Historical and biographical record of Los Angeles and vicinity : containing a history of the city from its earliest settlement as a Spanish pueblo to the closing year of the nineteenth century ; also containing biographies of well known citizens of the past and present, Part 122

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 996

USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > Historical and biographical record of Los Angeles and vicinity : containing a history of the city from its earliest settlement as a Spanish pueblo to the closing year of the nineteenth century ; also containing biographies of well known citizens of the past and present > Part 122

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great Fair, these enterprises caused heavy losses to the firm.

Early in January, 1894, Mr. Chapman went to Texas in order that his wife, who was suffering from pulmonary trouble, might have the benefit of the climate. In June of the same year he landed in California, taking up his residence in Los Angeles. Here, on the morning of Septem- ber 19, 1894, while residing at the corner of Figueroa and Adams streets, Mrs. Chapman passed away. Her remains were laid at rest in Rosedale cemetery. Mrs. Chapman, formerly Miss Lizzie Pearson, daughter of Dr. C. S. and Nancy (Wallace) Pearson, was born near Gales- burg, Ill., September 13, 1861. They were mar- ried at Austin, Tex., October 23, 1884. Tothem were born two children, Ethel Marguerite, born June 10, 1886, and Charles Stanley, January 7, 1889. Mrs. Chapman was a member of the Christian Church.

September 3, 1898, Mr. Chapman was united in marriage with Miss Clara Irvin, daughter of S. M. and Lucy A. Irvin, and a native of Iowa. She is a member of the Christian Church.

Mr. Chapman has been a member of the Chris- tian Church since he was seventeenth. He has served as superintendent of the Sunday-school, deacon and elder for many years. For years he was a member of the Cook County Sunday-school Board, a member of the general board of the Young Men's Christian Association of Chicago, and the board of managers of the West Side department. He was one of the organizers of the board of city missions of the Christian Churches of Chicago. At present he "talks" to the church at Anaheim, which has no regular pastor.

Mr. Chapman is glad to be identified with many of the local movements in the interest of the community, materially and morally. He is president of the Anaheim Union Water Company. Upon coming to California he engaged in the fruit business, growing and shipping oranges and walnuts. He has made of the Santa Isabel rancho, in Orange county, one of the finest orange properties in California, and the brand under which the fruit is packed-the "Old Mis- sion Brand"-has a reputation second to none in the state. For four consecutive years a car of

this fruit has brought the highest price of any

ENRY DWIGHT BARROWS was born in Mansfield, Conn., February 23, 1825, a son of Joshua Palmer and Polly (Bingham)

- Barrows. His paternal grandparents, Joshua and Anna (Turner) Barrows, were, like his par- ents, natives of Mansfield. The Barrows family came to America from England and settled at Plymouth, Mass. Thence, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, two brothers moved to Mansfield, Conn., where eventually their name became more numerous than any other family name in town. In 1845 the subject of this sketch counted more than thirty families of the name in that place.

The maternal grandfather of our subject, Oli- ver Bingham, was known and venerated as "Uncle Oliver Bingham, the miller of Mansfield Hollow." He is remembered by his grandson as a large, well-proportioned man, resembling in appearance the pictures of George Washington. He had a brother, a miller on the Willimantic river, known widely as "Uncle Roger Bingham, of the old town of Windham." Both died more thau sixty years ago, and their numerous de- scendants, to the third, fourth and fifth gener- ations, are now scattered through many states of the Union.

Joshua Palmer Barrows was born in 1794 and died in Mansfield in 1887; his wife was born in 1790 and died in 1864. They had three children, viz .: Mrs. Franklin S. Hovey, who died at Bev- erly, N. J., in 1890; Henry D. and James A., who for many years have been residents of Los Angeles. The latter was a volunteer in one of the Connecticut regiments during the Civil war. He came to California with his family in 1868 and has since made Los Angeles his home.

The early years of the subject of this sketch were spent on a farm. He received his educa- tion, first, in the public school, and later in the high school at South Coventry, Conn., where the late Edward McLean, of Pasadena, was the as- sistant principal and where Martin Kellogg, since president of the University of California, was one of his classmates. Afterward he spent several

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terms in the academy at Ellington, Conn. Com- mencing when he was seventeen, he taught school for four winters. During this period he devoted considerable time to music, joining the local band, of which he became the leader, and taking lessons ou the organ under a skillful Eng- lish teacher in Hartford. With his band teacher he played on the cornet with the Norwich band that went on an excursion to Boston, attending the great railroad celebration of June 17, 1843, where, in the navy yard, he heard the great ora- tor, Edward Everett, who spoke before an im- mense concourse of people.

In the village where Mr. Barrows was reared (South Mansfield, or Mansfield Centre as it was known) books were scarce, but he read all he could get. "Dick's Christian Philosopher" de- lighted him, and he still regards it as one of the best works extant to widen one's ideas of the world around him.

His first business experience was clerking in New York in 1849. The next year he went to Boston, where, as entry clerk and then as book- keeper, he worked in the large dry-goods jobbing house of J. W. Blodgett & Co. for over two years, acquiring a business experience that was very valuable to him in after years. He greatly en- joyed the superior advantages in the way of books, lectures, music, etc., which a great city affords over a country town. He also heard with delight the early operas of Verdi, as well as those of Donizetti, Bellini, etc., as presented by Benedetti, Triffi, and other artists of that period, under the leadership of Max Maretzic. Among the notable preachers whom he heard were Dr. Bushnell, of Hartford; Mr. Beecher, of New York; and Theodore Parker and Thomas Starr King, of Boston.

April 26, 1852, Mr. Barrows sailed from New York on the steamer Illinois for California. The transition from a northern, blustering April to the genial warmth of the Caribbean sea afforded a most agreeable change. The passage of the isthmus at that time was full of hardships, al- though later, on the completion of the railroad, it became a pleasure trip, especially if taken in the night, as he had occasion to know a few years afterward. The connecting steamer on this side was the Golden Gate. Among the passengers were the family of Hiland Hall, one of the Cali-

fornia land commissioners, including Trenor W. Park, his son-in-law, Sam Brannan, Thomas O. Larkin, etc.

Soon after arrival in San Francisco, and after re- covering from a mild attack of the Panama fever, in June Mr. Barrows went to the northern mines, going as far as Shasta; but, as the dry season had set in, he returned down the valley, working at haying at $100 a month on Thomes' creek, near Tehama. He reached San Francisco July 31 full of chills and fever, which the cold, harsh summer climate of that city, in contrast with the extreme heat of the Sacramento valley, only ag- gravated. He then went to San José, where he found two Mansfield men, a Mr. Dunham and Capt. Julian Hanks. The latter had come out to California many years before and had married at San José, Lower California, and later had settled in San José, Alta California, where he became a prominent citizen and where he was elected one of the delegates to the first constitutional con- vention, etc. In 1852 Captain Hanks was living in town. He owned a bearing vineyard and a flour mill on Guadalupe creek, and a grain ranch about four miles from San José. Mr. Barrows went to this ranch and raised a crop of wheat and barley. At that time (1852-53) flour was very high, retailing at twenty-five cents a pound. James Lick was then building a fine flour mill on Alviso creek below San José.

In the fall of 1853 Mr. Barrows went to the southern mines, working at placer gold mining near Jamestown. Later he obtained an engage- ment as teacher of music in the Collegiate Insti- tute in Benicia, remaining there until October, 1854, when the late William Wolfskill, the pio- neer, engaged him to teach a private school in his family at Los Angeles. He taught in this school from December, 1854, until the latter part of 1858. Among his pupils, besides the sons and daughters of Mr. Wolfskill, were John and Joseph C. Wolfskill, sons of his brother Mathew; Will- iam R. and Robert Rowland; the children of Lemuel Carpenter, J. E. Pleasants, etc. In 1859-60 he cultivated a vineyard on the east side of the river. He was appointed United States marshal for the southern district of California by President Lincoln in 1861, holding the office four years. In 1864 he engaged in the mercantile busi- ness, in which he continued about fifteen years.

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Mr. Barrows was married November 14, 1860, to Juanita Wolfskill, who was born November 14, 1841, and died January 31, 1863, leaving a daughter, Alice Wolfskill Barrows, who was born July 16, 1862, and who became the wife of Henry Guenther Weyse October 2, 1888. Mrs. Juanita Barrows was a daughter of William and Magda- lena (Lugo) Wolfskill. Mr. Wolfskill was born in Kentucky in 1798, of German and Irish par- entage, and was one of the very earliest Ameri- can pioneers of Los Angeles, having arrived here in February, 1831. He died in this city October 3, 1866. His wife was born in Santa Barbara, Cal., the daughter of José Ygnacio Lugo, and Doña Rafaela Romero de Lugo, Don José Ygnacio Lugo being a brother of Antonio Maria Lugo and of Doña Maria Antonia Lugo de Vallejo, who was the wife of Sergeant Vallejo and the mother of Gen. M. G. Vallejo. Mr. and Mrs. Wolfskill were married at Santa Barbara in January, 1841; she died July 6, 1862. There were born to them six children, viz .: Juanita; Francisca, who was born in 1843 and became the wife of Charles J. Shepherd; Joseph W., who was born in 1844 and married Elena Pedrorena; Magdalena, who was born in 1846 and married Frank Sabichi; Lewis, born in 1848, and who married Louisa Dalton, daughter of Henry Dal- ton, the pioneer; and Rafaelita, who died in childhood.

August 14, 1864, Mr. Barrows married Mary Alice Workman, daughter of John D. Wood- worth, and the widow of Thomas H. Workman, who was killed by the explosion of the steamer Ada Hancock in the bay of San Pedro April 23, 1863. She was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and died in Los Angeles March 9, 1868, leaving two daughters: Ada Frances, who was born May 21, 1865, and was married October 25, 1890, to Ru- dolph G. Weyse (by whom she has three chil- dren); and Mary Washington, who was born February 22, 1868, and died in infancy. The present wife of Mr. Barrows was Bessie A. Greene, a native of Utica, N. Y. They were married November 28, 1868, and have one son, Harry Prosper Barrows; the latter was born December 14, 1869, and was married August 19, 1893, to Bessie D. Bell, a native of Michigan. They have three children.

Until the formation of the Republican party Mr.

Barrows was a Whig. He voted for Fremont in 1856, and has voted for every Republican candi- date for president since till 1900, when he voted for William J. Bryan. He believes that that great party, in its earlier years, made a glorious record as a champion of the rights of man and of constitutional liberty. But he has found occa- sion, in common, as he believes, with many other original and sincere Republicans, to lament the departure of the party from its earlier sim- plicity and singleness of purpose in behalf of universal freedom, being dedicated wholly, as it was, "to the happiness of free and equal men." For many years prior to the 'Sos he took an ac- tive part in public education. For much of the time during fifteen years he served as a member of the school board of this city. In 1867 he was elected city superintendent, and in 1868 as county superintendent. He has written much on many subjects for the local press, and especially on financial questions, including resumption of specie payment, bimetallism, etc. He contrib- uted one of the thirty-nine essays to the com- petitive contest invited in 1889 by M. Henri Cer- nuschi on International Bimetallism. From 1856, for nearly ten years he was the regular paid Los Angeles correspondent of the San Francisco Bul- letin, then one of the most influential newspapers of the Pacific coast.

Mr. Barrows has administered a number of large estates, including those of William Wolfs- kill, Capt. Alexander Bell, Thomas C. Rhodes, and others. He was appointed by the United States district court one of the commissioners to run the boundary line between the Providencia Rancho and that of the ex-Mission of San Fer- nando. Also, by appointment of the superior court, he was one of the commissioners who par- titioned the San Pedro Rancho, which contained about twenty-five thousand acres. In 1868 he was president of the Historical Society of South- ern California, of which he was one of the found- ers, and to the records of which he has contributed many valuable papers of reminiscences. He is also one of the charter members or founders of the Society of Los Angeles Pioneers. He wrote about one hundred sketches of early pioneers of Los Angeles, most of whom he knew personally, for the Illustrated History of Los Angeles Coun- ty, issued in 1889 by the Lewis Publishing Co.,

CHRISTOPHER C. CHAPMAN

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

of Chicago. He also wrote the text of the Illus- trated History of Central California, published by the same company in 1893. Copies of both these works may be found in the Los Angeles public library.

Mr. Barrows has a strong couviction that every man and every woman should be a fully-devel- oped citizen; and that while all men and women should be guaranteed their natural equal rights and equal privileges in order that they may be enabled, as nearly as may be, to fight the battle of life on an equal footing so far, at least, as the state can guarantee such natural rights and priv- ileges to all its citizens. He holds that every citizen also owes manifold obligations to the state and to the community in which he lives-obliga- tions which, though they cannot be legally en- forced, he is, morally at least, not entitled to shirk. "Who," says Mr. Barrows, "can im- agine the beauty of that state in which every person, however humble his lot, enjoys, not only theoretically, but practically, all the natural rights and privileges that every other person en- joys, aud in which at the same time every person voluntarily and freely renders, proportionately to his ability and opportunity, to the state and to the community, all the varied obligations per- taining to his personal and particular sphere that the best citizens perform. There are myriad ways of doing good in the world open to every person, and there are myriad obligations which every person owes the community which, if every person freely and faithfully performed according to his or her several abilities, this world would speedily become what it was intended to be, an earthly paradise." Loyalty to these principles and loyalty to the moral government of the uni- verse and to the Great Being who upholds and rules that universe, Mr. Barrows adds, constitute his creed, his religion. In his opinion they are broad enough and true enough to serve as the basis of a universal religion, of a creed which all men can subscribe to, and live by, and, eke, die by!

HRISTOPHER COLUMBUS CHAPMAN came to California in 1895 and for four years resided on a ranch at Fullerton, since which time he has been a resident of Los Angeles. He was born in McDonough county,

Ill., August 23, 1858, and at the age of ten years removed to the village of Vermont, in Fulton county, Ill., with his parents, Sidney S. and Re- becca Jane (Clarke) Chapman. In 1872 they went to Chicago, and this was his home until his removal to California. During his residence in Chicago he was connected with various enter- prises. He was for some years the head of the lithographing department in the publishing house of Chapman Brothers.

November 9, 1887, Mr. Chapman married Miss Anna J. Clough, a resident of Chicago. Her father was a native of England and her mother of Providence, R. I. Both died in Chicago in 1866. They were the parents of three children: Athelia M., Anna J. and Robert W., the latter of whom is now living in Indiana.

Mr. and Mrs. Chapman are the parents of two children: Llewellyn Sidney, born in Chicago May 22, 1891; and Columbus Clough, born in Fullerton, Cal., February 11, 1899. In politics Mr. Chapman is a Republican.

L ARON M. OZMUN. Not a few of the men now prominent in commercial and financial circles in Los Angeles are those who had previously won success in various business ac- tivities in the east. Such is the record of Aaron M. Ozmun, president of the Columbia Savings Bank of Los Angeles, and one of the represen- tative men of the city. Prior to his settlement in California he was for years intimately identified with the business interests of Minnesota, and especially the cities of Rochester and St. Paul, where he won au honorable and influential position by reason of his business activity.

The ancestors of Mr. Ozmun were closely con- nected with the early development of New York state. On his father's side he is a descendant, in the third generation, of a Welshman who, with his eldest son, not long after his settlement in America, enlisted in the defense of the colonies. During the war of the Revolution father and son were captured by the British army and confined in the old sugarhouse prison in New York City, where they died of starvation. Abraham Ozmun, father of the subject of this article, was born in Tompkins county, N. Y., in 1814, and engaged in farining from early manhood until 1863. In

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

1856 he removed to Minnesota. A few years later he was elected to the state legislature, in which body he served for several terms, mean- while doing much to promote the welfare of the state. He was a man of intelligence and ability and stood high in his community. Twice mar- ried, by his first wife, who was Electa J. Hedden, he had two sons, one of whom died in Colorado in 1883,and the other forms the subject of this nar- rative. To his second marriage was born a son, Edward H., who was appointed consul at Stutt- gart, Germany, by President Mckinley.

On the farm where his father's birth had oc- curred, our subject was born in 1838. He re- moved with the family to Minnesota in 1856. In 1859 he left the home farm and secured employ- ment in the hardware store of Taggart Brothers, at Ripon, Wis., where he remained for four years. On his return to Minnesota in 1863, with his father he established the hardware firm of A. Ozmun & Son, at Rochester, where he con- tinned in business for twenty years. Finally, impelled by the need of a more central location, he removed to St. Paul, and became a partner in the house of Farwell, Ozmun & Jackson. In 1887 the business was incorporated under the title of Farwell, Ozmun, Kirk & Co., which name is still retained. A trade was built up by the house that was not limited to Minnesota, but extended through all the west and even to the Pacific coast. Mr. Ozmun was president of the corporation and one of its principal stock- holders.

In 1893 Mr. Ozmun retired from business and sought the more genial climate of California. It was not his intention to engage actively in busi- ness, but he was prevailed upon to accept the presi- dency of the Columbia Savings Bank on South Broadway, and he has since stood at the head of this well-known banking house, the success of which is largely due to his conservative policy and wise judgment.

During his residence in Minnesota Mr. Ozmun married M. Cecelia, daughter of John V. Daniels, who was for years a member of the Minnesota state senate, and whose son, Hon. M. J. Daniels, his successor in the senate, is now presideut of the Orange Growers' Bank of Riverside, Cal. The only son of Mr. and Mrs. Ozmun is R. W., cashier of the Columbia Savings Bank. He is

married and has a son who bears his grandfather's namie.

The first presidential vote cast by Mr. Ozmun was in support of Abraham Lincoln. From that time to the present he has been stanch in his al- legiauce to the men and measures of the Re- publican party. The pressure of his business duties while in Minnesota prevented him from active participation in public affairs, but he has kept himself well informed regarding topics of current interest and has aided movements for the progress of the people. His business relations have been such as to demonstrate the activity of his mind and the honesty of his purpose, main- tained under all circumstances and at all times with an earnestness that is one of the noticeable traits of his character.

M AJOR WILLIAM G. WEDEMEYER. was born near Walsrode, in the kingdom of Hanover, February 15, 1836. His father, Carl Heinrich Theodor Wedemeyer, born in Oldenburg, Germany, July 21, 1803, died at Watertown, Wis., July 1, 1888, and the mother, whose maiden name was Josephine Wilhelmine Pfingsthorn, was born at Steuerwald, near Hil- desheim, February 5, 1811, and died in Water- town, Wis., March 27, 1889.

The records of the paternal ancestors of Major Wedemeyer date back to the fifteenth century, when the family was numbered among the citi- zens of Eldagsen, in the duchy of Calenberg (now province of Hanover). In the beginning of the sixteenth century the chief bailiff, Conrad Wedemeyer, was in possession of a fief granted by the Duke of Calenberg, consisting of exten- sive estates, which he subsequently divided be- tween his grandsons, Dietrich and Werner. The former was the ancestor of our subject, and the old estates are still in the possession of the respective family lines. The Wedemeyers, being among the prominent people of their country, were generally in the service of their sovereign, principally in the judicial and administrative branches of the government. Judge Gustav Friedrich Georg Wedemeyer, grandfather of our subject, and superior judge at Bissendorf, Han- over, died in 1845, at the ripe age of eighty years, and his wife, Caroline Juliane (von Pape)

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Wedemeyer, died in 1843, when in her seventy- fourth year.

The maternal grandparents of Major Wede- meyer, Wilhelm Joseph and Josephine (Schnur- busch) Pfingsthorn, resided upon the estate of Stenerwald, near Hildesheim, for years prior to death. The former was born in Cologne, Ger- many, in 1780, and died in 1845, and his wife departed this life in 1834, at the age of forty-five years. He came from one of the old and honored families of Cologne, his father being the gover- nor of the city of Cologne in the middle of the eighteenth century, under the prince bishop and elector of Cologne, and his ancestors having been prominent in that locality from the fifteenth century onward. Wilhelm Joseph Pfingsthorn was young when his father died and he was reared under the supervision of his guardians and relatives, among whom was the Bishop of Hilde- sheim, who took special interest in the lad's education.

Major William G. Wedemeyer spent his early years in his native country, where he obtained a good school education. In 1850 he accompanied his parents to the United States, aud located in Dodge county, Wis., where he was employed as clerk in a country store for two years. He then took up surveying and civil engineering, and during the four years which preceded the out- break of the Civil war he studied law, being ad- mitted to the bar in 1861.

The long and arduous service of Major Wede- meyer in the regular army of his adopted country began November 15, 1861, when he enlisted as a private soldier in the Sixteenth Regiment of United States Infantry. The next month he was appointed sergeant, and in May, 1862, with his Company, H, he participated in the siege and oc- cupation of Corinth, Miss., after which he went on the long and trying march with General Buell through Alabama and Tennessee to Nashville. There, on the 7th of September, 1862, he received his appointment as second lieutenant of the Six- teenth Regiment, and at the battle of Stone River he was in command of Company C, and was wounded while gallantly discharging his duties. Later he took part in the engagement at Chatta- nooga, and was brevetted captain for bravery at Chickamauga. October 1, 1863, he was relieved from the command of the provost guard and as-

signed to mustering duty as assistant to the chief commissary of musters of the Department of the Cumberland on the staff of General Thomas. While his station was Chattanooga, his duties took him along the lines of the army from Nash- ville to Atlanta. On the Ist of October, 1864, he was assigned as commissary of musters to Gen- eral Kilpatrick's cavalry division of Sherman's army, and with it made the campaign through Georgia, South and North Carolina. After the sur- render of the Confederate armies he mustered out his cavalry command and joined his regiment at Fort Ontario, N. Y., August 1, 1865. He was promoted to the captaincy of Company D, Third Battalion, Sixteenth Infantry, on the 15th of No- vember, 1865, and was ordered to Nashville, Tenn. In May, 1867, his regiment was sent to Missis- sippi, and for the ensuing three years he was sta- tioned at Grenada, Greensboro and Vicksburg. From June, 1870, until August, 1876, he was located in Nashville, then was stationed in Mount Vernon Barracks, Ala., until November of the Centennial year, after which he discharged his military duties in New Orleans until June, 1877. During all of these years subsequent to the close of the Civil war his services had chiefly to do with the reconstruction, and his duties called him to all parts of the south on detached service.

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Historical and biographical record of Los Angeles and vicinity : containing a history of the city from its earliest settlement as a Spanish pueblo to the closing year of the nineteenth century ; also containing biographies of well known citizens of the past and present, Part 122

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1901 Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 996

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 996