History of Santa Clara 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, Part 60

Author: Sawyer, Eugene Taylor, 1846-
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1928

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same line of activity. As land owner, mine owner, investor and publisher, he finds an abundant field for his varied talents and an opportunity to identify himself with men foremost in these industries. A man of keen perception and intuition, he is a public benefactor and is ever striving to benefit his fellow- men. Kind, thoughtful, liberal and open-hearted, he is ever ready to assist those who have been less fortunate in this world's goods and is generous to a fault. Of deep religious convictions and exemplify- ing a high standard of morals, he governs his life by the principles of the Golden Rule. Indissolubly associated with the history of San Jose and Santa Clara County, his name will be perpetuated in many enterprises of permanent value to the country's and city's progress.

LEOPOLD HART .-- Not every city in the United States of the size of San Jose may boast of such an extensive, well organized and well conducted mer- cantile establishment as that of L. Hart & Son Com- pany, whose founder and first president, Leopold Hart, may well be called the merchant pioneer of the town. A man of great honesty and integrity, he was esteemed by all who made his acquaintance, and at his passing on April 12, 1904, a void was left in the ranks of the pioneers that would be impossible to fill. He was born at Forsbach, Alsace Lorraine, Feb- ruary 7, 1829, and received a good education in the schools of his locality that admirably fitted him for a business career in later years. He had a natural bent for business and when he was twenty-one years old made up his mind to come to the New World and in 1850 he arrived in the United States. He remained in the East until in 1856, when he arrived in Santa Clara County, where for a short time he was a clerk in a store situated on the present site of the Growers Bank building. In 1862 he made a trip back to his native land for a visit and upon his return here estab- fished a dry goods and clothing store in Santa Clara. continuing there for a number of years. While a resident of that town, Mr. Hart was elected town treasurer and so managed the financial affairs of the place that it was placed on a very substantial foot- ing. In many ways he showed his public spirit by joining in all movements for the public good.

Having made a success in Santa Clara, Mr. Hart thought the city of San Jose held better inducements and he bought the Corner Cash store from Mr. Steinbach, located at the corner of Market and West Santa Clara streets. This building faced Market street and as the city grew apace the store grew with it and gradually grew into a busy center. It was Mr. Hart who gave to San Jose its first brick store build- ing and from that small beginning he saw one of the largest emporiums from San Francisco to Los An- geles, along the coast, develop. In 1902 the firm became L. Hart & Son Company, when A. J. Hart was taken into the firm, his father gradually retiring from the management. This later growth will be found chronicled in the sketch of A. J. Hart on another page of this history. However, credit must be given the intrepid pioneer who builded better than he knew and all honor paid to Leopold Hart, the founder. All during his busy career, Mr. Hart was alert to aid all projects for the advancement of business, social and educational conditions of city, county and state. He was no politician in the sense of seeking office, but he was interested in putting the best man in the office, regardless of party lines. He

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was a member of the Odd Fellows and of B'nai B'rith, and generously contributed to the religious work of the local synagogue.

In 1863 occurred the marriage of Leopold Hart and Miss Hortense Cahen, and they became parents of one son and five daughters: Alexander J; Mrs. Charles Becker; Mrs. G. W. Alexander; Mrs. 1. Cahen; Mrs. Harry Morris and Mrs. Louis Isaacs. Mrs. Hart died several years before her husband, who answered the final summons on April 12, 1904, if you may so characterize the passing on of a man who left behind him an undying influence for good.

JAY ORLEY HAYES .- Representative of the best type of citizenship, Jay Orley Hayes is justly ac- corded a prominent place in the business, municipal and social life of San Jose. His name is widely known and carries with it an influence which ever wields its power toward the betterment of the com- munity in every way, its moral uplifting, its physical welfare, the promotion and upbuilding of all enter- prises calculated to increase the prosperity of city. county and state. First a citizen and patriot, Mr. Hayes labors with untiring zeal for the best interests of the country; afterward a Republican, he gives his strongest support to the advancement of the principles he endorses. Though not known as a politician, he was selected by his friends as a candidate for gov- ernor at the time that Governor Pardee, then the incumbent, ran for office. Although defeated, this action, the result entirely of his standing as a man and citizen, brought Mr. Hayes prominently before the public and has added to his following many in- fluential men of the state, who appreciate his sterling integrity and ability. Absolutely sincere and honest and imbued with the highest and best motives, he is an ideal citizen, willing to spend his time and money in the betterment of the conditions of town, county and state. The value of his work thus far in San Jose and vicinity has ample testimony in a clean city government, good streets, good schools, good buildings, all of which have felt his strong and. earnest effort. What has been done locally can be done generally for the entire state, should opportunity and the call of duty ever demand that he give up the peace and quiet of his princely home for the turmoil and arduous task of a great public office. Mr. Hayes' personal magnetism is of that lasting order that comes only from the conviction of meeting a truly honorable man and one who loves his fellow- men. This feeling is heightened when one is permit- ted to observe him in his home, which is the best test, after all-his devotion to his family, to his church duties, impress one that he is an example of the true life precepts which he has been taught and which he has followed from infancy.

A native of Waterloo, Jefferson County, Wis., Mr. Hayes was born October 2, 1857, a son of Anson E. Hayes, the representative of an old American family of Scotch descent, the first member of which set- tled in Connecticut in 1683. For many generations the family flourished in the New England states, va- rious members adding luster to the name through their associations with the early colonial history. In time the family name became a familiar one in the states of the middle west. Mr. Hayes was reared in Wisconsin, receiving his preliminary education in the common schools of his native city. Upon the completion of the common school course he entered

the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and was graduated in 1880 with the degree of LL.B. He also studied law in the office of Gen. William F. Vilas and was admitted to the bar one year after his brother, Everis Anson Hayes, with whom he has been associated in both a professional and business way. They began the practice of law in Madison and con- tinued in that location for two years, when they re- moved to Ashland, there forming a partnership with Col. John H. Knight. A large and lucrative prac- tice was established in the four years following, their prestige extending throughout Ashland and Bayfield counties. The partnership was dissolved in 1886, when the Hayes brothers located in Ironwood, Mich., where they had previously acquired extensive inter- ests in iron mines of the Gogebic iron range. For one year they gave their sole attention to these in- terests. In the spring of 1887 they came to Califor- nia and in the vicinity of San Jose purchased a fine ranch for their home. This property they have im- proved and developed, conducting a fruit enterprise which has added no little to the prestige of Santa Clara County in this line. Mr. Hayes is secretary and treasurer of the Hayes Mining Company and treasurer of the Harmony Iron Company. In 1900 the Hayes brothers became the owners of the Her- ald. the leading evening paper of San Jose, and in 1901 purchased the Mercury, the only morning paper in that city; the two papers were later consolidated under the name of the San Jose Mercury-Herald and Mr. Hayes is the president of the Mercury-Herald Company, owners of these newspapers. Mr. Hayes has spent much time in the iron mines in Michigan during the last few years and almost all the thirty months immediately after the war. Fortunately their mines produced a high grade of ore that found a ready sale and when other mines were closed down, their mine was operated during the entire period without a shutdown.

Mr. Hayes was married June 16, 1885, to Clara I. Lyon, a daughter of ex-Chief Justice W. P. Lyon, of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. They are the parents of five children: Mildred M. now the wife of A. E. Roth, comptroller of Stanford University. Lyetta A., Elystus L., Miriam F., now the wife of Edgar C. Kesler with Robert Dollar Company, San Francisco, and J. Orlo. Mr. Hayes has taken a prominent part in the organization of the Califor- nia Prune & Apricot Growers Association, having been a director since its organization and is a mem- ber of its executive committee and has given much time and thought to its upbuilding, realizing that in the success of the association depends the further prosperity of the prune and apricot growers of Cali- fornia. It is the consensus of opinion of men of affairs that he has had more to do with the growth of the association than any other person. He is a man of varied and large interests in California, but is particularly fond of Santa Clara County and opti- mistic for its rapid growth and future greatness. A very prominent Republican in state and national poli- tics, he was, for years, a member of the State Cen- tral Committee and its executive committee and for eight years served as vice-chairman and has been prominent and active in all the great movements of the Republican party in the state. He was delegate- at-large from California to the national Republican convention at Chicago that nominated Hughes for

JHayes.

Clara Lyon Hayes

LELAND STANFORD

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HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY

president in 1916 and was a member of the notifica- tion committee that proceeded to New York and notified Mr. Hughes of his nomination for president by the Republican convention at Chicago.

LELAND STANFORD .- Famous among the most inspiring examples of American citizenship, the busy and fruitful life of Leland Stanford is instruc- tive and highly suggestive to the youth, not only of our own country, but of the entire civilized world. A na- tive of the great Empire State, he became, as one of the founders and developers of the Pacific common- . wealth, one of the most remarkable men America has ever produced; and from the time of his boyhood in the '20s to his death in the '90s, the story of his ascending career, in which almost insuperable obstacles were again and again overcome, is of absorbing interest. He was born at Watervliet, N. Y., eight miles from Albany, on March 9, 1824, and descended from English stock, reenforced, on his father's side, by the best of Irish blood. His father, Josiah Stanford, a native of Massachusetts, had been taken to New York by his parents when he was four years of age; and he grew up to marry a Miss Phillips, whose parents had removed from Massachusetts to Vermont, and from Vermont to New York State. Josiah Stanford lived for many years on a farm known as Elin Grove, on the Albany road leading out to Schenectady, and he was highly esteemed as an intelligent, industrious and progres- sive farmer, who had built a portion of the turnpike between Albany and Schenectady, constructed roads and bridges in his neighborhood, was an alert, syste- matic business man and a decidedly public-spirited citizen, and was an early and enthusiastic advocate of the construction of the Erie Canal.

In 1825, the New York Legislature granted a charter for a railroad between Albany and Schenec- tady, and when it came to building the road, Josiah Stanford was chosen as one of the principal con- tractors. A railroad was an attractive novelty in those days, and the survey of this road brought it so close to the home of the Stanfords that Leland passed his holidays in eagerly watching the work, and even at that early age acquired a knowledge of railroad construction that proved of service to him in later years. The conversation, too, of the visitors to Josiah Stanford's home, was elevating, instructive and in- spiring. These visitors were men of affairs engaged in the construction of large works, and they were alive to the great possibilities through future trans- portation routes, and were not a whit daunted by the magnitude of any project. Among the subjects discussed with vigor by these virile and far-seeing men was the project of a railroad to Oregon; and "young as he was when the question was first agi- tated," says one writer, "Leland Stanford took a lively interest in the measure. Among its chief advo- cates at that early day was Mr. Whitney, one of the engineers in the construction of the Mohawk & Hud- son River Railway. On one occasion, when Whitney passed the night at Elm Grove, Leland being then thirteen years of age, the conversation ran largely on this overland railway project, and the effect upon the mind of such a boy may be readily imagined. The remembrance of that night's discussion between Whitney and his father never left him, but bore the giandest fruits." This engineer was undoubtedly the celebrated Asa Whitney, from 1830 to 1839 assist-

ant superintendent, and then superintendent, of the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad, later canal commis- sioner of New York State, and finally, as a world- renowned maker of car-wheels, also, like Stanford, a university benefactor.

Leland Stanford received the education of the farmer boy; and as a result he inherited both good physical and mental qualities, and was reared in a home where there was no idler, where there was little luxury, but no want, where labor was honored, and each had his task appointed for him to do. He worked on the farm with his father and his brothers, rising as early as five o'clock of a winter's morning. He attended the common schools until he was twelve years of age, and then, for three years, received pri- vate instruction at home. After that, he assisted his father in carrying out a large contract for the de- livery of wood. This was really his first business ad- venture for he was in a manner a partner in the enterprise, and received a share of the profits, which be used to pay his tuition at an academy in Clin- ton, N. Y.

Having determined to study law, young Stanford entered the office of Messrs. Wheaton, Doolittle & Hadley, at Albany, and after three years with the law-tomes, he was admitted to the Bar of New York State. By this time, he had been drawn toward the West; and after visiting various places he finally se- lected Port Washington, Wis., as best suited to his purpose; and there, in 1848, he established himself in the practice of law. This town was then considered by many the port of the Lake region having a most promising future, and Mr. Stanford's success as a lawyer there, with a lucrative practice and an enviable standing in the community, appeared to emphasize the prospects of prosperity for everyone. The first year in which he had hung out his shingle, he earned $1,260, and for that time, such an income was con- sidered good.

In 1850, he paid a visit to Albany, and while there married Miss Jane Lathrop, the daughter of Dyer Lathrop, a merchant of Albany whose family were among the earliest and most respected settlers in that city. He was born at Bozrah (now called Bozrah- ville), Conn., and accompanied his parents on their removal to New York, when he was about seven years of age. He was noted for his good deeds, ex- pressive of human kindness, and was privileged to be one of the founders in Albany of the Orphan Asy- lum, and was treasurer of that institution and director at the time of his death. Mr. Stanford returned to Port Washington with his wife and continued in the practice of his profession at that place until 1852, when a misfortune happened to him which changed the course of his life, and proved to be a blessing in disguise. This was the total destruction by fire of his office with all of its valuable contents, including his law library, and for the moment seemed irrepara- ble. Tidings of the discovery of gold in California, however, reached the East about that time and occa- sioned great excitement, so much so that five of Josiah Stanford's sons set out for the promised land; and the destruction of his office at Port Washington determined Leland Stanford's action in following them. Mr. Stanford closed out his affairs in Wis- consin, and took his wife to Albany; but she was uhable to persuade her father to let her accompany her husband and share with him the hardships of life in a new country-as a result of which she re-

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mained at her father's home for the next three years, attending with all the devotion of a loving and sym- pathetic daughter to every want of her father through a long illness, until his death in 1855.

Leland Stanford sailed from New York, made the journey by way of Nicaragua, spent twelve days in crossing the Isthmus and thirty-eight days on the entire trip. He arrived at San Francisco on July 12, 1852, and visited his brothers, who were engaged in the general merchandise business at Sacramento, and soon afterward entered for himself on a mercantile career at Cold Springs, in Eldorado County. The following spring, he opened a store at Michigan Bluffs, the central business point of the Placer County mining district: and this period of Mr. Stan- ford's life was passed among the privations, the hardships and the excitements of a typical pioneer mining camp, the recollection of which never faded from his memory. Mr. Stanford also engaged in mining operations and prospered in them in his busi- noss to such an extent that in 1855 he purchased the business of his brothers in Sacramento. The same year he proceeded to the East and brought Mrs. Stanford to California, and established his home in Sacramento, in which city his house soon ranked among the leading California concerns, in the man- agement of which he developed an heretofore untried capacity for dealing with large affairs. It was also not long before Mr. Stanford's political life began. The Republican party was organized in California in 1856, and he, giving the movement his enthusiastic support, became one of its founders on the Coast, although at first he was not on the popular side. At the next election, for example, he was the Republi- can candidate for State Treasurer, and was defeated, and in 1859, when he was candidate for Governor, he received only 11,000 votes. In 1860, he was delegate at large to the Republican National Convention, and he was an earnest and influential advocate of the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, with whom he formed a warm and lasting friendship. As a result, at the request of President Lincoln, he remained in Washington for several weeks after the inauguration. He enjoyed the confidence of Lincoln, as a matter of fact, and the destined martyr consulted him as to the surest methods of preserving the peace and loyalty of California, and maintaining its adherence to the Union-then a large question filled with doubt, which caused much anxiety to the President and his hard- working and alert advisers.

Leland Stanford was again made the Republican candidate for Governor in 1861, and after a bold and vigorous canvass he was elected, receiving 56,036 votes against 32,750 of his opponent, Mr. McConnell, the Administration Democrat, and 30,944 for Mr. Conness, the Douglass Democrat candidate. It was a critical period in both state and national affairs when Leland Stanford was inaugurated Governor of California, but he was firm and politic, and prevented the outbreak of any disturbance. During his term of office, the state militia was organized, the evils of squatterism abated, a State Normal School was estab- lished, and the indebtedness of the state was reduced one-half. If Leland Stanford had no other claim to remembrance, his services as War Governor of Cali- fornia would cause his fame to be handed down to future ages.

The part taken by Leland Stanford in the construc- tion of the Central Pacific Railroad is better known.

however, than any other portion of his varied and ex- ceedingly active career. As has been narrated, he had listened as a boy to conversations between his father and Mr. Whitney as to the possibility of con- structing a railroad to Oregon, and in after years he kept himself well informed on the subject, collecting and preserving all articles published on that theme which once came to his attention. During his voy- age to California with Mrs. Stanford, he said to her, when she was ill: "Never mind, a time will come when I will build a railroad for you to return home on." He did not originate the idea of a Pacific rail- road-he executed the tremendous project. In 1860, he heard of the examination which Theodore D. Judah, an engineer, had made of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in order to determine a practicable route for a railroad; and not long afterwards he had a con- versation with C. P. Huntington, a hardware mer- chant of Sacramento on the subject of a railroad from California to the East. Another meeting was held, and a third, at which Mark Hopkins was pres- ent. The result of these conferences was a deter- mination to at least look further into the feasibility of the project. Mr. Judah, energetic and intrepid, and firm in his belief in the possibility of building such a railroad across the Sierra Nevada Mountains, was called into consultation; and as a result of the information furnished by him, and that obtained from others, it was determined to send out Judah, with the necessary assistants, to make a preliminary sur- vey, and a fund was raised for that purpose. This was the beginning of the great corporation; and the men who started this mighty enterprise were all merchants of Sacramento, except Judah, and they were primarily Leland Stanford, Collis P. Hunting- ton, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and James Bailey.

The physical difficulties were considered by many engineers to be insurmountable; others thought that if the road could be built at all, the cost would be so great that the necessary funds could never be se- cured; and, therefore, great as were the physical difficulties, the financial obstacles were none the less appalling. Incorporated in 1861, under the general laws of the State of California as the Central Pacific Railroad Company, the project was still in a condi- tion giving little hope of success until the passage by Congress of an act of July 1, 1862, entitled "An act to aid in the construction of a railroad and tele- graph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military and other purposes." This act incorporated the Union Pacific Railroad Company and granted to it "for the purpose of aid- ing in the construction of said railroad and telegraph line, and to receive the safe and speedy transporta- tion of mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores thereon, "every alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers, to the amount of five alternate sections per mile on each side of said road" not sold, reserved or otherwise disposed of by the United States Government, and to which a pre- emption or homestead claim may not have been at- tached, at the time the line of said road is definitely fixed." Mineral lands were exempted from the opera- tions of the act. The Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to issue to the company, upon the comple- tion and equipment of forty consecutive miles of the railroad and telegraph, bonds of the United States,

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payable thirty years after date, and bearing interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum, to the amount of $16,000 per mile, and at $32,000 and $48,000 per mile for certain sections through the mountains. The bonds were to constitute a first mortgage upon the property of the company.

The Central Pacific Railroad Company of Califor- nia was authorized to construct a railroad and tele- graph line from the Pacific Coast, at or near San Francisco or the navigable waters of the Sacramento River, to the Eastern boundary of California upon the same terms and conditions in all respects as the Union Pacific Railroad Company. The Central Pa- cific Railroad Company was required to complete fifty miles of its road within two years after filing assent to the provisions of the act, and fifty miles annually thereafter, and was authorized, after com- pleting its road across California, to continue the construction of a railroad and telegraph line through the territories of the United States to the Missouri River, or until it met and connected with the Union Pacific Railroad. By act of July 2, 1864, these pro- visions were materially amended, the time for desig- nating the general route, for filing the map of the same, and of building the part of these roads first re- quired to be constructed was extended one year; the Central Pacific was required to complete annually twenty-five instead of fifty miles, and the whole line up to the state line within four years. The land granted was increased from five to ten alternate sec- tions, within the limits of twenty instead of ten miles on each side. It was provided that only one- half of the compensation for services rendered the government should be required to be applied to the payment of the bonds issued by the government in aid of the construction of the road. When a section of twenty, instead of forty miles was completed, bonds might be issued to the company. The provi- sion for withholding a portion of the bonds author- ized by the act of July 1, 1862, until the completion of the whole road, was repealed. Special provision was made for the issue of bonds in advance of the completion of the sections in the regions of the mountains-naturally the most diffcult and the most costly part of the long line. But the most important provision of the act was the one authorizing the company, on the completion of each section of the road, to issue its own first-mortgage bonds, to an amount not exceeding the bonds of the United States and making the bonds of the United States subordinate to the bonds of the company.

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History of Santa Clara 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, Part 60

Author: Sawyer, Eugene Taylor, 1846- Publication date: 1922 Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1928

Author: Sawyer, Eugene Taylor, 1846-
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1928