An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day, Part 78

Author: Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1038

USA > California > Los Angeles County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 78
USA > California > San Diego County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 78
USA > California > Orange County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 78
USA > California > San Bernardino County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 78

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

JOHN HARRISON, senior partner of the grocery firm of Harrison & Pace, was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, November 21, 1845, and is the youngest of three sons of Parker and Mrs. Agnes Harrison, nee Mc- Murray. He was educated in New York city, and at an early age became associated with an elder brother in the grocery business. On March 4, 1880, he married Miss Emina M. Bangerter, a native of New York, who was born on the day Abraham Lincoln was first elected President, in November, 1860. They came to California on their wedding tonr and remained. Before coming to San Bernardino, Mr. Harrison was engaged in business in Los Angeles County. September 14, 1887, he formed a partnership with Milton A. Pace, and purchased the grocery business of A. Thorp, who had three months previously bought the stock from John Kane, the

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HISTORY OF SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY.

founder of the house. At first the partners, with the assistance of one man, transacted the business, but it has steadily increased in volume until they now employ four men besides them- selves and three teams to handle their extensive retail trade, which is one of the largest in South- ern California. They carry a heavy stock of the best grades of staple and fancy groceries, which are purchased at the lowest wholesale prices, and are sold on a small margin of profit. Three children, two sons and a daughter, have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, the latter of whom is deceased. The sons are nine and one year old, respectively. Mr. Harrison's father, a farmer by occupation, died in 1884, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. His wife died several years earlier.

ILLIAM Mc DONALD, proprietor of McDonald's furniture and undertaking establishment, San Bernardino, the old- est in San Bernardino Connty, was born in Ireland, in 1826. His parents emigrated to the United States before his recollection, and settled in Philadelphia, where his father engaged in cabinet-making. The son studied architecture and followed contracting and building during the early years of his business career, before and after coming to the Pacific coast. Up to 1851 his life was passed in the East and South. In the fall of that year he crossed the plains to Salt Lake, Utah, and there took a contract to build a mill, on which he made enough money to bring him on through to California the following antuinn. San Bernardino was his home for the first five years after arriving in that State, although he carried on the business of contracting and building in Los Angeles and vicinity, being the pioneer in that business in Southern California. Early in the '50s good mechanics were not to be found, and even very indifferent workmen he paid as high as $7 per day. In 1857 Mr. McDonald moved down to Los Angeles, and in the spring of 1860 went

up to San Francisco and spent some six months traveling through the finest valleys of that part of California. Believing then, as now, that the San Bernardino valley is the choicest portion of the Pacific slope, he returned and permanently settled here in the fall of the same year. In 1866 he opened the first futniture store in the city, and, subsequently associating undertaking with it, he designed and built the first hearse ever used in Southern California, which he still has in his possession, though its nse has been superseded by two elegant hearses mannfactured by Cunningham & Sons of Rochester, New York. Mr. McDonald's furniture warerooms and repository for funeral goods are some 300 feet in depth and embrace half an acre of floor room. He makes a specialty of the undertaking feature of his business, and keeps in stock a large assortment of funeral goods of the best Eastern and Northern mannfactories. As an embalmer Mr. McDonald has won a reputation extending across the continent, and has numer- ous highly commendatory letters from under- takers in the East, testifying to his success in embalmning bodies for transcontinental ship- ment. In 1854 Mr. McDonald bought the lot and erected the house in which he and his fam- ily now reside, in McDonald's Place, between C and D streets and Third and Fourth.

Mrs. McDonald, formerly Miss Mayer, is a native of Staffordshire, England, and a relative of the Mayers of that city, famons as pottery manufacturers. She came to America when a child of eight years. Mr. and Mrs. McDonald have nine living children, five sons and four daughters, all save one born at their present homestead, and all but one residents of San Bernardino valley. Two of the sons are asso- ciated with their father in business. In early times Mr. McDonald was politically opposed to the old Mormons of this valley, and his out- spoken expression of opinions and free and independent action in upholding his convictions, which he held to be the right of every Ameri- can citizen, created no little antagonism of feel- ing against him on the part of the followers of

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Joe Smith and Brigham Young. The Morinon colonists not only refused to sell hiin any of what they considered desirable town lots, but he had the courage of his convictions, and his faith in the final triumph of the principles he advocated and upheld, never wavered. He has lived to enjoy the realization of his hopes.

HOMAS L. McFARLANE, one of the oldest and most expert miners on the Pacific coast, was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, in January, 1840. Meeting with financial reverses by which he lost his property, Mr. McFarlane's father moved with his family to Iowa when Thomas was four years of age. He died in that State some twelve years ago. In 1859 Mr. McFarlane drove six yoke of oxen across the plains for a company who were freighting for the United States Government from Fort Leavenworth to Salt Lake. The train was composed of thirty wagons and thirty- six men, and the company received an average ot fifty cents per pound for transportation. On reaching Salt Lake, Mr. McFarlane and seven comrades bought a teamn and came through to California that fall, reaching Placerville late in September. The same autumn he came down to Kern County, where he had two brothers engaged in farming, and joining them he pur- sued the same vocation for two years. In the fall of 1861 he came to San Bernardino County and spent the winter in Holcomb valley. This was the season of the great flood, and the low lands of the San Bernardino valley were entirely inundated, forming a continuous lake of water many miles in extent. In the spring of 1862 Mr. McFarlane returned to the Kern river country and went into the mines, where he and his three comrades took out $1,600 apiece in six weeks. In 1863 and 1864, he and his brothers built what is known as the McFarlane toll road, which extended from the Kern river to the Tulare valley, a distance of about forty miles of mountain road. They kept the road

until 1870, when a lack of travel, owing to a change of ontlet by way of Los Angeles to the seaboard, they were compelled to surrender their charter and lost their investment. In February, 1870, he and his brother started for Ivenpagh, their total capital being $450. After reaching their destination and prospecting until they were abont worn out and disheart- ened, the subject of this sketch accidentally ran on to an uncovered ledge of rich silver ore, and hence was the first discoverer of that now famous mine from which several million of dollars have since been taken. He and his brother incorporated as the Ivenpagh Min- ing Company, which was afterward reincorpo- rated as the Ivenpagh Consolidated Mining Company: this firin has taken out nearly two million dollars. Mr. McFarlane still owns valuable mining property there. His brother, A. J. McFarlane, was the discoverer of the Long Tom gold inine in Kern County, which has been very productive. There were four of them interested in it, and after working it profitably for a time they sold it for $20,000. In 1876 Mr. McFarlane started into the livery business in San Bernardino. He has also tried merchandising and dealing in real estate, but his chief success has been in mining.

In 1878 he married Miss Seely, daughter of David Seely, one of the early pioneers of San Bernardino valley, and they have resided in the city 'ever since. Their homestead comprises nearly an acre of land on Sixth street between L and D) streets. They have two children, a son and a daughter.

TEWART MONTGOMERY WALL, a California pioneer of 1852, was born in Virginia in 1834, and moved with his parents to southwestern Missouri when a lad five years of age and there resided until he came to the Pacific coast. During the gold excitement of 1850, his father, William Wall, came via Santa Fé and Yuma with his two

Oh Seymour

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HISTORY OF SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY.

oldest sons to California and spent a year in the mines up about Anburn in search of the coveted yellow dust. In 1851 the old gentleman returned to Missouri and the following spring started for the Golden State with the rest of his family, including Stewart, coming this time across the plains by the northern route. He settled in Merced County, and engaged in farm- ing and dealing in live stock. In 1865, he removed with his family to San Bernardino County, where he passed the remainder of his life, he having died some twelve years ago. In 1857 the subject of this article went back to Missouri, remaining until the fall of 1859. After spending several years in traveling through Arizona, Nevada and Montana, he settled permanently in San Bernardino County in 1865. Mr. Wall has served five terms as inarshal of the city, and in 1880-'81-'82-'83 was deputy county recorder for three years. In September, 1885, he was appointed county license collector by the board of supervisors, which office he has filled with ability and satis- faction to the present time. Ilis license col- leeting amount on an average to about $5,500 each quarter.

Mr. Wall married Miss McCoy, the daugliter of an early settler in California. Like many of the brave men who traversed the wilds of the desert and the Sierras in search of the hidden riches of the mines, Mr. Wall passed through thrilling experiences with savage red men, one of which is published in this work as narrated by him on page 414.

DWIN CHIDSEY SEYMOUR, Sheriff of San Bernardino County, was born in Otsego County, New York, in 1845. His father, also a native of the Empire State, was a cabinet-inaker by trade, and moved to northern Pennsylvania when Edwin was a lad of seven years. Here he grew up to manhood and learned the trade of cabinet-maker with his father. Upon the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion le 82

responded to his country's call, entering the army as a member of the Seventy-sixth Pennsyl zania Infantry, and remained four years and nearly three months, chiefly in the Army of the James, closing his service with the campaign of North Carolina and the surrender of the Johnston army. Returning home, he engaged in the lumber and milling business in western New York, which, together with contracting and building, has been his principal occupation ever since. Since 1881 Mr. Seymour was elected a member of the Board of Supervisors of Che- mung County, New York, and resigned the office the following year and came to California, chiefly on account of his wife's health. Settling first in Riverside, he erected a large number of build- ings that year in that charmning place. In March, 1883, he removed to San Bernardino and has been a resident of the city since that time. He served as deputy sheriff under Cap- tain Gill in 1884-'85, and in the fall of 1888 was elected Sheriff of San Bernardino County, beating one of the most popular Democrats in the county. Sheriff Seymour has demonstrated his eminent fitness for the position by the en- viable record he has made since assuming the duties of the office, and which has won for him the hearty cominendations of the people of the county regardless of political affiliations. In politics Mr. Seymour is an active and zealous Republican, ever ready to advocate and defend the principles of the party. He is also promi- nently identified with fraternal organizations. Having joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows as a member of Genesee Lodge in Roch- ester, New York, in 1868, he passed all the chairs in the local lodge and was a member of the Grand Lodge in 1870; is a inember of Token Lodge, No. 146, and of Morse Encampment; also San Bernardino Canton of Patriarchs Militant. He is a member and has been Commander of Corn- man Post, No. 57, Grand Army of the Repub- lic, and is now Inspector of the Seventh District; is a member of Meridian Lodge of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and a Select Knight of San Bernardino Legion in that order. He is

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one of the organizers of the San Bernardino Loan and Building Association, and is serving in his third term as its president, being elected withont a dissenting vote. He is president of the Valley Land and Water Association, a director in the San Bernardino Fruit Packing Company, and in the " Fines Index Publishing Company." Mr. Seymour is quite extensively interested in orange and raisin grape culture in Etiwanda.

In June, 1866, just prior to his twenty-first birthday, Mr. Seymour was joined in marriage with Martha M. Goddard, a New York lady. Four children, two of each sex, constitute their family.

AN BERNARDINO ARTIFICIAL STONE AND IMPROVEMENT COM- PANY was organized in March, 1887, with a capital stock of $250,000, divided into 2,500 shares. John C. King was elected presi- dent; A. M. Murpby, vice-president; M. Da- venport, secretary, and Malcom Macdonald, man- ager. The purpose of the organization is to construct sewers, sidewalks and tunnels, and to do a general contracting business. Their prin- cipal office is on E street, near Third street. in San Bernardino. Under Mr. Macdonald's effi- cient management the volmine of business transacted by the company has been large, and has extended to the principal cities and towns of Southern California. Among their principal contracts may be mentioned the sewer systems of San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino, besides the manufacture of artificial stone trim- mings for numerons large buildings, including the Stewart hotel. The business done in San Diego alone within the past few years aggre- gates nearly $300,000. Mr. Macdonald has been contracting for forty years, and in his present line of business fifteen years. When sixteen years of age he started to learn ship-building, and. after completing the trade, carried it on seventeen years, during which time he modeled

and drafted twenty-seven ships, besides parts of numerous others. He carried on the business in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Boston. He came to the Pacific coast in February, 1868, and has ever since been engaged in general con- tract work. Before immigrating to this coast, he furnished the stone work for the provincial building in Halifax, the cathedral in Harbor Grace, the St. James Episcopal cathedral in Portland, Maine, and also manufactured grind- stones for many mills in the New England States. These stones came from the quarry owned by him and his brother at Port Phillips, Nova Scotia. At the time an impost duty of twenty per cent. ad valorem was placed on this class of foreign merchandise by the United States Government. The firm of M. & P. Mac- donald was one of the heaviest in that province, owning and employing in their trade with the United States five vessels. The labor of first- class quarrymen cost them about $8 per month in that country. The effect of the tariff was to completely paralyze their business, and they were compelled to close down and sell their ves- sels. Mr. Macdonald says it cost him a fortune to learn the value of the United States tariff in the protection of home industry; hence he is a strong protective tariff man from the Ameri- can standpoint, and is thoroughly Americanized.

Malcom Macdonald was born in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, May 9, 1833. He left home and became self-supporting at sixteen years of age. He married in July, 1859, and he and his estimable wife have a family of four children, three danghters and one son: John Monroe Macdonald, aged twenty-one years, who is studying for the medical profession.

H. PIERSON, M. D., residing at Mission San Bernardino, is a native of New En- gland, and came from a Puritan family on his father's side, and an English Quaker fam- ily on his mother's side. He is a son of Henry Pierson, a direct descendent of Abram Pierson,

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first president of Yale College, whose ancestors landed on Long Island in 1632. The subject of this sketch resided several years in Europe en- gaged in the study of medicine, and in 1861 he came back to America, and in 1866 went to Lake Superior as physician and surgeon for the An- glo-American Copper & Lead Mining Company. In 1867 he went to Arizona as surgeon for the Vulture Gold Mining Company, and remained there until 1882. He was married in 1870. In 1882 his health having failed somewhat he determined to discontinne the practice of his profession and try rural life. Accordingly he purchased a fine tract of 265 acres of land in Mission San Bernardino, on which he has over 1,000 orange trees, ten acres of peach trees, five acres of pears and other decidnous fruits. Here, surrounded by his family, the Doctor is leading a quiet life, looking after the education of his children and the interests of his farm.

EORGE JORDAN, proprietor of the largest jewelry house in San Bernardino County, has been in the business in Cali- fornia twenty-three years. Born in Germany forty-eight years ago, he emigrated to the United States when a youth of fifteen, and after stop- ping for a time in New York, went south into Georgia, where he remained during the late civil war. After the close of the conflict he re- turned to his native land and spent two years in business in Europe. Recrossing the Atlantic, he came directly to the Pacific coast and opened a jewelry store in San Francisco, where he car- ried on business for twenty-one years. Having faith in the grand future of Sonthern California and wishing to identify himself with its march of progress, Mr. Jordan closed out his business in San Francisco, and in May, 1888, opened his present store in the Ruffen block, San Bernard- ino, with an extensive and elegant stock of goods, his purpose being to embrace in variety and quality everything required or sought after in the line of jewelry, diamonds, watches, clocks

and optical goods, thus supplying purchasers with an assortment equal to any to be found in the larger cities. Having a thoroughly prac- tical knowledge of the details of the different branches of his business, and giving the closest personal attention to every department, Mr. Jordan commands a large and prosperous tra le, which extends throughout San Bernardino and adjacent counties. He designs and inakes to order everything in the line of diamond work, society emblems, jewels, medals, etc., and has a well earned reputation as one of the most skillful and painstaking watchmakers in the State.

Notwithstanding the temporary business de- pression which has prevailed in this section of the State for the past year or two, as the reac- tionary result of the speculative boom, Mr. Jordan still has undiminished faith in the great future of Southern California, possessing as it does such a multitudinons number and unpar- alleled richiness of resources. He is a gentleman of fine business qualifications, and an affability and sincerity of manner which wins and retains the esteem of his fellows.

UCIAN D. CRANDALL, senior partner of the firm of L. D. Crandall & Co., pro- prietors of one of the largest retail grocery houses in San Bernardino, is a native son, born in that city in 1857. As he grew to manhood he had a strong desire to visit other portions of the continent, and, wishing to combine business with travel, he joined his brother. W. N. Crandall, when about eighteen years old, in railroad con- tracting, and they were engaged in that business in Utah, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana and the Dominion of Canada and the Northwest Territory about eight years. Two years of this time they were on the north shore of Lake Superior, where sleighs were in use as a mode of conveyance four months of the year. While there they were associated with M. D. Hammond, under the firm title of Hammond &

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HISTORY OF SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY.

Crandall, and employed a large force of men and teams. They wonnd np their contracting business in 1884, and Mr. Crandall spent nearly a year in and about Montreal, Canada. Re- turning to San Bernardino the latter part of 1885, he soon after embarked in the grocery trade as a partner with W. A. Boren as succes- sor to H. J. Beggs. He subsequently purchased Mr. Boren's interest, and after conducting the business alone for about a year took in H. Will- iams, his present partner, the firm assuming its present style. They carry an excellent stock of fine staple and fancy goods, and their trade ex- tends throughont San Bernardino County and as far east as Arizona. The business has steadily increased in volume since the house was first opened and now reaches abont $50,000 a year.

In 1887 Mr. Crandall married Miss Chipman, a native of Utah. He was one of the organizers of and is a stockholder and director in the First National Bank of San Bernardino; he also owns several valuable pieces of property in the city.

His father, L. D. Crandall, Sr., died in Sanlt Saint Marie, Canada, in 1884. His mother, formerly Mary Wixom, daughter of early Cali- fornia pioneers, still resides in this city.

ON HENRY MONTAGUE WILLIS, San Bernardino, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, September 21. 1831. His an- cestors were among the first English settlers of the colony of Virginia and Maryland prior to the Revolution. His father, Mr. Henry H. Willis, was a captain in the merchant marine, with whom the subject of this memoir made a number of voyages before he was twelve years of age, alternating between school and the sea. At the age of twelve he adopted a seafaring lite, and during six years' sailing the briny deep he visited the ports of the Mediterranean, En- gland, France, Ireland, Rio Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos Ayres, Pernambuco and Valparaiso, and rose by successive steps to full seaman, and

finally to officer of the vessel. While in Rio Janeiro in 1848 as second mate of the bark Helen M. Fiedler, a fleet of clippers arrived with the first passengers for the gold fields of Cali- fornia, This was the first intelligence received of the discoovery of gold. One of the ships of this fleet being disabled, his vessel was char- tered to carry a portion of her passengers to California; and loading with such cargo as was most appropriate for the market of San Fran- cisco, the bark started on her voyage. June 28, 1849, the vessel anchored in San Francisco har- bor, having touched only at Valparaiso for sup- plies. Soon after his arrival the young mariner purchased an interest in the pilot-boat Eclipse, and with his associates ran her up the Sacra- mento river with a cargo of freight and passen- gers; but being attacked by the chills and fever Mr. Willis abandoned this enterprise and took a position of first mate on the bark which had borne him to this coast, that was now char- tered for Oregon. They reached Portland in about twenty days, took on a load of Inınber, and on the return trip the captain, his father, fell ill, and the whole comninand devolved upon him, and he anchored the vessel safely in the bay and discharged her cargo in San Francisco in February, 1850. His father died in San Francisco in May of that year.

Being seized with the gold fever young Willis started for the Mokelumne Hill mines, via Stockton. The rainy season came on and the floods carried away his dams and filled up his diggings, and he returned to Stockton, where he engaged in painting until prostrated with ty- phoid fever, from which he was restored through the tender nursing of his mother. To recover his somewhat depleted exchequer Mr. Willis invested all his means in the town of Pacific City, on Baker's bay, Washington, then Oregon Territory. The speculation proved disastrous, and having little to do but hunt and fish, he and his partner, C. W. C. Russell, explored Shoal Water bay, and discovered the oyster beds which have made that bay famous. Securing enough of the bivalves to fill sixteen sacks, they

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HISTORY OF SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY.

employed Indians to carry them across the port- age to Baker's bay and shipped them thence to San Francisco. So eagerly were they sought after that a vessel was immediately chartered and seut to Shoal Water bay for a cargo of oys- ters. Thus these sixteen sacks laid the founda- tion for the oyster trade between that bay and San Francisco. Business demanding his atten- tion in San Francisco, Mr. Willis left the oyster enterprise to be conducted by Mr. Russell. From this time, 1851, until 1854, Judge Willis remained in the Pacific metropolis engaged in the dry-goods business on Sacramento street. Being fond of study he prepared himself, unas- sisted, during these years, for college and the study of law. In 1854, in company with his friend, Hinton Rowan Helper, who was studying with a similar purpose, he left for the East, -- he to enter college, and Helper to publish his first book, "The Land of Gold." Until January 1, 1856. Judge Willis studied law at the college of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, under the tutor- age of Judge Battel, of the Supreme Court, as- sisted by Hon. Sam. F. Phillips, and on the above date was admitted to the bar of the Su- preme Court of the State. After spending six inonths in the law office of Chauncy Shaefer in New York city, studying the codes the young barrister returned to San Francisco, arriving in June, just after the hanging of Casey and Cora by the vigilance committee.

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Author: Lewis Publishing Company Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1038

Author: Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1038