USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 69
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 69
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
He represented the prominent old family of England. There is a historic town in Derbyshire known as Buxton. His grandfather, George Buxton, was born at Gunneiside, Yorkshire. He married Hannah Alton, and after his death she came with two of the children to America in 1850 and she lived in Wisconsin, where she died in 1872 at the age of eighty-four. Richard Buxton, father of the late William Buxton, was born in Yorkshire, England, April 8, 1813, and came to America with his family in 1853, being a pioneer settler in LaFayette County, Wis- consin. His first vote as an American citizen was cast for Abraham Lincoln. He married Isabelle (Metcalf) Cottingham, widow of Dixon Cottingham, and she was born in England, June 20, 1812, and died August 19, 1878. Her father, Matthew Metcalf, was a native of York- shire, was a local preacher in the Wesleyan Church and after coming to America joined the Methodist Episcopal.
A son of Richard and Isabelle ( Metcalf ) Buxton, the late William Buxton was born on a farm near the village of Benton in Lafayette County, Wisconsin, December 19, 1854. He attended public schools there, the high school at Shullsburg, and at the age of fourteen became a clerk in a local store. At the age of eighteen he engaged in the retail grocery business at Dubuque, Iowa, where he finished a commercial edu- cation. Later, with his first employer in Wisconsin, Mr. Harker, he was in the general merchandise business at Ida Grove, Iowa, but two years late Mr. Buxton sold out and took up real estate, making a specialty of handling Iowa farm lands. He was extremely successful,
1526
SAN BERNARDINO AND RIVERSIDE COUNTIES
and in this way handled and individually owned some of the finest farms of the state. In 1882 he moved to Minneapolis and became associated with Kenneth McRae in the real estate and wholesale dry goods business. The business prospered and a large share of their profits they invested in real estate in a number of portions of the Union. In 1900 they closed out their business in Minneapolis and both partners came that year to California.
The closing years of his life Mr. Buxton spent at Rialto, and though in a position to retire and enjoy the fruits of his well-spent earlier years, he was soon called to practical business management and without special previous training became an ardent student and a keen judge of citrus fruit growing and marketing. He bought an orange grove of fifty-seven acres in the Rialto colony and soon afterward he was prevailed upon to become manager of the packing house and general business affairs of the California Citrus Union of Rialto. He rapidly extended his indi- vidual orchard interests, and he was associated with A. A. Cox, Judge William J. Curtis, N. L. May and A. L. Wright in erecting two large packing houses. Before his death he was known not only for his indi- vidual interests as an orange grower and shipper, but was also man- ager of the Rialto Orange Company, president of the Mutual Orange Distributors of San Bernardino County, a director and for six years president of the Lytle Creek Water & Improvement Company, was a director and organizer of the First National Bank of Rialto and its vice president at the time of his death.
A year or two before his death he completed the largest and most attractive residence in the Rialto Colony. In 1880 at Dubuque, Iowa, Mr. Buxton married Miss Mary Louise Gelston, a native of Galena, Illinois, daughter of Thomas H. and Isabella (Townsend ) Gelston. Her father was born at Bridgehampton, Long Island, and as a young man came to the Mississippi Valley, married at Galena in 1856, and in 1866 moved to St. Louis, where he was in the grain and commission business until his death in August, 1876, at the age of forty-four. Isabella Town- send was born at Galena and died at the home of her daughter in Rialto in May, 1920. She was a daughter of William and Louisa (Adams) Townsend. Her father was born in Wiltshire, England, in 1796 and her mother in Pennsylvania in 1804. William Townsend was a pioneer at Galena, Illinois, locating there before the Black Hawk war of 1832, was a pioneer merchant and a prosperous business men. He died in 1879 and his wife in 1881.
Mrs. Buxton is now living at 672 South Oxford Avenue in Los Angeles. She was the mother of five children, the oldest, Homer, dying in infancy. Her son, Lynn Crawford, who was born at Galena, Illinois, in November, 1882, had a high school and commercial education, and is now distributor of the Haynes automobile and has one of the most successful enterprises in this line in Los Angeles. He married Alma Loftus and their two children are Floyd Loftus and Ione Louise. The third child, Jay Russell Buxton, who was born at Minneapolis in Decem- ber, 1884, married Edna Sewell of Alhambra, Califonia, who died in February, 1921, leaving a daughter, Lucretia. The son, Roy W. Buxton, was drowned while camping on Lytle Creek in the San Bernardino Moun- tains in 1902 at the age of seventeen. The youngest child, Benjamin Buxton, was born at Minneapolis, October 3, 1886, married Bessie Shorey and their two children are William and Bettie Barbara.
EDWARD ALLEN has known Redlands and the country about from the time that town was established as a colony. A carpenter by trade, he
1527
SAN BERNARDINO AND RIVERSIDE COUNTIES
did much of the construction work for power companies and irrigation projects in this region, and his experiences during the past thirty-five years constitute an interesting chapter in the history of the locality. Mr. Allen was a soldier in the Civil war. Though now practically retired, he spends much of his time supervising his grove and home at one of the most beautiful locations in Redlands.
Mr. Allen was born at Milford, Pike County. Pennsylvania. October 12, 1834, and represents an old and honored American family. His father was Roger Allen and his grandfather, John Allen, served as a Revolution- ary soldier in Washington's army for seven years. He was one of the company of a hundred, none less than six feet tall, known as the Gren- adiers. He was at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered. Roger Allen married Patty Hough, a native of Kentucky. They had five chil- dren : Martin, William, Andrew, Edward and Martha.
When Edward Allen was eight months old his parents returned to Connecticut and settled at Plymouth on a farm. Edward Allen was reared and learned the work of a New England farm, attended common school, and as a youth took up the carpenter's trade at New Haven. When the Civil war broke out he enlisted in the Ninth Kentucky Infantry and was a musician until the Government as a means of economy dis- pensed with regimental hands and he was discharged at New Orleans in 1862, paying his own fare home. At his first enlistment he was sent to Lowell, Massachusetts, and as soon as the full regiment was recruited he was placed aboard a transport at Boston, the old Constitution, which had three thousand men aboard, including the regiment and a battery. The Constitution proceeded to Fortress Monroe and the next day sailed by way of Florida Keys to Ship Island, between Mobile and New Orleans. They remained there two months in training and were then conveyed to the Mississippi, following Farragut's fleet up the river. This fleet included three battleships, twenty-one mortar boats, and a num- ber of gun boats, all of wooden construction. The fleet continued up the river to Vicksburg. Mr. Allen's oldest brother Martin enlisted in the 15th Connecticut Infantry, leaving five children at home, and saw three years of service.
After his discharge from the army Edward Allen returned to New Haven and followed his trade in that locality for twenty years or more.
It was on August 26, 1886, that he reached San Bernardino and came direct to Redlands, the scene of new colonizing projects. This country was then completely wild. His services as a carpenter secured him employment and his first job was a building for Mr. Cooke. He super- intended all the carpenter work for the Edison Company, building their first power house at the mouth of Mill Creek Canyon and doing much of the carpenter work at Bear Valley Dam, erecting the present stone house and additions there. When he came to California the Zanja was plentifully supplied with trout. The Zanja artificial waterway was built by Indians, said to have used wooden shovels. During his employment in Bear Valley Mr. Allen continued his labors until snow fell and he left the valley the day before Christmas when the snow was waist deep At that time the Bear Valley Company took all its water from Santa Ana near Warm Springs, and he constructed most of the trestle work and flumes by which the water was conveyed over the canyons supplementing the open ditches. Most of this construction has since been abandoned since steel pipe is now used where flumes were once employed.
Soon after coming to Redlands Mr. Allen bought two and a half acres on Sylvan Boulevard from George Cooke and built his present home in 1888, thirty-three years ago. This is one of California's most picturesque
1528
SAN BERNARDINO AND RIVERSIDE COUNTIES
spots. The stream, the music of its tumbling water, the drive with its shaded way and the mountainous scenery attracted the attention of Mr. Allen at that time, and he has lived to see its full beauty realized.
In 1860 he married Miss Barbara Mathis, who was born in Connecticut April 13, 1837, and died January 12, 1917. Her parents were born in Alsace, France. Mr. and Mrs. Allen had four children: Andrew P., born in New Haven, September 24, 1861. still living in Connecticut, is married and has a son and daughter. The second of the family, Estelle, was born April 24, 1869, at New Haven, was educated there, and on February 5, 1891, was married to Edward P. Whitney. Edward Allen, Jr., born June 7, 1874, has for the past fifteen years been connected with the Fairbanks & Morse Company at Los Angeles and married Eliza- beth Orr. Grace, the youngest child, born January 6, 1877. is the widow of J. Bobrick and has three children, Doris, Evelyn and Jack.
Mr. Allen's grandson, Allan Fitch Whitney, born at Redlands, Sep- tember 24, 1896, was educated in the high school and Redlands University and in the fall of 1917 entered the Officers' Training Camp at The Presi- dio, California. He received a commission as second lieutenant in Novem- ber in the Field Artillery, and in 1918 sailed overseas on the flagship Bal- tic. He witnessed the torpedoing and sinking of the Tuscania, the torpedo having been aimed at the Baltic, but was observed so that the ship changed its course, the torpedo merely grazing the side and was deflected and struck the Tuscania. Lieutenant Whitney spent three months in intensive training with artillery officers at Saumur, France, and was then assigned to the One Hundred and Second Field Artillery of the Twenty-Sixth Division under General Edwards. He was in the Toul sector, was badly gassed at Chateau Thierry, rejoined his command in time to participate in the St. Mihiel drive, but was soon returned to hospital because he had not fully recovered from the effects of the gas. He was in hospital at Nevers, France, until returned an invalid to the hospital at St. Paul, Minnesota, and was discharged at The Presidio in California, in January, 1919. He is now an employe of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company at Los Angeles. September 24, 1920. Lieutenant Whitney married Grace Johnston of Honolulu.
Mr. Allen has greatly enjoyed the opportunities for outdoor life and activity in Southern California. He still keeps out of doors, and finds constant occupation at his home and in his grove. He has made and kept many friends and is one of the highly esteemed old comrades of the county.
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.