USA > California > Sacramento County > History of Sacramento County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, 1913 > Part 82
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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY
Mr. Campbell was married in Sacramento November 27th, 1906, to Miss Ellen Klotz, who was born in this city and was a gradu- ate of the Sacramento high school. She was a teacher in the public schools for several years. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell are the parents of three children, Eleanor, William and Dudley. Mr. Campbell was made a Mason in Washington Lodge No. 14, F. & A. M., and is also a thirtieth degree Scottish Rite member. He is a past patron of Columbus Chapter, No. 117, O. E. S., of which Mrs. Campbell is a member, and he is also a member of Capital Lodge No. 87, I. O. O. F. Both he and his wife are numbered in the membership of Capitol City Re- bekah Lodge No. 160, and he is a member of Court Capital, F. of A.' Mrs. Campbell is member of the Native Daughters of the Golden West. Active in the East Sacramento Improvement Club, where he has large property interests and where his beauiful residence is located, Mr. Campbell has served the club as president and has been very instrumental in fostering movements for the building up and beautifying of that section of the state capital. He was a member of a committee of thirty that carried to victory the an- nexing of the suburbs, thus changing the population from forty- five hundred to seven thousand. He is an active member of Sacra- mento Chamber of Commerce. He is Republican in his politics and his geniality and public spirit make him popular with his fellow citizens of all classes.
COL. HENRY I. SEYMOUR
Among native Californians who have forged to the front in the business field of Sacramento there is none more deserving of men- tion in a work of this character than Henry I. Seymour of the Buf- falo brewery and of other enterprises of importance and of prom- ise. Mr. Seymour was born in Sacramento July 25, 1861, son of Henry O. and Elizabeth (Osborn) Seymour, both of whom were na- tives of New York state. The father came around the Cape in a sailing vessel in 1854 and followed farming. At the time of his death he was a member of the Board of Supervisors and had been chairman of that body. His death occurred in 1876. Mrs. Sey- mour had made the trip to the west in 1852, and she passed away in 1910.
Educated in the public schools Henry I. Seymour was gradu- ated from high school in 1878. His first experience in business was as an employe in the freight department of the Southern Pacific Rail- road Company. He early demonstrated that he had in him the
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energy from which successful men of affairs are developed, and his advancement was rapid. For ten years he was in the service of that corporation, then in 1890 he entered the employ of the Buffalo Brewing Company as a bookkeeper, and in that capacity he labored faithfully and most efficiently five years. So devoted had he been to the interests of the concern, so well had he informed himself in the intricacies of its affairs, that he was called to the higher respon- sibility of its management, and since then he has been influential in shaping its course and directing the carrying out of its policies. The company began business in 1890, with a capacity of twenty- five thousand barrels. It had been incorporated in 1888, and its original board of directors was constituted as follows: Ex-Gov- ernor Newton Booth, J. R. Watson of the Southern Pacific Rail- road Company, H. H. Grau, Adolph Heilbron, W. E. Gerber, Frank Ruhstaller, Sr., Louis Nicolaus, Frederick Cox and Samuel Lavens- ton. Of this board only three survive. Mr. Gran, the original manager, retired in 1895. The present capacity of the plant is so very much greater than that of the early days of the company that the output exceeds one hundred thousand barrels and ranks on a par in production and quality with any brewery in California.
For four years Mr. Seymour was active as a director and vice- president of the Chamber of Commerce, and from time to time he has been identified, directly or indirectly, with various interests of the city. Abont 1885 he became a member of Company E, First Artillery, National Guards. From a private he rose to the office of captain in the next three years. In 1895 he was placed on the re- tired list, remaining there until 1900, when he was elected colonel of the Second Infantry Regiment, N. G. C., serving in that capacity until 1910, when he was again placed on the retired list. As colonel of the Second Infantry he served in San Francisco during the fire of 1906. He is a member of Sacramento Lodge No. 6, B. P. O. E., and of Sunset Parlor No. 26, N. S. G. W. The Sutter Club num- bers him among its members, and he has served on its board of trustees.
Mr. Seymour was married in Napa county in 1887 to Miss Grace Brownlee, who was a native daughter of Napa county and a graduate of Perry's Seminary of Sacramento. They are the par- ents of two children, Donald and Doris. In many ways Mr. Sey- monr has demonstrated his public spirit, and there are few move- ments inaugurated which give promise of benefiting any consid- erable number of his fellow citizens that do not receive his cordial and generous support. 46
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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY
GEORGE C. SELLON
Rare indeed is it to find two generations of native Californians actively identified with business affairs and contributing useful service to the world of progress. Such is the record of the Sellon family, three successive generations of whom have contributed to the development of the state since the discovery of gold and one (repre- senting the third generation) now holds a prominent position among the men of affairs in Sacramento. This influential citizen was born in the city of San Francisco February 9, 1881, received a grammar school education in Sacramento and attended the Chicago high school, from which he was gradnated in 1900. His father, L. J. Sellon, was born in Marysville, Cal., in September of 1850, and is a son of Judge Sellon, a Forty-niner and a pioneer of honored memory. Upon start- ing out to make his own way in the world, L. J. Sellon became a rail- way mail clerk and later rose to the superintendency of the mail route between Sacramento and Ogden, Utah, meanwhile making his home in the former city. During 1891 he resigned from the road in order to enter the employ of the Postal Telegraph Company at Sac- ramento, where he acted as operator. The company in 1894 trans- ferred him to Chicago as chief of the night wire. Notwithstanding his life of strennous exertion and constant labor, he is still active, forceful and successful, and has not been obliged to relinquish the responsibilities so capably discharged for many years.
It was the privilege of George C. Sellon to enjoy excellent educa- tional advantages and at the same time to observe carefully the archi- tecture popular in the three cities familiar to his youth. From boy- hood he displayed an interest in the building business and thought- fully studied all designs novel in style as well as substantial in effect. As he observed and noted these with care, he began to draw designs of his own and after he entered an achitect's office in Chicago he gave his attention wholly to developing his natural tastes for such work. From 1904 to 1906 he engaged in business for himself in Chi- cago and his experience in that city has proved of the greatest service to his subsequent efforts.
A brief period of work at San Francisco was followed by the re- turn of Mr. Sellon to Sacramento in May of 1907, at which time he accepted an appointment as state architect from Governor Gillett. During the three years of his service in the employ of the common- wealth he designed many important structures, including the State Normal at San Jose, the State Hospital at Agnew, the state peniten- tiary at San Quentin, the California building at the Alaska-Ynkon exposition and the Administration building at the Sonoma State
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Home. Since his retirement from the state employ he has engaged in business for himself and has designed many buildings of note, among them being the Sacramento hotel, the American cash store, the Sacramento News Publishing building, the Hagelstein building, the structures to be seen on the state fair grounds and the Inverness building. To one so deeply interested in his chosen calling politics makes little appeal, and we find that Mr. Sellon refuses to take any part in public affairs aside from voting the Republican ticket. Elec- tive offices do not fascinate him and the career of a statesman pos- sesses for him no charm, although later years, with their professional successes and business prosperity, may lead him into avenues of public service for which now he has no desire. The Sutter club and blue lodge, as well as the Scottish Rite Masons number him among their members, and professionally he is a member of the San Fran- cisco Chapter, American Institute of Architects. While living in Chi- cago he formed the acquaintance of Miss Margaret Hughes and they were united in marriage June 29, 1904, afterward residing in that city until their removal to the west. They are the parents of a son and daughter, Walter C. and Virginia.
GEORGE W. BOSTWICK
In and around Sacramento there is no better known authority on brick than is the gentleman whose name is above, and his expert advice is frequently called for by manufacturers in different parts of the United States. George W. Bostwick is a native of Michigan, born in Saginaw. He attended public and high school, then engaged with a local furniture company. In 1891 he entered the music busi- ness, first in the retail line, then later as a manufacturer. For nine years he held the position of general manager for the Waldo Manu- facturing Company of Saginaw, which position he filled with ability until January, 1905, when he assumed the management of the U. S. Brick corporation's plant at Michigan City, Ind. This position he occupied until June, 1910, when he moved to California and be- came superintendent for the Monterey Brick and Stone Company, at Monterey, and in September of the same year moved the plant to Sacramento, where the name was changed to the Sacramento Sand- stone Brick Company.
Mr. Bostwick now occupies the position of secretary and man- ager of this company. The concern is making facing brick and art stone, and the products are second to none in existence, having passed the specifications of the United States government and been
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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY
tested out by the University of California, also by the state engin- eering department. The brick is now in evidence in some of Sacra- mento's finest buildings, also in San Francisco and other points throughout the state.
The present enviable position occupied by this company is en- tirely owing to Mr. Bostwick's expert knowledge of the art of making sandstone brick, as he was one of the first men in this country to engage in its manufacture, though the industry is an old one in Germany and some other of the older countries.
Mr. Bostwick was married in 1895 to Miss A. Glover of Bay City, Mich., and four interesting children are making life worth while around his home.
J. BERNHARD KLUNE
A native of Hanover, Germany, born May 31, 1849, sou of J. D. and Mary Klune, this well known and popular jeweler of Sacramento came to the United States in 1868 and has proven himself such an adopted son as his chosen country may well be proud of. He had attended public and then private schools in his native land until he was fourteen years of age, and the following four years he had in- dustriously and determinedly devoted to an acquisition of a knowledge of the jeweler's trade. That knowledge he gained by actual work under skilled and well-informed masters who saw to it that he was not neglected in any feature of their aucient and beautiful handicraft. Consequently, at nineteen, he was well fitted for the career he had chosen, and his experience has demonstrated that he made no mistake in choosing Sacramento as a field for his endeavors toward success.
Soon after his arrival in America he settled at Sacramento, where he was employed as a watchmaker by his uncle until 1879. He then embarked in the jewelry business for himself, and his success is well known to all observing citizens of Sacramento. His business pros- pered almost from the outset and was enlarged from time to time until in 1907 it was found necessary to incorporate it, which measure brought it prominently before the public under the style of Klune & Floberg. Mr. Klune was elected president of the company, and he has been its general manager, planning its business and directing the steady advancement which has brought it into the front rank of con- cerns of its kind in California. He is a member of Washington Lodge No. 20, F. & A. M., Sacramento Chapter No. 3, R. A. M., Sac- ramento Commandery No. 2, K. T., and is also a Scottish Rite thirty- second degree Mason and member of Islam Temple, N. M. S., of San
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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY
Francisco. In addition, he affiliates with the Elks, the Foresters and the Maccabees. In religion he is a Lutheran, in politics a Repub- lican. He married in Sacramento, May 2, 1879, Miss Emma Rave, and they had one child, Bernhard R., who passed away aged thirty- two years.
A. S. HOPKINS
Genealogical records indicate that the Hopkins family came originally from Wales, but has been identified with American history ever since the historic landing of the Mayflower. The early repre- sentatives in the new world endured all the hardships incident to the upbuilding of a colony on the stern and rockbound shore of New England. From the first they were loyal to the land of their adop- tion. Intense patriotism characterized each generation, and when the struggle with the mother country was about to break forth Stephen Hopkins signed the Declaration of Independence, becoming thereby one of the patriots whose lives were in constant jeopardy until the final attainment of peace.
During the first half of the nineteenth century S. F. Hopkins was an influential business man of Vermont, where he married Har- riet Austin and where he owned for years a mercantile establishment at Cambridge, Lamoille county. Among his children was a son, A. S., who was born at Cambridge March 21, 1837, and received a fair edu- cation at Georgia, Franklin county, same state. When sixteen years of age he began to teach school at Cambridge and later followed the same occupation at Grand Isle, Grand Isle county. The tide of mi- gration was drifting toward the west and attracting the sons of New England from its unfertile soil to the rich lands on the frontier. During 1854 Mr. Hopkins joined others moving to Illinois and set- tled at Crete, a suburb of Chicago, where he taught school for four years. With a desire to see more of the vast and unsettled west he traveled by wagon to Kansas and participated in many of the skir- · mishes that marked the exciting period prior to the Civil war.
When the Rebellion finally began Mr. Hopkins had returned to Vermont and was working in a bookstore at Burlington. There he enlisted at the first call of 1861 for volunteers for three months. His regiment, the First Vermont Infantry, was ordered to Newport News, Va., and took part in the sanguinary battle of Big Bethel. At the expiration of his time he was honorably discharged and returned to Vermont. The next important event in his life was his removal to California in 1862, when he traveled on the ship Ariel to the Isthmus
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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY
of Panama and thence proceeded up the Pacific ocean to San Fran- cisco, where he landed on the 30th of June. Proceeding to Marin county, he bought a tract of land and engaged in the dairy business, but in 1863 disposed of the property. Next we find him in the Forest City district, where he had varied interests in mines, a saw-mill and a dairy, but finally he gave up all of these activities and turned his attention to teaching school in Solano county. The same occupation took him to Bloomfield, Sonoma county. During 1865 he became a member of the Maine Prairie Rifles in Solano and was chosen first lieutenant of the organization. During 1866 and 1867 he served as justice of the peace.
Coming to Sacramento February 4, 1868, Mr. Hopkins married, April 17 of the same year, Miss Harriet Hewes, daughter of Jonathan Hewes of Vermont, and a descendant of Cyrus Hewes, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins became the parents of three children, Stephen I., Grace E. and William. After he came to the capital city Mr. Hopkins carried on a news-stand and bookstore for ten years, selling ont in 1878 to W. A. and C. S. Hough- ton. Afterward he embarked in the wood and willow-ware business with U. C. Billingsby, who in 1886 was succeeded by E. C. Hopkins, a brother of the senior partner. The firm established a growing trade and maintained the confidence of a large number of customers, who recognized and appreciated their honorable business dealings and sterling integrity of character.
On the organization of the board of trade Mr. Hopkins was chosen a director. In 1886, upon the organization of the Sacramento Improvement Association, he became a director, as he had been a promoter of the new concern, and his connection continued as a permanent contribution to the work. The first Immigration Society, organized in 1878, chose him as its president. When it was sep- arated into the Central and Northern Society he was retained as president from 1880 until 1882. In politics he voted with the Repub- lican party from the time he attained his majority until his death, which occurred April 28, 1891. When the county supervisor, J. A. Mason, died in 1876 Mr. Hopkins was chosen to finish the unexpired . term. In addition he served as a school trustee until 1888. For five years he was a director of the free library. Fraternally he held membership with Eureka Lodge No. 4, I. O. O. F., and was past president of the Veterans' Society of Odd Fellows. In addition he was a member of Sacramento Lodge No. 80, A. O. U. W., and Unity Lodge No. 2088, K. of H., besides which he held in memory his service as a Union soldier through congenial meetings with his fel- low-members of Summer Post No. 3, G. A. R.
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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY
EDMUND CLEMENT ATKINSON
Foremost in the city of his adoption, and prominent in the state's educational history, stands the name of Edmund Clement Atkinson, who for half a century devoted his lifetime efforts to the instruction and character building of youth.
In a farmhouse in the far-off state of Maine, in the year 1837, the subject of this sketch was born, the youngest of a family of eight children. In his early youth he labored in the logging camps of the Pine Tree state and acquired the means wherewith to secure an edu- cation at Waterville college, now Colby university, from which he later received the degree of A. M. He entered Comer's Commercial college in Boston in the early '60s, and after graduation was offered a position as instructor in that institution. In 1866, in company with a fellow teacher, A. L. Reed, now of Suisun, he immigrated to Wis- consin and established a chain of commercial colleges in Janesville and Oshkosh in that state, and in Rockford, Ill.
Coming to California and settling in Sacramento early in 1873, he established Atkinson's Sacramento Business college, the first com- mercial school in the Sacramento valley, which was successfully con- ducted by him up to the time of his death, March 21, 1911, and is still in successful operation. During his nearly forty years of edu- cational work in Sacramento he stamped the indelible impress of his powerful and upright character upon the minds of thousands of pupils, many of whom are prominent in the business world of today. He attained to great and state-wide eminence in the Masonic fratern- ity, where his rare qualities of mind were admired and beloved by the members of that order, by whom he was selected to be the grand master of the grand lodge of the state of California, and elevated to the thirty-third degree of the Scottish Rite.
DAVID LUBIN
A history of Sacramento county would not be complete without mention of David Lubin, who stands today among the benefactors of the world and more directly of the farmer. Coming from his native country in Europe, he began his career in this country as an apprentice as a jewelry polisher in North Attleboro, Mass. In 1867 he drifted to California and thence to Arizona, where he worked in a lumber yard and as a cowboy. Returning to San Francisco, he worked in Gray & Co.'s jewelry factory and afterwards, returning east, became a commercial traveler for a lamp manufacturing firm.
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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY
In 1874 he came back to Sacramento and started in business as a member of the firm of Weinstock, Lubin & Co., in which he remained an active partner for many years.
A number of years ago Mr. Lubin withdrew from active work in the firm and devoted himself to an idea which he had conceived, of benefiting his fellow men. The idea is embodied in what' he terms "the single numerical statement." Observing that the farmer was at the mercy of the middleman and speculators, who fixed the price which he received for his wheat, regardless of the world's supply for the year, he formulated and perfected a plan for ascertaining the exact supply of wheat produced in the various wheat-producing coun- tries of the world. He became an enthusiast in the propagation of his idea and has devoted years to carrying it out, visiting foreign countries and importuning the governments to establish departments for collecting and exchanging crop data, through a central organiza- tion. As a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, Mr. Lubin was forced to meet with discouragement after discouragement at Washington, but finally succeeded in overcoming the opposition and being appointed to represent this country at the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome. For it was in King Victor Eman- uel of Italy that Mr. Lubin first found a willing ear and a mind quick to grasp his idea and appreciate its importance to the world. He built a palace for the use of the institute, and endowed it with £12,000 a year, or $60,000. It stands on an eminence in a lovely spot of the beautiful Villa Borghese, and there Mr. Lubin resides and car- ries on his life work. There in 1905 the delegations from the various powers gathered and signed a convention to create the institute, but not till 1910 did Mr. Lubin see the culmination of his hopes, when the first single numerical statement of six nations was published, and in Angust, the following month, data from eleven nations followed. In 1912 fifty nations provided the necessary data, Russia being the last one to join, after long and repeated solicitation by Mr. Lnbin. The principal wheat-growing countries are now all represented, and the farmer today can now know the total crop prospects or output of ninety-five per cent of the land in the world and ninety-eight per cent of the world's population-a practical world's summary. He has all the information formerly possessed by the middleman and the speculator, who can no more exploit his ignorance, to his own ad- vantage and the detriment of the producer. The nations are con- tributing liberally to the support of the institute. Returns are now being gathered for other crops and products as well as the cereals, and the work of the institute is expanding in many other directions also. It is a work of building up and making life easier, and the results of Mr. Lubin's persistence and enthusiasm will live long after him.
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HISTORY OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY
GEORGE MCDOUGAL
George MeDougal was a prominent character in the days of the founding of Sacramento city. He was a brother of "I, John," the second governor of California, and came here from Indiana in 1848, and, joining Fremont's battalion, was with it in the campaign in Southern California. After his return to San Francisco, he became prominent there, and after gold was discovered joined the rush of prospectors and had some exciting experiences in the mines. As narrated elsewhere, shortly after the survey of Sacramento was com- pleted, he secured a lease from Sutter of a portion of the river front for a ferry, at a point below the entrance to Sutter slough. With his partner, Judge Blackburn of Santa Cruz, he opened the first store in the place, bringing up a store ship and anchoring it near the foot of I street. When Captain Sntter's son arrived, however, and the father transferred to him an interest in the city, a debate soon arose between him and MeDougal as to the latter's rights under the lease, MeDougal claiming that he was entitled to several hundred feet of the front. The court decided in favor of Sutter, McDougal became dissatisfied with the place and determined to "extinguish the pros- pects" of the new city and to move to Sutterville. He removed all his goods to that place, and departed to the east, leaving his brother John in charge of the store. John then issued immense placards, an- nouncing that the firm had determined to lead in the competition, and would therefore sell goods "at cost and freight," adding a verbal assurance that, if necessary to obtain patronage under that combina- tion, they would sell the goods at first cost. The merchants at the fort combined, however, and by a well-laid scheme forced MeDougal & Co. to close up business.
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