USA > California > Los Angeles County > Ingersoll's century history, Santa Monica Bay cities prefaced with a brief history of the state of California, a condensed history of Los Angeles County, 1542-1908 > Part 44
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"Captain Robert Dollard, acting as field officer, and in command of the skirmish line at New Market Heights, inspired his command by his great personal bravery, coolness and ability, until he fell severely wounded near the enemy's main line is hereby promoted to major."
Major Dollard went with his regiment to the Mexican frontier at the close of the war to join an army assembled along the Rio Grande to give the Emperor Maximillian and the French Emperor, who was backing him, a hint that the United States, having settled its family difficulties, was now ready to test the virtue of the Monroe doctrine, but the withdrawal of the French army from Mexico and the failing fortunes of Maximillian settled the question without hostilities and the troops thus assembled were mustered out early in 1866.
Shortly after this Major Dollard located at Galesburg, Illinois, studied law and was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of that state in 1870.
He married Miss Carrie E. Dunn, of Yates City, Illinois, in 1875. They have no children. He continued in the general practice of the law in Knox, Peoria and Fulton Counties, Illinois, after his admission, until 1879, when he located in Douglas County, Dakota Territory, a frontier county, in which he was the first settler. During the early settlement of this county a band of adventurers secured its organization and attempted to plunder it of about two hundred thousand dol- lars by the issue of fraudulent warrants on its treasury but were met bythe honest settlers with Major Dollard at their head and, in a contest in and out of court, lasting ten years, in which was engaged some of the best legal talent in the North- west and the effective services of a vigilance committee, the conspirators were routed, driven from the country and the people saved from their fruadulent schemes.
The major was a leading member of the Constitutional Conventions of South Dakota in 1883 and 1885, in the movement to create a state out of the south half
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of Dakota Territory, the last of which framed the constitution of the present State of South Dakota, and the work of which conventions practically resulted in the admission into the Union of the States of both South and North Dakota.
He was elected District Attorney in 1885, Attorney-General of the Provisional State Government for South Dakota in the same year, a member of the Territorial Senate in 1888, in which he was Chairman of the Joint Committee of both Houses on the reform of the school law ; was elected the first Attorney-General of the State of South Dakota and served two terms during which he framed legislation that lifted the state from a condition of bankruptcy and has continued it on a cash basis ever since. He was subsequently a leading member of the House of the State Legislature and later of its Senate in which he was Chairman of the Judici- ary Committee. He was still later successively an anti-machine candidate for Governor and for Congress in a revolt that several years struggle crowned with success.
JAMES O. HODGSON, retired, of Santa Monica, is of the many permanent residents of the city, attracted to Sunny California to spend his declining years in quietude after having spent the active years of his life in the East and Middle West. He is a native of Onandaga County, N. Y., born in the township of Manlus, August 14th, 1838. His father, James Hodgson, was a native of the Empire State. Both paternal and maternal grandparents were from Manchester, England and came to the United States and located in 1801 near Auburn, N. Y.
James Hodgson, with his family, located upon the then western frontier in the town of Elba, Lapeer County, Michigan, and took up government land when Michigan was a territory. They had five sons of whom James O. is the only one living. He attended school there and grew to manhood. It was a sparsely settled country, principally inhabited by Indians, and he was one of four white pupils who attended their district school, the others being Indian children, eighty in number, belonging to the Nypsing tribe, that inhabited the Flint River Valley.
Upon the breaking out of the Civil War, young Hodgson, on the 16th day of October, 1862, responded to the first call for 300,000 men and joined the Tenth Michigan Infantry, went to the front and participated in some of the hardest fought battles of the war, notably those of Pittsburgh Landing, Shilo and Corinth. He was an expert rifle shot and was at times detailed for duty as a sharpshooter. He served the full time of his enlistment and was mustered out August 19th, 1865, at Ross Ville, Ga., and immediately re-enlisted and joined the Atlanta campaign, during which seige he was one hundred four days under continuous fire. During his army career he participated in upwards of thirty engagements and was con- tinuously with his regiment. He was mustered out of service at Louisville, Ky., the 19th of August, 1865, and returned to the peaceful pursuits of farm life.
He was married May 1st, 1866, to Miss Alma Campbell at the old home.
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She was daughter of Chas. L. Campbell, a pioneer of Lapeer County, Michigan, town of Hadley. She was born in the town of Davidson, Gennessee County, Michigan, where her father engaged in farming, lumbering, kept a hotel and was an active and successful man of local affairs.
Mr. Hodgson located in Flint City and engaged in the lumber business from 1872 to 1879. In 1882 he filed a Soldier's Claim on a quarter section of land in Esmond Township, Kingsbury County, Dakota, which he improved as a farın. He also kept a hotel at Esmond Valley and finally retired to DeSmit City, South Dakota, where they lived until finally coming to Santa Monica in April, 1907. They own one of the many beautiful homes of the Crescent Bay City, No. 437 North Fourth Street. They have an adopted son, W. K. Hodgson, a prosperous merchant of Del Mar, Iowa.
ALMON H. CALKINS is a native of Oswego, N. Y., born January 1st, 1841. His father was Almon Calkins, a native of Connecticut, a Methodist clergyman of the Genesee, N. Y., Conference. He is of Welch ancestry. The mother of Mr. Calkins, Susan Alma, was a Quakeress, a native of New York. The family came west in 1850 and located at Janesville, Wisconsin, where young Calkins grew up and passed through the public schools. Upon the breaking out of the Civil War he enlisted for the conflict under Professor Cass, who organized Company A, 40th Wisconsin Infantry and was elected its captain. This company was largely made up of Captain Cass's former pupils of the Janesville High School. They went to the front under the ninety days call of 1864, and were stationed at Mem- phis, Tennessee, where he suffered a sunstroke while under a forced march which permanently incapacited him for further military duty. He was honorably discharged from the service and returned home with his regiment.
He then turned his attention to the development and promotion of a new device for burning fuel oil, of his own invention, upon which he was granted a series of letters patent by the United States Government, and which was also patented in foreign countries. He also, in company with brothers, acquired ownership of several patents on barbed wire for fencing purposes, which they for years controlled in this country, the revenues from which made the brothers wealthy. The financial crisis of 1873 proved a disastrous occurrence for this and hundreds of other well-established business enterprises, which was followed by the death of the brothers and loss of health by the subject of this sketch. He came to California and Santa Monica in 1879 which has since been his home.
Mr. Calkins has two sisters, residents of Santa Monica-Juliete, widow of the late Judge Boyce, and Jennie M., widow of M. Boyce, a prominent attorney of Illinois and a half brother of Judge Boyce.
Mr. Calkins leads a quiet life and attributes the prolongation of his life to the health-giving climate of Southern California.
E. C. GIRD.
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H. N. HAMMOND, capitalist and well known citizen of Santa Monica, is a native of Oakland County, Michigan, having been born in the town of Waterford, April 25th, 1876. His father, Eli Hammond, also a native of Michigan, was a merchant of Waterford. His mother, before marriage, was Miss Nettie Fifield. In 1882 the family removed to Benton, Montana, where they remained about four years, afterward returning to Michigan and locating at Decatur. At this place Mr. Hammond engaged in the mail order business for a period of about eight years. He married at Decatur, August 24th, 1897, Miss Edith McOmber, a daughter of George McOmber, a merchant of that city. In 1898 Mr. Hammond removed to Bay City, Michigan, where he continued in the mail order business, wholesale and retail. In 1904 Mr. Hammond and his wife came to California and lived for one year at Ocean Park. The following year he made purchase of a lot on the now magnificent Palisades tract. They erected the first costly and archi- tectural residence thereon which is today one of the most spacious homes in the city. Mr. and Mrs. Hammond have two children-Harriet Janetta, and John D.
EDWARD C. GIRD, a California pioneer and well known citizen of Los Angeles and Sawtelle, is a native of Illinois, born in the town of Trenton, Clinton County, March 12th, 1863. His father was Edward Kinsley Gird, a native of Louisiana, whose father was a military instructor at the United States Military School at West Point. Later in life he went south and established a military academy in Louisiana. Edward K. Gird, with a brother, Henry H. Gird, made the trip overland to California with ox teams, from Illinois in 1853 and remained here about five years. In 1858 they returned home. In 1868 Mr. Gird located in Bates County, Missouri, where he lived until he came to Los Angeles in 1883, bringing his family, which included Edward C., the subject of this sketch, then twenty years of age. They purchased eighty acres of land near the city of Los Angeles for which they paid $85.00 an acre, and embarked in the dairy business, which they conducted for about eight years. Los Angeles was then a city of about 20,000 people and their farm was considered quite in the country. With the marvelous growth of Los Angeles, this property was taken into the Wilshire Boulevard Tract and a portion into the Norwood Terrace Tract and now sells at the rate of about $15,000 an acre. Here the father died in 1900 at sixty-six years of age. Mrs. Gird, the mother of our subject, still occupies a portion of the old homestead and enjoys good health at seventy-one years of age.
In 1896 Mr. Gird organized a newspaper route for the Los Angeles Daily Times, taking in the Soldiers' Home and contiguous country. Upon the founding of the town of Sawtelle, he opened there a news stand in which he carried a stock of books and stationery. This was the first store of its line in the town and he operated it about two years. Mr. Gird also became interested in real estate and bought and sold town property with a reasonable degree of profit. In 1907 he subdivided what was known as the Gird Tract of one hundred and ten
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residence lots, lying to the southeast and adjoining the city of Sawtelle, which is so favorably situated as to promise a substantial addition thereto. Mr. Gird owns and conducts a souvenir store at the Soldiers' Home, which he established about 1895, and has built up a good business. He has published a number of valuable souvenir books relating to the home life of the old veterans. His kindly spirit and uniform courtesy has made him exceedingly popular with the "old soldiers" of the Home, as with all others who know him.
Mr. Gird married, in 1888, Miss Frances C. Walbridge, of Appleton City, Mo. She is a daughter of W. D. and Anna Van Meter Walbridge. Mr. and Mrs. Gird have two children-Mabel A., and Anna Lucile. Mr. Gird was a charter member of Immanuel Presbyterian Church, of Los Angeles. The family are now members of the M. E. Church of Hollywood. The family home is at South Hollywood where the Girds own valuable property.
BENJAMIN F. VAN TRESS is one of the early day pioneers of Los Angeles. He came to California in 1859. He is a native of Clinton County, Ohio, and was born near Wilmington, the county seat, December 26th, 1836.
His father, William, was a carpenter by trade, a farmer by occupation, of Dutch descent. His mother, Melissa Hollister, and his father were both natives of New York and lived in the Mohawk Valley. The father was twice married, the subject of this sketch being one of two sons by first marriage. The other son, Charles, came to California in 1897, and went to Alaska where he died.
Benjamin lived in his native county until 1854 and with the family removed to Warren County, Indiana, where he took up carpenter work. He later joined the gold rush to Pikes Peak, proceeded west to Nebraska City, Nebraska, and abandoned the trip. He there joined an overland party bound for California, and drove a four horse team via north Platte to Salt Lake, thence via southern route to San Bernardino with Joseph Meeks, and arrived at his destination in 1859. He spent two weeks there and then came to Los Angeles. Here he followed his trade for about seven years, doing a large amount of work for Bishop Mora. He worked on the building of the present Catholic Cathedral; was one of the workmen who remodeled the Church of Our Lady of the Angeles, fronting the old Plaza. He personally laid out the work for the present "hip roof" and designed the old belfry that in 1904 gave place to the present mission arches. He describes the original building as having a flat roof with a slightly receding pitch to the rear, which was covered with asphaltum and soil mixed. He states that the bells were originally in small adobe arches so near the ground that a person of average height could reach the clappers and ring them. There was one bell hung in an arch, which surmounted the front wall of the building over the main front entrance.
Later Mr. Van Tress kept a meat market opposite the northwest corner of the old plaza.
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He married in 1863, Falipe Mendes, a daughter of Pedro Mendes, a manu- facturer of Spanish saddles, bridles, bits and spurs. He was an expert in his line of work. Mr. and Mrs. Van Tress have seven living children -Elizabeth, Mrs. Frederick Bickerdike; Ida, Mrs. J. R. Kull Franklin; Clara, Mrs. George Hall; William ; Alice, Mrs. Allen Orr, and Charles.
The family home is Twentieth Street, near Pennsylvania Avenue, Santa Monica.
HESTER TUTTLE GRIFFITH. The past decade has witnessed in South- ern California phenomenal progress in civic, political and social reform. The best thought and energy of the best people in nearly all walks of life have combined to bring about in - the most direct and practical manner possible these most salutary results. Especially is this true in the work of Temperance and Social Purity reform in which many of our most able and accomplished women of independent thought and achieve- ment have borne a conspicuous part, prominent among whom is Mrs. Hester Tuttle Griffith, of Coeur d'Alene Place, Ocean Park. Her mental endowments, her home life and her educational training seem to have specially fitted her for charitable and reformatory work.
Mrs. Griffith is a native of Min- nesota, born at St. Anthony Falls, where the city of Minneapolis now stands, September 22nd, 1854. Her father, Calvin Tuttle, was one of the frontier settlers of the Upper Missis- sippi and Saint Croix River valley. HESTER TUTTLE GRIFFITH. He, with his bride, crossed Lake Pepin and sailed up the Mississippi, thence up the Saint Croix in a small boat, to Saint Croix Falls where, in 1837, he built the first saw mill erected on that stream and where for a long time they were the only white settlers. Ten years later they removed to Saint Anthony Falls, the head of navigation on the Mississippi, and were among the founders of the ambitious city of Minneapolis. Here a son. Wilmot Garfield Tuttle, was born, the first white male child born in the then
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small town of Minneapolis. When, in 1849, the territory of Minnesota was established, Mr. Tuttle was appointed Territorial Treasurer, and held the office until the territory was made a state, May 11th, 1858. He was a typical north- west frontiersman of broad intelligence, sterling character and resolute purpose. He acquired large land holdings at Saint Anthony Falls, a portion of which he donated to the state for educational uses and which is now occupied by the Minnesota State University. Later in life he built saw mills at Lake Minnetonka. He also became heavily interested in the development of the water power and town of Little Falls, Minn., and owned large tracts of land in that vicinity. He traveled over unexplored regions of country looking to final develop- ment of the state by building of railroads and other enterprises. He suffered business reverses by reason of the financial crash of 1857. Up to that time he had been very active in milling and in the promotion of milling enterprises at St. Anthony Falls. He was also instrumental in bridging the river below the falls, the first bridge that spanned the "father of waters" at this point. He then went to Two Rivers, Minnesota, and built up extensive water power and lum- ber mills and there remained until he came to California. He married Char- lotte M. Minkler, at Upper Alton, Illinois, in 1840. She was a native of Hills- dale, Columbia County, New York, born July 31st, 1819. They had three sons and four daughters, the latter are (1908) all living. Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle came to Pasadena in 1888 to make their home with Mrs. Griffith and, notwith- standing their love for and loyalty to their old home state, became thoroughly wedded to Southern California and Pasadena, where he died November 17th, 1900, at nearly ninety years of age. Mrs. Tuttle also died at Pasadena in 1892.
Mrs. Griffith spent her childhood at Minnetonka Mills, Minn., and her girl- hood at Two Rivers. At fourteen years of age she entered the Minnesota State Normal School at St. Cloud and graduated therefrom at sixteen in June, 1871. After graduation she taught school at Melrose, Stearns County, Minn., and later at Little Falls. She then went to Minneapolis where, for five years, she taught in the public schools, three years of which time she was primary principal. February 4th, 1877, she married Mr. Elijah Griffith, a prosperous young contractor of Minneapolis.
Mrs. Griffith was converted to Christianity at the age of fifteen under the temperance evangelist, Rev. W. W. Satterlee, and has steadily grown in the faith, towering in strength and influence until she is known throughout the land as one of the most effective advocates of temperance and pure living engaged in the holy cause. Never having been accorded the blessings of motherhood, she has been thrown all the energies of a strong, most lovable and spiritual character into what she regards as her life work. Soon after coming to Pasadena she joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union and entered seriously into the work. This was followed by rescue and prison work in Salt Lake, Utah, for four years. The year 1892 she served as local president, territorial president and treasurer. This year she also went as territorial delegate to the national
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W. C. T. U. convention at Denver. Returning to Pasadena she was made president of the Central Union for two years. Moving to Los Angeles, she held the office of Federation President for eight years, of County Vice President five years and is now State Superintendent of Prison Work and National Evange- list under this department, also National Lecturer for the department of Soldiers and Sailors. In 1906 she was elected by unanimous vote, President of the Los Angeles County Union and re-elected in 1907. This is the largest County W. C. T. U. in the United States. At the Santa Ana convention (1908) she was unanimously chosen State President.
MARTIN L. HUDSON is one of the thrifty, successful pioneers in the Irwin Heights Addition to Santa Monica. He is a native of Pennsylvania, was born in Charfield County, in the town of Charfield, June 1st, 1855, a son of Kalita Polk Hudson, a blood relative of James K. Polk, eleventh President of the United States, a bridge builder by trade and likewise a farmer and a man of local affairs. He married Miss Kezia Thompson, a daughter of Isaac Thompson. The family came west in 1865 and located in Floyd County, Iowa, on a farm. There the father died in 1881, at fifty-seven years of age, the mother and seven children surviving.
Martin L. is the oldest of the family. He remained on the home farm until twenty-one years of age. Meantime he acquired the mechanic's trade, having inherited from his father the mechanical instinct and a genius for handling tools.
In 1883 he left Iowa and spent about five years in Dakota. In 1888 he went to the town of Everett, on Puget Sound, Washington, where he engaged in build- ing and house moving, where he acquired and still owns property. During his residence there he made four trips to Alaska. In 1896 he went to Cook's Inlet. In 1898 he went to Klondike where he had passing success mining. He returned home in the fall of 1899 and made the trip a fourth time in 1900 over the ice and was forty days alone on the way. He there engaged in building, "going" wages being $1.50 per hour. He finally returned home, via Saint Michaels, suffering shipwreck and extreme exposure.
In 1902 he located at Santa Monica and followed his trade for a time. He meantime purchased five acres of land, one of the most fertile and sightly parcels of land in the Irwin Heights tract, a portion of which he still owns. Here he has developed a pretty home, the location being between Virginia and Delaware Avenues, on Twenty-second Street. He purposes selling a portion of this tract to desirable purchasers. He also owns valuable property in Ocean Park.
Mr. Hudson married in 1891 Miss Hattie Maxfield, of Tacoma, Washington. She is a native of Illinois-a lady of social and domestic accomplishments. They have one son, Fred M. Mr. Hudson is a member of the Woodmen of the World and Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
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ANDREW HENRY WYANT, one of the first settlers and an esteemed citizen of Sawtelle, is a native of Armstrong County, Pennsylvaina, born December 24th, 1839. His father was Adam Wyant, a native of Burks County, Pa. He was of German descent and by occupation a successful farmer. His mother, by maiden name Sarah Yerty, likewise of Greman ancestry, descended from that sturdy stock of Pennsylvania Dutch which made up the pioneer settlers and developed the material resources of the Keystone State. Adam Wyant suffered the loss by death of the thrifty wife who had borne him seven children and re- married, his wife being Sophia Bowser, who became the mother of ten children. The mother of A. H. Wyant died when he was six years of age and he lived much of the time thereafter with relatives. At twenty-one years of age, he was among the first from his state to enlist for the defense of the Union, joining the Second Pennsylvania Cavalry, October 1st, 1861. This regiment was recruited at Philadelphia, Lancaster Center, Northampton, Berks, Tioga and in Armstrong County. Company M, Mr. Wyant's company, was made up chiefly in Armstrong County. Mr. Wyant put in three years and eleven months of active and most strenuous service, as may be seen by the following battles and other engagements in which he participated: Cedar Mountain, second battle of Bull Run, Gettys- burg, Mine Run, Wilderness, Todd's Tavern, Richmond Fortifications, Meadow Bridge, Hawes' Shop, Hanover Court House, Cold Harbor, Trevillian Station, Jerusalem Plank Road, Malvern Hill, Deep Bottom, White Oak Swamps, Beane's Station, Poplar Springs, Wyatt's Farm, Strong Creek Station, Boydton Road. Hatches Run, Appomatox and others. Although almost continually on duty and at long and numerous intervals under fire, he was singularly fortunate in escaping serious injury. He, however, sustained a flesh wound in the left arm in front of Richmond at White Oak Swamps, August 16th, 1864. He mustered out of service at Cloud's Mill, Va., July 13th, 1865, after which he returned to his native state. There he attended school at Rudsburg for two years and at Chester for one year. He then engaged in the oil business at Parker's Landing with moderate success. In 1871 he married Miss Frances Lydia Harding in Armstrong County, Pa., and moved to Ohio where he located on a farm in Morrow County near the town of Galion. Here he pursued farming and conducted a meat market. About 1882 he came west to Paola, Kansas, where he remained until 1886. He then removed to Arizona and engaged in mining about seventy-five miles south of Tucson. In 1892 he came to California and became a member of the Soldiers' Home. Upon the laying out of the town of Barrett Villa, which later took the name of Sawtelle, Mr. Wyant was one of the first to invest in local realty. In 1898 he erected Wyant's Hall which was the fifth building in the town, and soon became the popular meeting place for all public functions. It was there that the first religious meetings and Sunday schools were held and it was used as a public hall until December 15th, 1905. The owner then changed it into a furniture store which is one of the most com-
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