History of Los Angeles county, Volume III, Part 80

Author: McGroarty, John Steven, 1862-1944
Publication date: 1923
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 844

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Mr. Sumter then bought nine acres in fee simple on Anderson and California streets, and leased it to the California-Mexico Oil & Refining Company on a third royalty basis. He then divided the land into seventy-

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two lots, the lots carrying a sixth royalty, while he has reserved the other sixth for himself. Following that Mr. Sumter formed a syndicate on forty acres of land near the flood control work at the northwest end of Signal Hill, known as the Sumter Trust. The property was deeded to Mr, Sumter and he held it as trustee for some sixteen beneficiaries. About a year after the purchase half of it was sold to the John P. Mills organization of Long Beach, and from the proceeds of the sale Mr. Sumter paid his beneficiaries a little more than four for one on money invested, while the . other half of the land is held intact awaiting development. Following that Mr. Sumter helped organize what is known as the Frog Pond Syndicate, holding six and one half acres in fee simple in the Signal Hill field situated on Atlantic and Anderson streets. This has been leased to the Rhodes Oil Company on a 60-40 basis.

Mr. Sumter is a director of the Metropolitan Petroleum Corporation, the Duplex Petroleum Corporation, is assistant secretary of the Blue Tank Pipe Line and Refining Company and has been one of the leaders in the remarkable development of this Signal Hill field. The Blue Tank, Pipe Line and Refining Company has just completed pipe line and has con- nected Signal Hill with the harbor plant or refinery, located half a mile from deep water. Mr. Sumter is a democrat in politics, is one of the directors of the Petroleum Commercial Club of Long Beach and a member of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Sumter and Miss Georgina Hoffman, both residents of Long Beach, were married in San Bernardino June 15, 1917. Mrs. Sumter is a native of Canada, was educated in Massachusetts, and is one of the popular members of Long Beach social circles.

CHARLES WILLIAM ROGERS had a long and interesting career in the Southwest, and for many years was identified with Los Angeles and vicinity. Much of his work was constructive, and he had the ability that earned the confidence of men of capital who readily enlisted under his leadership.

He was born at Toms River, New Jersey. The old homestead granted to the Rogers family in early Colonial times stood there for about three centuries, and was burned in 1922 by a tramp. Charles W. Rogers was born July 3, 1857, son of David I. Rogers. He acquired his early education at Toms River, but was primarily a self made and a self educated man. He became a wonderful scholar, read all the good books, and had one of the finest private libraries in the state, including many rare volumes and first editions.

As a young man he came to the Southwest, and for several years lived at Deming, New Mexico, and helped subdue one of the last Indian upris- ings in the Southwest, when the Apaches went on the warpath under the leadership of the renowned Gerronimo.

Thirty-three years ago Charles William Rogers moved to San Diego, and was in the real estate business seven years. For four years his home was in Pasadena, and he then came to Los Angeles. The Rogers home at first was at Ninth and Grand Avenue, and from there they moved out .to 216 West Adams Street, the most fashionable street of the city, and occu- pied a wonderful home in that vicinity for twenty years. In 1920 they moved to 1526 Arapahoe Street, where Mr. Rogers and his wife spent their last days.

Mr. Rogers had much to do with developments in what is now West Riverside. He bought the famous Jurupa Rancho, comprising several thousand acres. On this Mr. Rogers developed the first water wells and also the canal, and produced a marvelous flow of water which irrigated much of the Riverside Valley. He was a pioneer in the drilling of wells for irrigation purposes, and had to do this work in the face of derision and general doubting, but his success effected practically a revolution in old . methods of irrigation.

Mr. Rogers was a man of varied tastes. While a lover of literature and art, he also found much diversion in outdoor sports, and he owned a num- ..

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ber of fine racing horses. The last eight years of his life he was practically an invalid, having suffered two strokes of paralysis. He died May 7, 1922.

At Deming, New Mexico, in 1887, Mr. Rogers married Miss Dora I. Ferris. She was ill from about the time of her husband's death, and passed away March 1, 1923. Mrs. Rogers was a greatly beloved woman in Los Angeles, and did a great deal of useful social work. She was founder of the Junior Sunshine Society of the state, and for many years a worker in the temperance cause. Her time and support were given to many educa- tional and religious developments. She was a member of the First Presby- terian Church. Mrs. Rogers was born at Galesburg, Illinois, in 1860, and finished her, education in Knox College of that city. She taught school in Ohio for a time and then went to Deming, New Mexico. About a year after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Rogers moved to San Diego, in 1888. Mrs. Rogers was a member of the Ebell Club and the Friday Morning Club. Her husband was a member of the Sons of the American Revolu- tion. Her interest in education continued through her married life, and she was one of the founders of the Mothers' Child Study Circle, which later developed into the Parent-Teachers Association. The father of Mrs. Rogers was a pioneer of the West, and had crossed the plains five or six times. Mrs. Rogers possessed a large collection of rings made from gold mined by her father in nine different states.

Four children survive Mr. and Mrs. Rogers: Peyton Loring, of Los Angeles ; Harry Newton and Charles Albert, of San Francisco ; and Dora Dale, now Mrs. Irving V. Augur, of Los Angeles County, who are the parents of one son, Irving V., Jr.

BETTY RUTH LEVINE is a young business woman of Los Angeles, and one of the most successful of her sex in that city. She is the executive head of the Figures Company, income tax reports and accountants in the Marsh- Strong Building. She and her sisters, Harriet, Sylvia and Sari LeVine own and operate this business and they have made it a highly profitable one.

In addition to furnishing expert service in auditing, inventory work, special accounting and income tax reports, they conduct a school of busi- ness methods and technique, there being three classes daily, with sixteen pupils to a class. These pupils are taught the operation of every kind of figuring and accounting machine, including the Burroughs bookkeeping and banking machine, comptometer and other bookeeping and accounting machines.

Betty Ruth LeVine is still in her twenties, and has had her years of struggle and hardship preparatory to the successful work she has done as an independent business woman of Los Angeles. She learned to know the environment of toil in a factory or office, and she had her experience with unscrupulous business men and employment offices. Two years ago, real- izing the adversities that beset so many young girls who come to Los Angeles having no home, no money and no friends, she organized the Busi- ness Woman's Association, made up of women who earned daily bread by work in offices. She gave her own offices for the meetings, and a free employment bureau was immediately formed. Dues for membership were established at $5.00 per year. Any girl desiring employment could come and through the bureau obtain it. Many of the ordinary employment bureaus charge not only an initial fee, but retain a large part of the first month's salary. Miss Le Vine canvassed the big houses and the biggest office buildings, securing their cooperation and support for her Business Woman's Association, and in a short time the demands put upon her organ- ization were greater than she could supply.

Betty Ruth Le Vine and her sisters were born in Chicago, daughters of Morris and Dora LeVine. They were educated at Houghton, Michigan, in a Chicago high school, and Harriet LeVine did some work in the Univer- sity of Chicago and the Columbia Conservatory of Music of that city. She has taught voice and violin, but since coming to California has combined her talents with those of her sisters in conducting their business in the

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Marsh-Strong Building. This business has grown to 'such an extent that the sisters now plan to take a whole floor in a new building being erected.

HUGH ROBERT DAVIES was born in the City of St. Louis, Missouri, on the 21st day of September, 1885. His father, John David Davies, is a native of Missouri and his mother, Jennie Davies Kirkwood, a native of California. He is the elder of two children, the younger being a sister, Kathleen Belle, wife of Bruce Mason, an attorney in Long Beach, California. Mr. Davies' paternal grandfather was an architect of high standing in the City of St. Louis.

Hugh R. Davies was educated in the public schools of Long Beach, Pasadena and Grass Valley, California. Early in his schooling he developed an ambition to become an architect, and in fulfillment of this ambition he followed the architectural courses provided by Throop Polytechnic Institute of Pasadena, Wilmerding School of Industrial Art of San Francisco, University of California and University of Southern California.

His first enterprise as an architect was in partnership with H. W. Metcalf at Long Beach, California, in 1912. This firm designed many of the beautiful residences in the City of Long Beach and several business buildings in Santa Ana, California. In 1915 Mr. Davies retired from the firm of Metcalf and Davies and attended the University of California to take up a special course in architecture. In 1916 he reopened offices in Long Beach, where he has ever since been continuously engaged in the practice of his profession. In 1923 Mr. Davies associated himself with Edwall J. Baume, under the firm name of Davies & Baume.

Mr. Davies is the architect of the Municipal Hospital of Long Beach and many of the larger apartment houses and business buildings. At the present time the firm of Davies & Baume is preparing plans for several million dollar worth of buildings.

Mr. Davies is a member of Palos Verdes Lodge No. 389, Free and Accepted Masons; Long Beach Chapter No. 84, Royal Arch Masons; Long Beach Council No. 26, Royal and Select Masters ; Long Beach Com- mandery No. 40, Knights Templar; and Long Beach Lodge No. 888, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

The architectural work of Mr. Davies is particularly noteworthy and finished because of his almost phenomenal ability in planning and design- ing. In all of his business associations he has had particular charge of these departments, and has thereby become so skilled therein that he may truthfully be called a specialist in the two lines above mentioned.

WILLIAM SWAIN JAMES. A resident of Los Angeles forty years, William Swain James, who died June 20, 1923, left a record of distinguished philanthropy and public service. The general efficiency and the humani- tarian standards marking the conduct of the institutions for the treatment of the insane in Southern California are in an important degree due to the work and influence of the late Mr. James and his wife, who shared with him the deep interest in all matters in that field.

'William Swain James was born in Cincinnati, Ohio,. September 25, 1860, the only son of Charles Swain James and Helen Pearson James. His father, Charles Swain James, was a descendant through his mother of the prominent Swain family of Philadelphia. The Swains of Philadel- phia are best remembered for having established three of the finest news- papers in America, the Philadelphia Ledger, the Philadelphia Record, and the Baltimore Sun ..

William S. James was educated in the public schools of Philadelphia. He came to Los Angeles with his mother in 1883, and for some years was associated with Captain Clark in the brokerage business. Subsequently he inherited independent means from one of the Swain estates in Philadel- phia, and this left him free to devote his time and attention to philanthropic enterprises.

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In 1897 Mr. James married Miss L. A. Potts, a native of England and member of a family prominently active in the upbuilding of Los Angeles. It was in the living room of the James home on Shatto Place, October 19, 1910, that the Psychopathic Association was formed, with Judge Curtis D. Wilbur as its president, Dr. Henry G. Brainard as vice president, and Mr. W. S. James as secretary. Upon Judge Wilbur's appointment to the Supreme Court of California in 1918, Dr. H. G. Brainard was elected president of the Psychopathic Association of California, with Judge Louis W: Myers and Judge Paul J. McCormick, vice presidents, who have served in that office for the past five years. The purpose of the Psychopathic Association was to better conditions of the mentally afflicted, and to urge the state, county and city to provide other institutions in Southern Cali- fornia with saner methods of entrance. Mr. and Mrs. James were especially interested in providing scientific treatment and care for the mentally afflicted. Mr. James was a trustee of the Norwalk State Hospital until his death. It was by representing the interests of this institution in the Legislature in 1921 that Mr. James was first stricken with the heart ailment which brought on his death two years later. A man of simple tastes, his love of home and sympathy for the afflicted were his leading characteristics, which endeared him to a large circle of friends.

HENRY OSCAR BENNET wa's a resident at Pasadena over twenty years, and died in that city at the age of ninety, on May 18, 1923. In the active years 'of his life he achieved unusual distinction in the East as an artist, designer and inventor.

He was born in New York City, November 12, 1833, son of Garret and Nancy (Van Wart) Bennet. Garret Bennet was a band leader on the famous training ship in New York harbor, the old frigate Constitution, also celebrated under the name "Old Ironside," which helped establish American independence and did so much to give enduring fame to thé early American navy. The mother of Mr. Bennet, Nancy Van Wart, represented some of the. early Colonial Knickerbocker stock of New York. One of her ancestors found the incriminating papers on Major Andre and arrested that British officer involved in the treasonable intrigue of Arnold. By a curious coincidence one of the sons-in-law of the late Mr. Bennet, the late Mr. Dexter of Pasadena, is descended from an ancestor who was with General Washington when Andre was shot.

Henry O. Bennet was educated in New York, and lived there until he retired and came to Pasadena. , He possessed good natural talent and developed his genius for music and painting and various forms of commer- cial art. For many years he was with the Steinway Piano Company, and later became associated with a marble concern. At first he made mantels and later did designing. The late Mr. Bennet developed a process for imitating fancy marbles. This was a secret process developed by him, and he succeeded in imitating forty different kinds of marble. He also succeeded in glazing slate with a porcelain, using this material as the base for beautiful designs and paintings. He was paid a large sum for develop- ing this side of the business of the Schwartz Marble Company of Buffalo, and that company realized immense sums for this specialty. The artistic talent of Mr. Bennet produced a great many wonderful fire places and other features of interior decoration. He was successful in business, and he also exemplified a wonderful character, faithful to every trust and the soul of kindliness.

The late Mr. Bennet married Mary Esther Mead, of Richfield, Con- necticut. Her mother, Sarah Seward, was a cousin of Secretary of State Seward. Mrs. Bennet died in 1901, and it was after her death that Mr. Bennet came to live with his daughters, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Sarah B. Dexter, in Pasadena. There were five children : Mrs. Williams, wife of a prominent attorney at Los Angeles ; J. Bennet, whose home is in Troy, New York; Mrs. S. B. Dexter, of Pasadena; and Mrs. George S. Coutie and Mrs. J. H. Reichard, both of Troy, New York.

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CARLE H. PHINNEY, D. O., has been an active representative of the osteopathic physicians and surgeons in Southern California for twenty years, and is now engaged in private practice at Eagle Rock in Los Angeles County.

Doctor Phinney was born at Morrison, Illinois, May 13, 1877. He was educated in public schools there, and then went with his family to Nebraska, where he attended high school at Exeter, Grand Island College, and subse- quently was a student in Colorado College at Colorado Springs, Colorado. In 1899 he came to California, locating at Los Angeles, and was graduated Doctor of Osteopathy from the Pacific College of Osteopathy in 1901. Doctor Phinney remained a year at the college as a lecturer, and for about twenty years he carried on a large private practice in Los Angeles. His home has been at Eagle Rock since 1908. Doctor Phinney is a member of the Los Angeles Osteopathic Surgical Society, the Los Angeles County, California State and National Osteopathic Associations, and is a member of the staff of the Glendale Research Hospital. He belongs to the Southern California Academy of Sciences, and the Glendale Lodge of Elks. He has been Health officer in Eagle Rock since its incorporation.

Doctor Phinney has had as his partner in practice for twenty years his wife, Mrs. Phinney, who is one of the ablest exponents of osteopathy among her sex in California. She was formerly Miss Myrtle Hemstreet, of Los Angeles. They were married September 25, 1902. Mrs. Phinney was born in Northern California, was educated there and graduated in 1901 from the Pacific Osteopathic College of Los Angeles. She is a member of the Woman's Osteopathic Club. Doctor and Mrs. Phinney have two children, Marian E. and Katherine M.

HAROLD HALDEMAN TOWNSEND has been a resident of Los Angeles County only two years, but in that brief time has achieved recognition as one of the big men of Long Beach in Southern California. He is active head of H. H. Townsend & Company, brokers in real estate, building and oil lands, and he and his company have handled as fiscal agents some of the 0 most notable new developments in the subdivisions and petroleum fields of Southern California.

Mr. Townsend is a comparatively young man, but has made practically the world his stage of action and experience. He was born in Merrill, Wisconsin, August 31, 1885, and in the paternal line is descended from French ancestors who came to America and fought in the Revolutionary war, while on his mother's side he is of the old Reynolds lineage, distinguished in the courts of England. His father, Charles Carroll Townsend, was a native of New York State, served through the four years of the Civil war as a colonel in the Union army, and he crossed the plains to California with one of the first caravans of soldiers to settle the Indians. He was an official of the Indian Bureau for a great many years. He was with Custer prior to the massacre, and was sent to Northern Wisconsin to settle Indians there, and established the Tomahawk Reservation. He acted as White Chief, the only recognized officer of the law among the Indians for thirteen years. He was also a leader in politics during the early days of Merrill, Wisconsin, and at one time was candidate in the primaries for governor against Bob Lafollette. At Rockford, Illinois, he married Mary Augusta Reynolds, daughter of General G. W. Reynolds, who came from England. They reared a family of four sons and two daughters, these children growing up in the Indian country.

Harold Haldeman Townsend was liberally educated in some of the best schools in the country, though part of his boyhood was spent along the fron- tiers of settlement and from a child he has known the Indians at close range. He attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Columbia University in New York. For several years he was an electrical worker, but soon took up a form of important social and educational service among the Indian boys in old Indian Territory, where he established boys clubs, boys courts, boys banks, reading rooms and gymnasiums. He organized

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the first Boy Scouts in Oklahoma among the Indian boys, and acted as first scout executive in that state. He become the first boys secretary in the first Young Men's Christian Association in the State of Oklahoma, at Muskogee, and was also boys secretary in the Young Men's Christian Association at Tulsa. He assisted in the election of the first officers after Oklahoma came into the Union, and was more or less prominent in Oklahoma politics for several years. In those early years his support was given the officers repre- senting the Federal, State, County and City governments in all measures of law enforcement. For three years he was chief of police in the new oil town of Tulsa. Later he became chief special agent of the Carter Oil Com- pany, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company in Oklahoma. In that capacity he organized-the guard of six hundred men to protect the oil interests during the early part of the World war. Many men acting under him were killed, and there was more or less continuous difficulty with the Industrial Workers of the World. The home of the vice president of the Oil Company was dynamited. After a year of work and investigation extending to many parts of the world Mr. Townsend secured the capture and conviction of five men implicated in this outrage. Subsequently he was sent to Europe by the Standard Oil Company as a Young Men's Christian Association war worker and an investigator of criticism of this work, the Standard having given five million dollars and five men to the Y. war fund.

His service overseas with the Young Men's Christian Association and the Intelligence Department cover nine months. He covered the entire Von Hindenburg line in armoured car from the Zeebrugge Submarine Base of the Germans to the Switzerland border, and traveled over the greater part of Europe on investigations and research work in this armoured Fiat. He had passports and credentials for eleven countries.

After a number of trips to California as a tourist Mr. Townsend located here permanently in 1920, and has since engaged in the oil and real estate building business. He has traveled over the greater part of the world, but has found in California the nearest approximation to an ideal residence section and a place with incomparable opportunities for the live business man. Through the offices of H. H. Townsend & Company many attractive investments have been placed before the public, including the leases of the Union Oil Company, those of the Hill Consolidated oil properties, the Huntington-Clearwater oil and residence subdivision, and Mr. Townsend is also a third owner in the Southwestern Petroleum Syndicate, with hold- ings in the Santa Fe Springs oil district. He is also financially interested in the Signal Hill Fields. Mr. Townsend has projected an industrial home site just out of Long Beach, building one hundred homes to be sold on the easy payment plan for working people. His company have also acted as fiscal agents for the Palms Hotel Corporation of Long Beach, the corpora- tion that is building the magnificent Royal Palms Hotel and Apartment House, one of the finest structures of the kind on the Pacific Coast.

Mr. Townsend has been a member of the Methodist Church for twenty- two years, and is always interested in church and Sunday School. He is now vice president of the largest Men's Bible Class in the world, the Taub- man Bible Class, of more than three thousand members at Long Beach. He has for fifteen years held a membership in Masonic Lodge No. 98 at Wagoner, Oklahoma.

Mr. Townsend married at Wagoner, Oklahoma, in 1910, Rose Eleanor Hunt. Her father, Judge William T. Hunt, was one of the first attorneys to practice law in Indian Territory, locating at Wagoner in 1895, and was instrumental in incorporating and founding the town of Wagoner and in establishing there the first public school in what is now the State of Okla- homa. He was a leader in Indian affairs, serving as probate attorney for a number of the tribes and was one of the first district judges after state- hood. His son, A. C. Hunt, is now the youngest district judge in the State of Oklahoma, and another son, Theo Hunt, is acting as American vice- consul in Barbadoes, West Indies. Mr. and Mrs. Townsend have a vital concern in rearing and training their three sons for useful citizenship and

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making them worthy of their budding citizenship as Californians. These three sons are Harold Hunt, William Clarence and Charles Carroll Townsend. Their only daughter, Rose Eleanor, died at the age of three years.

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History of Los Angeles county, Volume III, Part 80

Author: McGroarty, John Steven, 1862-1944 Publication date: 1923 Publisher: Number of Pages: 844

Author: McGroarty, John Steven, 1862-1944
Publication date: 1923
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 844