USA > California > A memorial and biographical history of the coast counties of Central California > Part 55
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William J., the subject of this sketch, ex- perienced all the vicissitudes of a miner's life, having varied successes and failures until 1864.
For sixteen years, until the early part of the year, 1892, he had charge of the Pacific & Coast Steamship Company's interests and. wharf at Monterey, in which position he proved himself a most efficient official, and made hosts of friends by his pleasant and oblging manner. Since his service in the above office he has been engaged in the hotel business and stock-raising, and is the owner of the Mal Paso (Spanish words meaning Bad Crossing) rancho, comprising 900 acres of stock range, about eight iniles south of Monterey, on the coast.
Captain Towle married, in 1863, Miss Amelia A. Eaton, a native lady of Wiscon- sin, who came to this State when about ten years of age with her parents, in 1855. The marriage took place in San Francisco, and Captain and Mrs. Towle have one son, Grant, born May 22, 1864.
Mr. Towle is a prominent Republican. He voted for Frémont in 1855, and has voted for every Republican nominee for the presiden- tial office since. He is widely known through- out the county as a man of great force of character, pronounced and outspoken in his opinions, firm and sometimes aggressive in supporting them.
PHRAIM J. TURNER, deceased, was one of the prominent and worthy pioneers of California.
Mr. Turner was born near the town of Dorchester, Massachusetts, November 1,1826. His father, Seth Turner, a shoemaker by oc- cupation, died in that town at the age of eighty-five years His mother, whose maiden name was Lydia Jones, was a native of the same State. She was born in 1804 and died at the age of eighty-six years. Of their four
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sons and one daughter, Ephraim Jones was the oldest. He was a manufacturer of bri- tannia ware, and pursued that business at Dorchester and later at Taunton, same State.
In 1850 Mr. Turner left home and em- barked at Boston for San Francisco, coming via Panama, and upon his arrival at San Francisco went to the mines, where he drove teams and engaged in freighting. Not long afterward he returned East, married and lo- cated in Illinois. His wife died there, and after her death he again came to California, this time making the journey overland with pack mules. He located in Santa Clara county, threshed grain, dealt in stock, and did a successful business. He finally located on the farm at San Felipe, where he developed a valuable estate. In 1870 he revisited his native State, and while there met and mar- ried Miss Douglass Jenkins. Her father, John Jenkins, a shipbuilder by trade, was a native of Maine. Mrs. Turner was born on Prince Edward Island, November 25, 1844. She received a thorough education, became an accomplished school teacher, and is a woman of social culture and domestic ac- complishments. Their marriage occurred June 7, 1870. Following are the names of their children: Everette J., born April 9, 1871; Albros G., May 23, 1872; and Charles H., October 20, 1884.
Mr. Turner left a fine estate, comprising 160 acres of fertile land, under a high state of cultivation, besides much personal prop- erty.
C. TOLLETT, a resident of the "Golden State" since 1872, is a successful farmer of Salinas, Monterey county. He is a native of Washington county, Ar-
kansas, having been born there September 17, 1849.
After coming to this State Mr. Tollett engaged in farming, and now has a fine farm of 120 acres of rich land under a good state of cultivation. The property is situated one mile from the city of Salinas, and Mr. Tollett has erected a superior grade of buildings upon it, in a rural architectural style, that has a beauty of its own.
The lady who presides over his home is the daughter of George Archer, a capitalist of Salinas. Mrs. Tollett is a native of Illinois, and she and her husband are the happy par- ents of one daughter, Hattie, born in 1883.
Mr. and Mrs. Tollett are highly respected and esteemed among their neighbors, and are worthy good people.
ON. J. W. HILL, proprietor and editor of the Salinas Index, and well-known throughout the State as an able news- paper man, was born of Scotch parentage on a farm near Prescott, Canada West, in 1840, being the eldest of ten sons and three daugliters. He received his education in his native country, where he lived until 1862, when he came to California via water, reaching San Francisco in April. From here he continued his journey to British Columbia on a mining expedition, going also to Alaska, return- ing to California in the fall of the same year. He then prospected in Nevada, Utah and Idaho. During the bloody In- dian wars of the Northwest in 1864-'65 and '66, he kept a ferry crossing the Owy- hee river, in Idaho Territory, where he experienced the vicissitudes of a frontiers- man. In 1867 he disposed of his business and went to Silver City, the county seat of
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Owyhee county, Idaho Territory, where he purchased the Weekly Avalanche, an infant weekly newspaper, which he published until 1876. From this date he has been a resident and newspaper publisher of Salinas, Califor- nia, finally purchasing the Salinas Index. In 1876, he introduced the first cylinder steam printing press and conducted the first daily paper in Idaho Territory, the Idaho Daily Avalanche. This press he now uses in the printing of the Index. Although in a Republican county, with an easy Demo- cratic majority, he was elected to the several offices of County Clerk, Sheriff and Tax Col- lector of his county. He was a Centennial Commissioner from Idaho, and was tendered the nomination to Congress by the Republi- can party of his district. Upon locating in California and assuming the publication of the Index, his ability as a forceful newspaper writer was promptly recognized, and he gained the confidence and esteem of the peo- ple of a rich and influential community.
The new constitution of California was the absorbing theme of interest in political circles in 1871, and he was one of its ardent pro- moters. Upon this issne, he was nominated by the Republican and New Constitution par- ties as a candidate for the State Senate, to which office he was elected. He served in this capacity with eminent ability and to the highest satisfaction of all persons and parties interested in the public weal. In 1886, he was elected Mayor of Salinas city and served in that capacity three successive terms or six years. The second and third terms he was the people's unanimous choice, having no com- petitor, and finally declined to serve longer. He was one of the first to advocate the rais- ing of the American flag over all school build- ings of the State, and delivered the address
at the first flag-raising upon the public school buildings of Salinas.
Mr. Hill was married, June 2, 1873, to Miss Belle Peck, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. S. Peck, and a granddaughter on her inother's side of Colonel Gallant Duncan Dickinson, of whom prominent mention is made elsewhere in this work. Mr. and Mrs. Hill have a son William C. Hill, now (1892) in his nineteenth year.
These are a few of the most prominent events of an eminently active and useful career, which has been justly crowned with financial success and the highest regard of his fellow-men.
HOMAS BUTTERFIELD (an Autobi- ography) .- I was born the 3d day of November, 1806, in the town of Wil- ton, then Kennebec county, then Providence, Maine. My father, Henry Butterfield, was born in Massachusetts, and his father, Samuel Butterfield, the pioneer of what is now the town of Farmington, Maine, also. I worked for my father, after I was old enough to work, on his farm, except what time I spent in get- ting a common-school education until I was twenty-one years old. I then went on a small farm in the town of Farmington, which my father gave me, and December 12, 1827, I married Hope Eaton, who was born the same year that I was born and in the same neigh- borhood. We worked at farming and stock- raising for about seven years, buying other lands and prospering both financially and otherwise.
We then sold and removed on a farm where the town of East Wilton now stands and there I engaged in building and operating the Wil- ton Woolen Mills, of which I was part owner and I acted as Secretary and Treasurer for
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the company. I acted as Selectman and Over- seer of the Poor for two years and as Justice of the Peace for fourteen years, carrying on my farming, a hotel business and a sawmill at the same time.
Owing to losses in the factory business, we closed up our affairs, and in 1843 I moved my family into Aroostook county, settled on the Aroostook river and engaged in farming and lumbering preparing timber for the St. John market. I prospered financially and in 1848 we removed to Appleton, Wisconsin, and there engaged in the lumber and mer- chandise business. I built a bridge to Ap- pleton, over the Fox river, 900 feet long, and furnished planks for a fifteen-mile plank road. I ran two sawmills about two years and furn- ished the logs myself. The Plank road company failed to pay as agreed and I snf- fered a loss and took stock in the road that was of no valne.
In 1853 I came with my family to Cali- fornia, across the plains, and stopped in Ne- vada county, where I engaged in mining, butchering and selling goods, also in lumber- ing and doing some farming. In 1858 I bought a farm of 775 acres on the river for $20,000 in Yuba county, and here I farmed and raised stock, mostly good horses for about three years; but the floods, ague and mosqui- toes compelled us to leave that place and we sold at a sacrifice and went to Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz county, and lived there until the fall of 1869. At this time we moved to San Benito county and there engaged in import- ing, breeding and selling Angora goats and pure-bred sheep. My son, James, was with me in that business. We had the Cottswold, Lincolnshire, Leicester, South Down, Texile, French and Spanish Merino sheep, and we prospered in this business. We sold $25,000 worth of goats in one year. In 1875 we
bought 1,400 acres of land in Contra Costa county, paying $17,550. Before we went on the land we were at great expense in build- ing levees, clearing off the tules and breaking up the ground. The floods broke our levees, ruined our crops and destroyed many thou- sand dollars worth of live-stock. After four years of hard work and continnal losses we became financially bankrupt and we left the county without means and with health shat- tered.
My son went to the State of Oregon and my wife and I came back to San Benito county and stopped in Bear Valley. Here we com- menced in a small way and with a little assis- tance from our son George, and with industry and economy we accumulated enough to now place us in comfortable circumstances and we are living in our own home in the town of Hollister. We are about eighty-six years of age, still able to be about and wait upon our- selves and do something more. We have been blessed with five children, one daughter and four sons, the oldest being sixty-three years old and the youngest fifty years old. Our daughter is now the wife of E. O. Tompkins of Nevada City, California. . Our son, Will- iam, lives in Menlo Park, where he is in the real-estate, auction and commission business in San Francisco; George and James are in San Benito county, engaged in farming; and Charles is living in Clatsop county, Oregon, engaged in the dairying business, but he will probably, soon remove to San José, Califor- nia. They are all married and have famlies, all temperate and industrious, in comfortable circumstances and are blessings to their par- ents, themselves and to the community where they live. Our grandchildren range from one year to thirty-seven and are nineteen in number, fifteen grandsons and two great- grandchildren, and all bid fair, so far, to be
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temperate and industrious like their parents. We have been blessed in many ways, have been married sixty-four years and have lost no children and have had no trouble except the loss of property and that does not amount to much in this world and nothing in the world to come.
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AMES BUTTERFIELD is one of San Benito county's most enterprising and active pioneers. He is the oldest son of the venerable Thomas Butterfield, of Hollis- ter, an antobiograpical sketch of whom appears in this work. He was born at Farmington, Maine, May 5, 1836. He married Miss Jessie, a daughter of Samnel Holt, Esq., a native of Nova Scotia, by whom he has seven children: Harrie, Nellie, Edwin, Carrie, Thomas, George, and Arthur.
Mr. Butterfield's life has been a singularly . busy one and has been spent thus far in rural pursuits. He preceded his father two years to this country. He has spent several years in Oregon. He also, at one time, operated a goat ranch on one of the group of the Sand- wich Islands. He located on his present place near San Benito, in 1876. He, in 1892, is preparing to take up his family residence in San José, California.
AMES WATSON, a prosperous farmer and influential citizen of San Benito county, California, residing near Paicines, was born in Scott county, Virginia, Septem- ber 22, 1831. He is next to the oldest of the children of the well-known pioneer Jacob Watson, who is prominently mentioned in various connections elsewhere in this history.
Upon coming to California, Mr. Watson
first engaged in wagon freighting from Marys- ville to the mines, in 1855. Later he lived in San Luis Obispo county, in the Santa Rosa valley, near Cambria, where he lived for about twenty-one years, engaged in farm- ing and stock-raising. In 1884, he settled near Paicines, on Tres Pinos creek, being the first man to locate in his section of the valley.
He was married, in 1869, to Miss Hannah R. Carnack, who was born abont twelve miles from the World's Fair city of Chicago, and a daughter of Perry Carnack, who came to California in 1855, and died near Paicines August 24, 1871. Mr. and Mrs. Watson are useful members of the First Baptist Church of Paicines, and are esteemed for their many good qualities.
ICTOR D. BLACK, of Salnas, Cali- fornia, a leading milling and business man of his vicinity, was born in Mt. Vernon, Black township, Jefferson county, Illinois, August 11, 1855. He is a son of Samuel Black, Esq., of Castroville, Califor- nia, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work. Mr. Black came to California with his parents when he was eight years of age. His parents spent the first three years in the mines, and then settled at Los Gatos, where the subject of this sketch received the rudiments of a splendid business education. His father, being an excellent miller, taught his son this business. At the age of fifteen, he received his first experience as a miller in a small and somewhat primitive mill on So- quel creek. This was a small custom mill, propelled with a thirty-foot overshot wheel. He later milled at different points in the State, and, in 1880, in partnership with his father,
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purchased a gristmill at Castroville, which they operated nutil 1885, when they sold ont. Mr. Black, of this notice, then went to Salinas, and assumed charge of the Salinas mills for C. L. Dingley, Esq., of San Fran- cisco. The Central Milling Company was organized during this year, of which Mr. Black became an incorporator, and in 1890, was elected to a seat in its directory. The Central Milling Company commenced doing business January 1, 1887. The entire Salinas interests of this heavy corporation, which absorbed and controlled nearly all the milling interests along the Southern Pacific railway line, in several connties of central California, devolved upon Mr. Black, as Superintendent. The Sperry Flour Com- pany was incorporated Angust 5, 1892, with a capital of $10,000,000, $6,000,000 of which is paid in. This corporation absorbs the interests of the Central Milling Company; Sperry and Company of Stockton; the Pio- neer Milling Company of Sacramento city; the Mccrary Milling Company of Sacra- mento city; the Buckeye Mills of Marys- ville; the Golden Gate Mills of San Fran- cisco; and the Chico Milling Company of Chico, California, the combined capacity of which is abont 6,000 barrels flonr per day of twenty-four hours run. Mr. Black was one of the incorporators, and is a director, of the Sperry Flour Company, and has the manage- ment of the mills of the corporation at San José, Salinas, King City, Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo. The foregoing plainly stated facts attest the sterling qualities that Mr. Black possesses as a business man, which have placed him in the front rank of the milling men on the Pacific coast.
Mr. Black was married, July 30, 1890, to Misa Dalia Norris, a native daughter of California, born at Sonoma, and a daughter
of E. Norris, Esq. Mr. and Mrs. Black have three interesting children: Victor D., Jr., and Lester, twins; and an infant daughter.
Mr. Black's eminent success in life is dne entirely to his own ability, industry and perseverance, supplemented by correct busi- ness methods and nniform courtesy shown to all in the various walks of life.
ILLIAM D. ROBINSON, Esq., one of the few surviving pioneers of Monterey, California, was born in New York city, October 26, 1825, and spent his earlier years in his native city. He came to the State of California in 1847, and to Monterey in March, same year. He came as a soldier of the Mexican war, and a member of the famous Stevenson's regiment, the his- tory and mission of which is familiar to readers of California history. Mr. Robinson joined this expedition in New York city, whence he sailed around Cape Horn, and after a six months' voyage landed in San Francisco harbor. After a two days' stay there, they were transported to Monterey. From 1848 to 1852 Mr. Robinson engaged in mining. He also invested in Monterey city property, which he still owns, and like- wise bought a ranch in the vicinity of Monte- rey. He was for years more or less identi- fied with local civil affairs, holding various offices. In 1862 he was Inspector of Cns- toms at the port of Monterey for two years; in 1864 he was appointed President of the local Council, and for a time was acting Mayor of the city. He was later Town Mar- shal, which position he filled with credit to himself and to the people for whom he acted.
He married Miss Esther Bertholf, in New
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York city, a lady of German descent, and they have four sons and one daughter living. Few men now living have seen more of pio- neer life in California than he, and few enjoy more justly the esteem of their fellow-men.
K UTHER S. TOOTHAKER, one of Cali- fornia's pioneers, and a mechanic by trade and profession, is one of Monte- rey's most respected citizens. He came to California in 1850, via the Isthmus of Pana- ma. He is a native of Maine, being born in the vicinity of Bangor. His father, William Toothaker, was born on Long Island, and fol- lowed the sea for many years, but later turned farmer. Mr. Luther Toothaker is the third child of a family of six children.
He left home at about twenty years of age, and, coming West, learned the trade of a car- penter in Iowa, and has made this his chief occupation. Upon arrival in California he went into the mines, and pursued mining for abont fifteen years, with varying success. A portion of this time he was engaged in mill- building, and later worked in the car shops of the California railroad at Sacramento. He aided in the construction of the passenger coaches that conveyed the State Railroad Commissioners to Ogden, upon the historical mission of driving the golden spike. Still later he worked in the mills at Red Bluff, California.
He has been married twice, and has one step-daughter.
He came to Monterey in 1873, where he
has since resided and followed his occupation.
Mr. Toothaker is one of the types of the old-time pioneers, that all men delight to associate with, exhibiting sociability and frankness in all their dealings and intercourse.
ANIEL BRINSON .- Mr. Brinson is the pioneer boot and shoe merchant of Hollister. His advent into this State was made as early as 1853, when he came from Winterset, Madison county, Iowa. He is a native of Ripley county, Indiana, and was born at Versailles, on February 14, 1835. His father John was born on Licking river, in Kentucky. He was a farmer by occupa- tion and his wife was Elizabeth Wade. They had twelve children born to them before they removed to Iowa, where they reared their large family.
Upon coming to California Mr. Brinson engaged in mining for a short time with in- different success. He then followed lumber- ing at Redwood City for a time. His next venture was a boot and shoe factory in Mon- terey, which he started in 1862. In 1865 he removed to Santa Clara county, where he re- sided and carried on business until 1871, when he came to Hollister, where he has since been engaged in the same occupation.
Mr. Brinson was married, in 1859, to Miss Lucinda Vargas, a native of California, born at Los Angeles. The marriage ceremony took place in Monterey. Mr. and Mrs. Brinson are highly respected and esteemed among a large circle of friends.
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