USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume II > Part 59
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89
.
362
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
final protracted agony he had the sympathy and prayers of the churches of all the religious orders in the city and of the community in general.
G. RANDOLPH MILLER is a native of Los Angeles County, and has earned substantial recognition and success in the profession of law, being one of the younger members of the bar. Since his admission he has been engaged in practice at Whittier.
He was born at Los Angeles, August 17, 1897, son of W. G. and Florence F. (Keeling) Miller. His mother, a resident of Santa Monica, was born in England. W. E. Miller, now deceased, was a native Califor- nian, and for many years enjoyed unusual distinction in the newspaper profession. He had a wide acquaintance with public men all over the state. He was associate editor of the Los Angeles Times. The mother of W. G. Miller was a Wilson from Virginia, and of the same family as former President Wilson.
G. Randolph Miller attended public schools and graduated from the Santa Monica High School in 1915. He followed this with the full course in the University of California at Berkeley, where he graduated A. B. in 1919. During his university career he rendered some service as a volunteer in the World war, being a junior officer in the Navy Auxiliary Reserves. He was stationed in the Canal Zone, and remained there until the close of hostilities.
Mr. Miller studied law in the University of Southern California, and was admitted to practice in March, 1921. In his practice at Whittier he has been associated as a partner with Frederick W. Smith, a well known attorney whose career is sketched elsewhere. Mr. Miller is a member of the Achaean fraternity and the Whittier Chamber of Commerce.
FRANK VAN DER VOORT RIDER. It is not frequently that there is found in any community where individuals are ambitious to reach still higher successes in business, political and professional life an individual who is content with the rewards which early years have brought in respect to fortune, and is willing to devote himself, while yet his powers are undimin- ished, to the cultivation of art and literature for the perfection of his own life, to the enjoyment of manly and invigorating pastimes, and to works of humanity and beneficence for the welfare of the community ... Yet rare as is the combination it is realized in the career of Frank van der Voort Rider, a resident of Pasadena, who is vice president of the Rider-Upright Manufacturing Company of Los Angeles.
Mr. Rider was born at Riders Mills, Columbia County, New York, July 24, 1856, a son of Thomas Benjamin and Lucretia Lefferts ( Morrell) Rider. The family traces its ancestry back to the English nobility, and the first of record in America were Samuel Rider and Anne, his wife, who were at Yarmouth, Massachusetts, January 7, 1638, he being a freeman and the head of one of the ten families that settled the town. As the records show that his son Zachary was the first white child born at Yarmouth, and as he already had two other small children, it is fair to assume that he was in America several years prior to this date. He was probably English, and a statement has been made that he was born in 1611, but this has not been verified and may or may not be true. Benjamin Rider, the great grand- father of Frank van der Voort Rider, was captain in the militia and served during the entire War of the Revolution. On the mother's side, the Mor- rell's, the family goes back many generations in America. Thomas Morrell's name is found in the records of "a town meeting" at the town of Newton on Long Island held March 1, 1666, when he was granted ten acres of land. The van der Voorts were the original settlers of Long Island. The brother of Mr. Rider's grandmother, Samuel Wilson, of Troy, New York, gained fame as the man to whom is due the jocular name of Uncle Sam as applied to the United States Government. The nickname is an extension of the letters U. S. (United States), printed or stamped on the Government prop- erty. It was first used at Troy, New York, in 1812, when certain goods
363
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
purchased for the Government and branded U. S. were officially inspected by Mr. Wilson, whose local nickname was "Uncle Sam." The coincidence of initials suggested the application of the nickname in full to the Government.
Riders Mills, New York, was named in honor of the great-grandfather of Mr. Rider, who started the mills at that place, where members of the family owned every building at one time. During a severe flood of the Kinderhook creek, a tributary of the Hudson River, nine of the mills were carried away in a single day. A brother of Mr. Rider is now the owner of the old homestead, which during Civil war days was an important station of the Underground Railway, by which escaping slaves made their way through to Canada and freedom. The parents of Mr. Rider made their home at Riders Mills all their lives, the father being a lawyer and manufacturer and a man of superior education and intellect, being an eminent writer of the John S. McGroarty style. Had he desired, promi- nence in public life could have been his, but he had no desire therefor, and when Hon. John A. Dix was elected governor of New York he refused the nomination for the lieutenant-governorship of the state.
After completing his primary education Frank van der Voort Rider attended Union College, Schenectady, New York, from which he was grad- uated in 1878, and at first decided to fit himself for a career in medicine, but later gave up that study and became a dealer in brushes and druggists' sundries in New York City. For many years he has been a manufacturer and importer, and during the last twenty-seven years has been a resident of California, during all of which time he has lived at Pasadena with the exception of four and one-half years spent at Catalina. Mr. Rider has traveled extensively all over the world, and for eight months was in South America, on ground which had never before known the presence of a white man. He has done considerable newspaper work, as a free lance, as well as for syndicates, and at times has written poetry and works of travel. At his home at Pasadena he has a wonderful library, including some 30,000 rare and limited editions. He is the owner of one of the rarest and oldest Bibles in the country, published in 1596 and to which all later Bibles refer, and it is one of the best preserved Bibles of its age in the country. Another valuable volume is "The Lives of the Primitive Fathers," which was pub- lished in 1470, and of which there is only one other copy extant, that being in the British Museum. Mr. Rider became a book-collector when he was only nine years of age, and has maintained his interest as such throughout his life. He is also a collector of antiques and curiosities, of which he has many, one of the most valuable of which is a beautiful piece of Chinese jade of great value. Mr. Rider is a direct descendant of Peter Wyckoff and Aneka Jans. His ancestor, Peter Van Duesen, was his great-great- grandfather and was one of the proven contestants to this vast New York estate which is valued at more than $250,000,000. It is estimated that Mr. Rider's interest, if the estate was settled at the present time, would amount to more than $6,000,000. He is also one of the heirs to another Holland estate of vast proportions, namely, the Central Park estate in New York City. As a follower of sport Mr. Rider is well known as a golf player and hunter, has had his picture in magazines all over the United States, and has probably been written up as a fisherman oftener than any other man in the country. During the World war he was a member of the Home Guards. In politics he votes the republican ticket, having come from a republican family. He was secretary-treasurer of the Tournament of Roses Association for eleven years, secretary-treasurer of the Tuna Club, treasurer of the Overland Club and treasurer of the Annandale Country Club, but has since retired from all of these. He was also former president of the Southern Pacific Psi Upsilon Club, of which he is still a member ; and holds membership in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks No. 672, of Pasadena; Valatie Lodge, F. and A. M., of Valatie, New York; LaFayette Commandery, K. T., Hudson, New York; and Cyprus Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Albany, New York. Mr. Rider still remains as vice
364
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
president of the Rider-Upright Manufacturing Company, but is practically retired from business. The mind released from engrossment with the daily cares of business seeks employment in other lines of activity, lest it should fall into ennui or become a prey to idle and hurtful dissipation. Most men under the circumstances turn to the management of financial institu- tions, or become interested in profit-making enterprises. It is a mark of nobility of character, and a proof of high aims and generous nature, when one so situated turns away from the avenues of mere gain and devotes himself to the cultivation of letters and art for the perfection of his powers.
On February 21, 1885, Mr. Rider was united in marriage at Brooklyn, New York, with Miss Eloise Lord, who was born in New York City and educated in Paris and Germany, being primarily instructed in French, German and Italian, she having been nine years of age before she spoke English. She passed away in Pasadena December 6, 1922. She was a daughter of the American Revolution, and belonged to the Shakespeare Club of Pasadena and other social organizations and to the Civic League. Mrs. Rider was a daughter of the late George W. T. Lord, who for years before his retirement was at the head of Lord, Taylor & Company of New York City. Three daughters and one son were born to Mr. and Mrs. Rider : Lucretia Lord, who is now the wife of Alfred H. Klein, of River Forest, Illinois ; Harold Lord, president and general manager of the Rider-Upright Manufacturing Company of Los Angeles, who gave up his interests during the World war to become chief yeoman in the United States Navy ; Alma Lord, who is the wife of E. L. Graham, of Denver, Colorado; and Marion Lord, who is the wife of Albert J. Robertson, of San Francisco, California.
HENRY E. HUNTINGTON. If there is "a name to conjure with" in California it is that of Huntington. Collis P. Huntington was the master mind in consolidating the Southern Pacific Railway and rivaled the late J. J. Hill as an empire builder. Collis Huntington had many able lieutenants and associates, but probably not one better fitted to wield the septre of power which he forged than his own nephew, Henry E. Huntington, whose work, whether considered in connection with that of his uncle or individu- ally, gives him a place among the dominant great figures in American finance and constructive enterprise.
Henry E. Huntington was born at Oneonta, New York, February 27, 1850, a son of Solon and Harriet (Saunders) Huntington. His father, Solon Huntington, was born in Connecticut in 1821. The Huntingtons came to Connecticut Colony as early as 1632, and throughout American history have been notable for their strong, sturdy qualities, and not a few of them have been distinguished for their abilities. Solon Huntington was educated in Connecticut, and at the age of seventeen left home and found employment with a merchant at Boston. In 1842 he established a store of his own in central New York, and subsequently took into partner- ship his brother, Collis, and for a number of years afterwards the brothers were associated as owners of lands and other enterprises. In the family of Solon and Harriet Saunders Huntington were seven children: Mrs. B. W. Foster of Huntington, West Virginia; Howard and George D., now deceased ; Henry E. ; Harriet and W. B., both deceased, and Mrs. F. B. Holliday of San Marino, California.
Henry E. Huntington attended private and public schools in his native town and acquired his first business experience in a hardware store there. At the age of twenty he went with one of the large hardware houses in New York City. From 1871 to 1876 he was engaged in lumbering and lumber manufacture in St. Albans in West Virginia. It is said that his successful experience in the lumber industry recommended him to his uncle, Collis Huntington, who made him superintendent of construc- tion of the Huntington lines, then building from Louisville to New Orleans under the title Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern. He was superintendent of construction with this road from 1880 to 1884. In 1884 he was made superintendent, in 1885 was receiver, and from 1886 to 1890 was vice
365
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
president and general manager of the Kentucky Central Railway. From that point no consecutive account could be given of his rapidly accumulating interests as a railroad builder and financier. He was vice president and general manager of the Elizabeth, Lexington and Big Sandy & Ohio Valley Railways in 1890-92, and in the latter year joined his uncle in the Southern Pacific, serving as assistant to the president from 1892 to 1900, as second vice president during 1900, and later as first vice president of the Southern Pacific Company. He was also president of the Southern Pacific Railways of Arizona and New Mexico, the Carson & Colorado Railway, the Market Street Cable Railway of San Francisco. While in San Francisco he acquired the San Francisco Street Railway, but in 1898 sold that property and began acquiring street railroads at Los Angeles. With the developments of the great urban and interurban system of transportation in and around Los Angeles his name is most conspicuously identified. He became sole owner of the street railway system, bought connecting lines and established the Pacific Electric Company, and did the pioneer work, both planning and building, until Los Angeles became the center of a radiating interurban system with thousands of miles of track. Without doubt this system of transportation has been the chief element in making Los Angeles the city it is. He extended the system to the ocean beaches and up through the inland country over to the orange belt, and when the system had passed the stage of experiment he sold out to the Southern Pacific Company.
Since 1910 Mr. Huntington has considered himself retired, but there are few men in the fullness of their strength and powers who offer counsel to no larger a number of important corporations, and he is still chairman of the board of directors of the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, chairman of the board of directors of the Safety Installation Wire & Cable Company, director of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, the Hocking Valley Railroad, Southern Pacific, Minneapolis & St. Louis and many other railroad organizations, and a director of the Equitable Trust Company of New York, the National Surety Company, and of an imposing list of other companies, the names of which are in the nature of a catalogue, of railroad properties in the United States and of railway, land and commercial institutions in California.
It is a matter of special significance that Mr. Huntington held the post of chairman of the board of directors of the Newport News Ship- building & Dry Dock Company during the great war. This company is one of the largest shipbuilding concerns in America, has built many battleships for the Government and its facilities were. enormously increased to meet the urgent demands of the war, and in 1919 the company had contracts for four United States battleships, forty-one destroyers, two troop ships and eight oil ships for the Government. Records of the com- pany have been entirely free from labor disturbances. It is Mr. Hunting- ton's policy to pay men living wages, and he has always taken a personal interest in seeing that men in his employ are properly advanced. Some years ago he said that he always had three or four men ready to occupy the post of president whenever it was necessary for the incumbent of that office to step out.
Mr. Huntington is credited with being one of the greatest builders of resorts on the Pacific Coast. Probably no one individual through the resources and enterprises at his command has done more to make of Los Angeles a great and powerful metropolis than Mr. Huntington.
He is a member of the Jonathan Club, Los Angeles Country Club, California Club, San Gabriel Country and Annadale Country Club of Pasadena ; the Metropolitan Club and the Union League Club of New York City ; and of his numerous club memberships he doubtless regards the one affording greatest distinction as that in the Hobby Club of New York City. This club is limited to fifty members and at present there are thirty-five members. The essential principle of the club is that each member must have a hobby. Mr. Huntington's hobby is books and paint- ings. Some of his interests outside of business are represented by. his
Vol. II-18
.
366
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
membership in the American Museum of Natural History, the Concord- ance Society, the Southwest Museum of Los Angeles, the Pasadena Music and Art Association, the Society of Colonial wars and the Bibliophile Club of Boston. Mr. Huntington owns the finest private collections of English literature and Americana in the world, including the original manuscript of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, the first collection of Washington manuscripts, the largest collection Lincoln letters and manuscripts. The home where he delights to spend his time and where he has most of his treasures is near Pasadena, a magnificent country estate, the development of which has been made to express Mr. Huntington's versatile interests as a lover of beauty and nature.
The Huntington library which will soon be erected will give the name of Henry E. Huntington a dominant place among American benefactors. The magnitude of this undertaking has been described in a local publication and is here reproduced :
"Henry E. Huntington, millionaire shipbuilder and owner of the Los Angeles Street Railway, shortly will begin work on the construction of a magnificent library building, to cost in the neighborhood of $225,000, near his palatial residence at San Marino.
"The structure will house the finest collection of paintings in America and the most important private collection of books in the world. The big institution, once completed and set in good running order, will be presented as a public benefaction to the people of the Southland, representing a gift valued intrinsically at more than $20,000,000.
"Plans for the building have been in process of preparation by Archi- tect Myron Hunt of this city for several years, but the erection of the institution has been postponed from time to time caused by prohibitive prices of labor and material.
"The Huntington public library will be 200 feet square and hold about 200,000 volumes, as well as provide ample space for a large pictorial exhibit. It will be built after the fashion of a great vault, with large exhibit rooms and cataloguing department. It will require twenty years, it is said, for a thorough cataloguing of the rare volumes, manuscripts and early editions that Mr. Huntington now has stored in his residence on Fifth Avenue, New York City.
"The assemblage of the books and manuscripts comprising the present Huntington library covers a period of ten years, and it is said that the British Museum is his only competitor in number and rarity of exhibits. He has bought up the ancient collection of a number of members of the English nobility, selecting from them the choicest volumes and selling the remainder at auction. He is said to possess first editions of all the great writers of the Elizabethan period.
"It is understood to be Mr. Huntington's plan ultimately to give his rare and beautiful collections, together with the palace in which he will house them, to the public. He is sixty-eight years of age and is believed to fear that further postponement in carrying out his long cherished beneficiary plan might lead to failure to bring about its completion, so, despite the still prevalent prices, work will be begun on the library in the very near future.
"The building will be of stone and concrete. Sixteen men are now cataloguing the books in the New York home."
In 1873 Mr. Huntington married Mary E. Prentice. July 16, 1913, he married Mrs. Arabella D. Huntington. His children are: Howard E. Huntington, Pasadena; Mrs. Clara Perkins, San Francisco; Mrs. Eliza- beth Metcalf, Berkeley ; and Miss Marian Huntington, San Francisco.
GEN. GEORGE STONEMAN. When it is taken into consideration that the great majority of people never rise above the ordinary, but live out their lives in obscurity, and, dying, are forgotten, all the more credit is accorded those who have enriched their communities, benefited their associates, raised a higher standard for the generations to come and demonstrated the worth of individual endeavor. The courageous, public-spirited men of
367
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
any state plan for the future as well as the present, and so shape the coming history of the commonwealth. Gen. George Stoneman was accepted by all as a leader in every enterprise for the public good. During his public career he was fearless in his support of what was right and his denunciation of what was wrong, and the State of California has never had a chief executive who was more of a popular hero in the minds and hearts of the people.
Ex-Gov. George Stoneman was born in the little village of Busti, Chautauqua County, New York, August 8, 1822, and after attending Jamestown Academy, was sent, at the age of twenty years, to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He was graduated therefrom with high honors July 1, 1846, and immediately entered the United States Regular Army and was stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with the rank of lieutenant. During the course of the Mexican war he was ordered to California to act as assistant quartermaster of the Mormon Battalion, and arrived at San Diego after a long and arduous march with wagon trains, overland, January 30, 1847. During 1848 and 1849 he was in command of the Presidio at San Francisco, and continued to reside on the Pacific Coast until 1855, in about March of which year he was appointed captain of the Second Cavalry and reported at Jefferson Barracks, Mis- souri, to join his company. He went thence to Camp Cooper, Texas, on frontier duty, and in 1859, after eighteen months' leave of absence, resumed active service on the Mexican boundary. At the breaking out of the Civil war, being at Washington, D. C., he aided in the defense of the capital as major of the First Cavalry, and subsequently became a member of Maj. George B. McClellan's staff. On August 1, 1861, he became brigadier-general of United States Volunteers and chief of cavalry, and subsequently fought through the Peninsular campaign, and in November, 1862, became major-general of volunteers and as such fought in the campaign on the Rappahannock. In 1863, for gallant and meritorious service before Fredericksburg, he was made brevet colonel in the Regular Army, and in the early part of 1864 was in command of an infantry corps in Eastern Tennessee. During that year he was promoted to the lieutenant- colonelcy of the Third Cavalry. On July 31, 1864, in a raid on Macon and Andersonville, he was taken prisoner, but was exchanged in October and resumed active service, rendering gallant and faithful service in many battles in Virginia, Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina, for which he was promoted to the rank of brevet brigadier-general and later to brevet general, United States Army. As commander in that region of highly important operations he contributed materially to the success of Union arms and the successful termination of the war.
Following the fall of the Confederacy General Stoneman was engaged as militia commander of the military department of Tennessee and Virginia and superintended the mustering out of troops, also aiding in the recon- struction acts of Congress. In 1870 he was placed by General Grant in command of the Department of Arizona, where he remained about a year, and in August, 1871, retired from military service and soon established his home in the San Gabriel Valley of California, in Los Angeles County. While here he was appointed by President Hayes as a member of the Board of U. S. Indian Commissioners and later was appointed by Governor Irwin as commissioner of transportation, in both of which posts he acquitted himself with the greatest of ability. The favorable impression that he had made was reflected in 1879 when, at the first election under the new con- stitution, he was chosen one of three railroad commissioners, his associates being Joseph J. Cone and Charles J. Beersteeher. General Stoneman's unceasing and fearless fight for the interests of the taxpayers and the common people caused him to become the popular hero of the hour, and in 1882 he was elected governor of the State of California on the democratic ticket, his inauguration taking place January 10, 1883. His administration was one which greatly benefited the state, and the courage which he displayed was worthy of the man who earlier in his career had refused to
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.