place. a promotion which came to him in recognition of his superior mechanical ability and marked devotion to the interests of the company he represented. For twenty years he occupied that responsible position and then resigned.
In 1896 the new corporation of the Union Iron Works was awarded a contract for the building of the cruiser Charleston and afterward received the contracts for the cruisers San Francisco, Olympia and the battleship Monterey for coast defense, and also the Oregon. It was during the period of Mr. Arnold's superintendency of the shops that these vessels were built, and under his personal supervision the work was carried on from the time the raw material was received on the grounds until the ships were ready for launching. Prior to this time Mr. Arnold superintended the removal and reconstruction of the plant of the Union Iron Works at Potrero. His busi- ness career has been one of continuous progression, in which he has year by year more thoroughly mastered the great scientific principles which under- lie his work. After resigning his position with the Union Iron Works he was appointed professor of mechanics in the Lick Mechanical Art College, serving in that incumbency for two years, from 1896 until 1898. In 1900 he accepted the position of superintendent of the Risdon Iron Works and designed and built their new plant located at Potrero. During the succeed- ing year he engaged in no active lahor, spending that period in rest and recreation.
In the month of May, 1903, however, he accepted the position of gen- eral manager of the Jupiter Steel Company and immediately took up the work of designing and constructing the plant. The company was incorpo- rated for one million dollars and the site of the plant covers twenty acres, communicating with both rail and water, so that excellent shipping facilities are afforded. The building is two hundred and thirty-eight feet in length by eighty-five feet in width. It has a capacity of thirty tons per day. It is supplied with all modern equipments in the line of improved machinery for the manufacture of steel castings, and this is the first enterprise of the kind west of the Rocky Mountains. Under the capable management of Mr. Arnold it has already become a profitable enterprise of the great west, and certainly no more competent man could be secured for the position of super- intendent than he whose name introduces this review, because of his com- prehensive knowledge of mechanical principles and his broad understanding of the practical workings of the shop.
In 1877 was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Arnold and Miss Mary Anne Hickey, a native of Boston, and a daughter of Miles Hickey, a native of Ireland. Four children have been born of this marriage, but two have passed away. Those now living are Evelyn, the wife of Wilder Killis, a native of Dallas, Texas; and Walter, who is attending school. The wife and mother died in 1901, and Mr. Arnold has since married Miss Mathilde Schmacker, a native of Germany and a sister-in-law of George Beleney, of
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the firm of Ivancovich & Company, on Commercial street, No. 209, whole- sale produce merchants of San Francisco.
Mr. Arnold gives his political allegiance to the Republican party and has taken a deep and active interest in its work in his home locality and in the state. He was president of the State Republican League in 1894, and his efforts in behalf of the organization have resulted greatly to its good. His life has been one of continuous activity, in which has been accorded due recognition of labor, and to-day he is numbered among the substantial citizens of his county. His interests are thoroughly identified with those of the west and at all times he is ready to lend his aid and co-operation to any movement calculated to benefit this section of the country or advance its wonderful development.
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