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 48
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He married Miss Mary E. Collins, daughter of Mrs. Kate Collins, deceased, one of the pioneers of California and Santa Monica; they have three sons and three daughters-Miss Winnie, John T., Jr. ; Agnes, Ellen, Lawrence and Howard, all residing at 1333 Third Street, Santa Monica.
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GEORGE C. BOEHME is a native Californian, born at Sacramento, November 29th, 1860. He is the oldest son of George Boehme, a well known pioneer of Santa Monica. He was schooled in Sacramento, and afterward learned the trade of a tinner and plumber. Leaving home at eighteen years of age, he pursued his trade in San Francisco. He spent the years from 1882 to 1884 in Los Angeles, managing the extensive tinning and plumbing business of Harper, Reynolds & Company. The years 1885 and 1886 were spent at San Bernardino. Locating at Santa Monica in 1887 he embarked in the hardware and plumbing business at which he has been continuously engaged until the present year, 1907, but is now closing out.
Mr. Boehme was married in 1884 at San Bernardino to Miss Addie Oliver, a native of Calaveras County, California. They have four children, Henry I., Howard E., Margaret M., and Herbert L. Boehme. Mrs. Boehme died.
He has been uniformly successful; was one of the original organizers of the Santa Monica Fire Company No. 1, has always taken an active interest in its success and upbuilding and is its present President. He owns an attractive residence on Sixth Street, and other valuable property in the city.
JOHN GUNTRUP, secretary of the Golden State Plant & Floral Co. (Incor- porated), of Santa Monica, is a native of England and was born in Wolverton, in 1854, a son of Thomas Guntrup, who for fifteen years was a locomotive engineer for the London & Northwestern Ry. Co., running from Rugby to London. The British Government then sent him to India and he ran out of Bombay for about two and one half years. He then returned to England and in 1866 came to America, located at Corning, N. Y., and was with the Erie Ry. Co. for several years. He lived at Corning until he came to California with his son in the year 1885. He died at Santa Monica July 5th, 1908 The wife was, by maiden name, Mary White She died at Corning, N. Y., in 1879. She was mother of ten children, of whom four are living in New York.
The subject of this sketch spent thirty-five years as a mechanic in Preston & Heerman's Foundry and Machine Shop at Corning, N. Y., a portion of his young manhood, commencing as an apprentice at sixteen years of age. He married at Corning, Miss Emma L. Quandt, a native of Rochester, N. Y., and they have two sons and two daughters-Mrs. E. B. Dequine, of Los Angeles ; Mrs. F. J. Allington, of Corning, N. Y .; Arthur J,. of Corning, and William T., auditor for the Armour Packing Co., at Richmond, Va. Mr. Guntrup was a mem- ber of the I. O. O. F. and was a Maccabee. The Golden State Plant & Floral Co. (Inc.), of which Mr. Guntrup was secretary, is one of the most extensive enterprises of its kind on the Pacific Coast. It was incorporated April 28th, 1903, with a capital stock of $25,000; T. H. Dudley, president; Victor E. Hathaway, vice president and general manager. They occupy five acres of land, propagating a full line of general nursery stock and making a specialty of palms and all varieties of ornamental trees and shrubbery.
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J. B. E. SMALE, dry goods merchant of this city, is a native of Scotland, having been born in Perthshire, Town of Stirling, July 24th, 1858. His father, William John Smale, was an excise officer of the Government Customs Office. Young Smale lived at home until he reached his twenty-first year and then went to London. In this city he held for five years a responsible position in the mer- cantile house of William Whitley, who is known upon the eastern continent as "The Great Universal Provider." This house is, without question, the largest establishment in its line in the world Mr. Smale was a salesman in the gents' furnishing goods department. He came to America in 1883 and located at Providence, R. I., where he became identified with the Scotch Syndicate Store in that city. In 1887 he went to Ashland, Wisconsin, and engaged in the general drygoods business. The winters of this locality proved too severe for his health and he removed to Omaha, Nebraska, where he became buyer in the dress goods department for the N. B. Falconer Co., the largest of its kind in that city. In 1892 he came still farther west to Leadville, Colorado, and for twelve years en- gaged in the drygoods business as a member of the Blakely-Smale Drygoods Company. The altitude was, however, too high for good health and Mr. Smale sold his interest in the business and came to Southern California. He traveled for one year until he had gained a fair knowledge of the country and then, on March 3rd, 1905, opened his present store. This place of business, which has become one of the popular trading places of Santa Monica, is situated at 1456 Third Street. In the year 1892, at Omaha, Nebraska, Mr. Smale was married to Miss Alice Maud Morse, of Bath, Maine. Miss Morse was a daughter of Reuben Morse, a wealthy lumber and timber merchant of that city. Mr. and Mrs. Smale have three children-a son, Kenneth, and two daughters, Dorothy and Pauline.
Mr. Smale is one of Santa Monica's most highly esteemed citizens and, as a merchant, is in the No.1 class. He takes a becoming interest in all matters of public concern and supports liberally all worthy local enterprises. He is a charter member of the Santa Monica Board of Trade and a member of the executive committee of that body.
REV. JAMES A. O'CALLAGHAN, the present assistant parish priest of Santa Monica, was born in County Kerry, Ireland, in the year 1880. At the age of thirteen he began his study of the classics at St. Brandon's Seminary, Killarney, whence he graduated four years afterward and entered the historic halls of St. Patrick's College, Carlow, to pursue the study of philosophy, theology and scripture, and in other respects fit himself for the sacred office of the priesthood.
Leaving Carlow College in 1902 he came to the United States and entered St. Bernard's Seminary, Rochester, New York, from whence he was ordained priest at the hands of Right Reverend Bishop McQuaide, on June 6th, 1903, after which a brief visit was made to his home in Ireland. On his return Father O'Callaghan was appointed assistant pastor to Father Hawe, at Santa Monica, where both have since labored for the glory of God and uplifting of humanity.
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ADOLPH PETSCH, retired, Santa Monica, was born in the city of Frankfurt- on-the-Main, Germany, August 12th, 1852. He was educated in the Frankfurt public schools and pursued a course of study in a business college. When, in 1866, the free city of Frankfurt lost its independence and was annexed by the kingdom of Prussia, young Petsch, although a lad of only fourteen years, believed that government with- out the consent of the governed was a mistake to which he could not sub- mit. In 1869, rather than submit to the newly imposed degradation of mil- itary service, he left, as a political exile, the home in which his family had been prominent for a period of six hundred years. In October, 1869, he landed in New York and went di- rectly to St. Louis, where two uncles, also political exiles, had settled in 1831. After a short stay he returned to Europe intending to locate in Southern France, but the Franco- Prussian War drove him to Switzer- ADOLPH PETSCH. land. He also visited Metz in Lor- raine and there the Prussian government found and exiled him in 1872. He then went to Belgium where he remained about five years in the city of Verviers, engaged in the banking business, but being without citizenship, and Belgium, like Switzerland, accepting no foreigners, he was led to seek a new home. He again came to America and to St. Louis, Mo.
On April 11th, 1877, the Southern Hotel in that city was destroyed by fire and Mr. Petsch only saved his life by escape from a fifth story window by means of a rope made from sheets from the bed. Injuries sustained in this fire made him an invalid for two years, which fact brought him to Southern California, after a short stay in San Francisco. He was naturalized in 1882 and has since left the state only to pay two short visits to parents and the old home in Europe. In Pasadena, in the early part of the year 1878, he obtained his first ideas of horticulture and viticulture. At this period the Pasadena colony was short of water and Mr. Petsch began to look around for an abundant irrigation supply. During the summer of 1880 he spent, in company with Judge Benjamin S. Eaton, the pioneer of Pasadena, several months in traveling over the southern counties. In one of these trips he bought an interest in the Day Canyon Water Company and also made filings under the desert land act on some government land. Soon
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after he sold this to the Chaffey Brothers, and upon it they founded what is now a portion of the beautiful Etiwanda. Mr. Petsch then purchased one hundred and sixty acres pre-emption claim of Henry Reed, together with available water rights in nearby canyons, and the first steps to the founding of what became the Hermosa Colony were taken. He added some four hundred acres to his original purchase, organized a water company, platted his holdings into lots of convenient size for small farms, bordered the streets with ornamental shade trees and wind break, planted some of the tract to orange and other citrus fruit trees, and eventually disposed of the entire tract to homeseekers. The enter- prise was beset with some difficulties, but none so formidable as to deter the indomitable Petsch from the execution of his plans. Wild jack rabbits raided his orchards and girdled his trees and Mr. Petsch made a characteristic move against them by building a solid stone and cement wall with iron gates around the tract to shut them out. While this was, in a measure, a failure as a rabbit tight fence, it was so much talked and written about as to make Hermosa famous, and proved to be valuable advertising. The phenomenal success of Hermosa led, in 1883, to the establishment of the Iowa colony on adjoining lands. The two names were finally blended into that of "Ioamosa," an occurrence for which Mr. Petsch disclaims any responsibility. In 1884 Mr. Petsch married a native daughter of California, whose father, John L. Frese, was a pioneer of Oakland.
In 1892 he retired from Hermosa to Los Angeles and there became popularly known as the tireless promotor of La Fiesta de Los Angeles. His great energy and enthusiasm fired all Los Angeles with the Fiesta spirit from year to year. The marvelous beauty and uniqueness of its floral parade, made by the numerous and costly floats, were the direct outcome of his own designs and personal over- sight in construction. For several years the family home was at Figueroa and Twenty-first Street, until they made a trip to Europe in 1894 Upon their return, they purchased property, built a home and settled in Santa Monica. Mr. Petsch is an active member of the Santa Monica Board of Trade, and the novel, original and strikingly appropriate interior decorations and furnishing of the Board of Trade rooms are due to his genius. Mr. and Mrs. Petsch have one son, Carl.
JAMES D. SIMPSON, Venice, is a native of Iowa, born in the city of Dubuque, October 22nd, 1860. His father, John Simpson and mother, Martha (Lobley) Simpson; were both of English birth and natives of Yorkshire. John Simpson was interested in lead mining in England. He came to America about the year 1840 and was one of the pioneer settlers of Dubuque, Iowa. He there engaged in mining and became successfully identified with other business enterprises. He died in Dubuque in 1890 at about eighty years of age, his estimable wife having preceded him in 1888 at the age of seventy-eight years. James D. was the youngest of their six children and grew up in the city of Dubuque, passing through the graded schools and elosing his studies at Cornell University. In
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1882 he went to Paullina, O'Brien County, Iowa, and for twelve years was cashier of the bank of that place. In 1893 he became sole owner in the establishment of the Bank of Merrill at Merrill, Iowa, and at Le Mars, Iowa. In 1905 he came to Venice to assume charge of the interests of Mr. John Metcalf, and proved to be the moving influence in the laying out and development of the Venice Gateway. He was also one of the organizers of the Venice Shoe Manufacturing Company (Inc.) and is a director and vice president of the company. Mr. Simpson married at Paullina, Iowa, in 1890, Miss Evelyn Micklett, a daughter of Hudson Micklett, owner of the Paullin Ranch. They have two children-Elizabeth Paullin Simpson and Evelyn Marie Simpson. The family residence at Venice Gateway is one of the many attractive modern homes of that thrifty suburb.
Mr. Simpson is one of the most active and enthusiastic citizens of Venice, being an influential member of the Venice Chamber of Commerce and an ardent supporter of good government. He has limitless faith in the stable future of his adopted city. He is a charter member of the orders B. P. O. E., at Le Mars, Iowa, and I. O. O. F. and K. of P., of Paullina, Iowa.
ARTHUR E. JACKSON, for about twenty-two years a resident of Santa Monica, and well known as an active and successful business man, is a native of Kankakee, Illinois, born April 1st, 1870. His father, Stephen Jackson, was a native of Sheffield, England, and came to this country with his parents, Edmund and Anna Jackson, and was raised on a farm near Kankakee. The family consisted of seven sons and one daughter. Here young Stephen grew up and at the age of fifteen, upon the breaking out of the Civil War, entered as a volunteer in the United States Army. His father was so bitterly opposed to the move that, by reason of his age, he demanded and secured his release and return home. The spirit of adventure and brief taste of army life had so fired the zeal of the boy that he clandestinely left home and re-entered the army. He was an expert rifleman and was mustered into what was known in military circles as Yates Sharp Shooters and during his term of service was almost continuously on active duty. He was in the battle of Lookout Mountain, where men fell at both his right and left in line of battle, and was also in many other fierce and bloody engagements. Later he made the famous march through Alabama and Georgia to the sea with Sherman.
Upon his return to civil life he married Miss Eliza Hammer at Kankakee, a native of London, England. He entered the employ of the Chicago & Rock Island R. R. Company as a track man and became a civil engineer, finally doing heavy contract work for the Fort Scott & Gulf, the Texas Pacific and Union Pacific Railway Companies. He came to California in 1883 and to Southern California in 1885, locating in Santa Monica in February, 1886. He built the Santa Monica and Soldiers' Home horse car line for the W. D. Vawter Company. He owned the old North Beach Hotel and laid the first sidewalk on Third Street.
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in front of what was then the F. D. Suits meat market, now Kennedy's Buffalo Market. He made the first street grade in Santa Monica, which was on Second Street from Utah to Nevada Avenues. He did the contract work for the U. S. Government at the National Soldiers' Home. He at one time owned the Santa Monica Hotel, now the North Beach Hotel, which he sold to J. M. Orr. He took an active part in local civic affairs and was highly esteemed for his sterling merits as a citizen and a business man. As a veteran of the Civil War he was very popular in the Grand Army of the Republic and when the G. A. R. post was organized at Santa Monica it was given the name of Stephen Jackson post. He died April 18th, 1898.
Arthur Jackson was a lad of sixteen years when the family located in Santa Monica. He passed through the local schools and entered the employ of his father as timekeeper and accountant. In 1893 he opened a cigar and tobacco store on Third Street; finally disposing of this stock he replaced it with books, stationery, toys and school supplies, later adding a stock of pianos. He conducts the Los Angeles Daily Times and the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper routes which constitutes a feature of his business.
In 1894 Mr. Jackson married Miss Mary H. Lawrence, a native of San Diego, California, the daughter of Mr. Frank Lawrence, who was the first representative of the Wells Fargo Express Co. in that city. They have two sons-Lawrence A., and Kenneth A. Mr. Jackson is a member of the Masonic Lodge, the I. O. O. F. and the B. P. O. E. Mrs. Jackson is Past Matron and Grand Organist of the O. E. S. The family residence is at No. 1117 Fifth Street.
ROBERT CRAWFORD DOBSON is a typical California pioneer. He came overland to California in 1850 via the northern route; that is, along the north fork of the Platte River from Platte County, Mo. He was born in Greyson County, Va., June 26th, 1836. His father, Robert Dobson, was a potter by trade, who raised two sons and seven daughters. Robert Crawford left home when a boy and lived with a sister. At thirteen years of age he joined the rush to California, a result of the discovery of gold. He mined gold in the placer diggings at Hangtown, later at Agua Trio, in Mariposa County. He came south to Los Angeles in 1860 and was appointed jailer of Los Angeles County by Sheriff Thomas Sanchez, who was in office at the time of the unofficial hanging of Laschenes and the occurence of the Chinese riot. He served eight years in this capacity and was later on the city police force several years under William Warrens, who as marshal, was Chief of Police. He left Los Angeles about 1887 and has for some years past lived at Santa Monica His present and permanent home is at Irwin Heights
Mr. Dobson married Miss Marcalie Melindrus, a native of Los Angeles County, and they have two living children-Mary, who is Mrs. C. E. Towner, and Virginia.
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MRS. CATHERINE COLLINS, a widow, then resident of San Francisco, selected from a map on file in a real estate agency in her city two lots located on the north- east corner of Sixth Street and Utah Avenue in the new townsite of Santa Monica. She was an invalid, almost helpless with rheumatism, and hoping to benefit by a change of climate, she immediately embarked by steamer for her new, but as yet unseen, home. She brought with her three of her four children, two daughters and a son. The older son, James D. Collins, had preceded her and had erected a dwelling. She landed at the Santa Monica wharf in December, 1875. She steadily improved in health, and in 1878 bought two lots at the north- east corner of Utah Avenue and Second Street, and soon thereafter moved the residence to this new purchase, converted it into a rooming house and did a profitable business by taking the "overflow" patronage from the Santa Monica Hotel. She became well known throughout Santa Monica and by the tourists who became her guests, as a good woman of sterling traits of character, earnest endeavor and business ability. She conducted the Collins House for many years, until her death in 1894. She was a native of Ireland, born in County Caven, came to America with her father, Andrew Clark, who located at Dubuque, Iowa. There she grew up and married Daniel Collins, a native of Oswego, N. Y., son of Irish parents. They came to Sacramento, California, about 1862. He, preceding the family, engaged in the teaming and transfer business. The family soon followed him, coming via the Isthmus of Panama. They there had three children, one little daughter, Rosanna, died of black measles on the journey, which consumed four months and entailed many hardships.
Mrs. Collins raised six children-William Collins, the oldest, now lives at Fort Pierre, S. D. James D., well known in Santa Monica, died here in 1906, at fifty years of age, leaving a widow and three children in Arizona. Mary E. is the wife of T. J. Connelly, one of Santa Monica's respected and successful business men. Agnes is the wife of C. H. Cumstock, a successful merchant of Tien-tsin, China. By a second marriage to E. J. Corbett, Mrs. Collins had two daughters, twins, Lucy and Elizabeth Corbett Collins
H. T. MELOY is one of the well known and successful business men of Santa Monica. He is a son of Daniel Meloy, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this volume.
Mr. Meloy has been a resident of Santa Monica for many years and early in the history of the city worked for Jones & Baker, developing water. Later he was engaged on the Malibu Grant in the same capacity for Frederick H. Rindge. About 1890 he commenced sinking wells on contracts, as a business, and has acquired a thorough knowledge of water lands, the trend of underground water courses, which has brought him an extensive and profitable business. Mr. Meloy has a fortune invested in extensive apparatus or well-boring outfits. He owns valuable property in Santa Monica and a ranch up the coast.
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NICHOLAS GABRIEL BAIDA. The brief story of Mr. Baida's career is a forcible illustration of what well-directed energy, industry and enterprise can be made to accomplish in this free country of opportunities for the poor man. He was born in the year 1869 in the ancient city of Beyrout, Syria, Turkey, which is one of the most flourishing seaport towns on the Mediterranean Sea, and about fifty-seven miles from Damascus. His father, Gabriel Baida, was a stone cutter by trade ; an industrious man and a devout member of the Greek orthodox church, having faith in Christ as their Savior, adherents to which faith were rigidly circumscribed and ofttimes persecuted by the dominant church of that country. Being an ardent Christian, he raised his family in the faith. Nicholas Gabriel was the oldest of the family of five sons and two daugh- ters, and recognizing the difficulties that hampered the ambitious youth of his country to make for themselves a prosperous future, he decided to avail himself of the privileges of a free government and in 1890 came to America, landing at Castle Garden, New York City.
He came almost immediately to California and opened a small store for the sale of oriental rugs and drapery on North Main Street, Los Angeles, where he prospered in business. In 1905 he opened a branch store on Pier Avenue, Ocean Park, which he continued for about two years. Besides his present estab- lishment at No. 414 South Main Street, Los Angeles, he has a store at No. 1662 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, which is doing a prosperous business.
In 1897 Baida married in Los Angeles, Miss Saiedia Safady, a native of Syria, a lady of rare intelligence and feminine graces of the Oriental type. Both Mr. and Mrs. Baida speak the English with a remarkable degree of accuracy. They have five children-Gabriel, Zeimoztaney, Adella, Stossel and Isabella. The Baida Moorish palace at the corner of South Third Street and Bicknell Avenue, Santa Monica, is one of the most imposing and strikingly unique private residences in the Crescent Bay City. Its elevation commands a sweeping view of the ocean, Santa Monica, Ocean Park, Playa del Rey, Redondo and Santa Catalina Island. It is purely Oriental in its architecture and interior arrange- ment and equipped with all modern conveniences.
MR. AND MIS. JOHN BRICKNER are among the best known of the first settlers of Santa Monica, and have seen it grow from a four-corner hamlet to the present thrifty proportions of a thriving and promising city. Mr. Brickner is a native of Germany and was born near Berlin, January 3rd, 1835. He there spent the earlier years of his life and in 1875 married Miss Augusta Court, a maiden of sixteen years. They almost immediately came to America, landing in New York and made their way westward to San Francisco, thence to Los Angeles, where they remained one month. On September 16th, 1875 they came to Santa Monica and cast their fortunes with the then new and wholly undeveloped seaside city, where they made some substantial investments, which, with the
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somewhat sudden rise and subsequent fall of the town finally terminated in heavy losses. Later they opened the first store for the sale of curios in Santa Monica, which is said to have been the first store in this line in Southern California.
Mr. Brickner relates interesting stories of his hunting expeditions, notably duck hunting on the lagoons of what is now Playa del Rey, and likewise where the canal city of Venice now stands. This he pursued in a business-like manner and made it quite a source of revenue, finding ready market for his game in Los Angeles. Mrs. Brickner took up the curing of the plumage of the many fine specimens of these birds and became a somewhat expert taxidermist. The work was placed on exhibition with the Agricultural Association of Southern California, then the leading institution of its kind in Southern California, and received diplomas and cash premiums for superior excellence. They have been continu- ously in business in Santa Monica since they arrived here and were for eighteen years on Utah Avenue, between Second and Third Streets. In March. 1907, they removed their store to No. 210 Third Street, where they have one of the most complete stock of curios, notions and furnishing goods in the city.
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