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 51
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
Bartlett R. Bishop was born December 25th, 1879, at Ashland, Hanover County, Virginia. He was reared in the States of Missouri and Virginia, entering William Jewell College (Liberty, Missouri) in the fall of 1896, at the age of sixteen years. He specialized in science, graduating from William Jewell College, June 13th, 1900. He has received the degree of A. B. He has traveled exten- sively throughout the United States and in Old Mexico. He has wide acquaint- ance throughout the states, particularly on the Atlantic and Pacific Slopes. For some time he occupied the position of solicitor for the Snoqualmie Falls Power Company, being one of the four members of the board which established the power and light rating of Seattle. He was also statistician for the Hallidie Machinery Company of the same city, and was connected with various other mercantile establishments He has an extensive experience in the law depart- ments and scientific work and has taught for three years in military academies. In the fall of 1906 he returned to Los Angeles to co-operate with Major Baker in the launching of the California Military Academy. He is now secretary of the Board of Directors and Principal (Head of Scholastics) of this institution.
RICHMOND W. ARMSTRONG, well known citizen of Santa Monica, is a native of New Haven, Conn., and was born July 27th, 1848. His father, Lorenzo Aim- strong, was senior member of the commercial house of L. W. and P. Arm- strong Company, West India importers. Their principal offices were in New York City. Mr. Armstrong was a member of this house for about thirty years, but retired therefrom and came to California in 1896. He located at Ocean Park, Santa Monica in 1900, where he owns a fine residence at 135 Fraser Avenue.
Mr. Armstrong was elected to the Santa Monica City Council in 1907 from the Second Ward and is one of the hard working members of that efficient body. He married in the year 1872, Miss M. C. Mead, a daughter of Rev. A. H. Mead, a Methodist clergyman of New York City. They have a son, Dr. M. M. Arm- strong, of Los Angeles. Mr. Armstrong is a Royal Arch Mason, Scottish Rites and a Knight Templar.
31
482
BIOGRAPHICAL
Roy G. PUTNAM, City Clerk and well-known business man of Sawtelle, is a native of Berlin, Green Lake county, Wisconsin, where he was born May 27. 1886, a son of Horace Putnam, a na- tive of Massachusetts, and Vera (Smith) Putnam, a native of New York. Horace Putnam was the in- ventor and an extensive manufac- turer of what is known as the Snow Pack or Snow Shoe, which has be- come an indispensable article of footwear throughout all snowy coun- tries during winter seasons. In 1894 he practically retired from active business pursuits, came to California and purchased an orange ranch and there lived until his death, which oc- curred in February, 1904, the widow surviving until the following Decem- - ber. They had two sons. Horace died in 1903, at nineteen years of age. Left alone, Mr. Putnam, upon the death of the parent, settled up the estate and came direct to R. G. PUTNAM. Sawtelle and located, where he has dealt in real estate and has become a factor in the civic and business development of the city. He is a member of the real estate firm of Putnam & Crane. At the city election in 1908, Mr. Put- nam was elected City Clerk and is a most competent and popular officer. He is a Royal Arch Mason, affiliating with the lodge in Santa Monica. He is also Secretary of the Blue Lodge at Sawtelle. He is an active member and Secre- tary of the Sawtelle Commercial Club, an organization composed of the leading business men of Sawtelle. Mr. Putnam's popularity is due to his unobtrusive and pleasing personality, his temperate habits of life and his recognized business ability.
LUTHER C. WATKEYS, the Santa Monica Superintendent of the Land and Water Company, was born at Rochester, New York, September 18th, 1854. His father, Henry Watkeys, was superintendent of motive power for the New York Central Railroad Company, holding this office for a period of thirty-three years. He was a native of Nova Scotia. The major portion of his life, barring ten years from 1885 to 1895 in Indiana, was spent in New York. He was, by pro-
483
BIOGRAPHICAL
fession, mechanical engineer and an expert in his line. He had the personal confidence of William H. Vanderbilt and was frequently called to consult with him upon business matters. Mr. Watkeys had an older brother who was thirty- five years an engineer of the N. Y. C. Ry. Company and died without warning while on duty in his engine cab. Mr. Watkeys' mother was Miss Zerriah T. Colman, a native of Newburyport, Mass., and a daughter of Luther Colman. Young Watkeys left home in 1875, at the age of twenty-one years, and became a civil engineer. Later he entered the employ of the N. Y. C. Ry. Company and for eleven years served as passenger conductor, running between New York and Rochester. He came West to Indiana in 1887, and to Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1892. In 1895 he came to California and engaged in orange culture at Covina. In 1904, he assumed his present position and is known to the citizens of Santa Monica as a most competent and popular manager of the important interests he represents.
Mr. Watkeys married in 1892, Miss May Florence Pickard of Kalamazoo, Mich., a daughter of J. H. Pickard, a California pioneer of 1849, who spent several years in the state as a successful miner, and returned to Kalamazoo, Mich., where he died about 1892.
JOHN B. PROCTER, Santa Monica, was born September 12th, 1861, and was the third son of the Rev. Gilbert Procter of Penny Bridge, near Ulverston, Lan- cashire, England, who was vicar of the parish of Egton. Mr. Procter came to the United States in the spring of 1883, and located at Larchwood, Lyon county, Iowa, where for four years he was a member of the English colony established there. Returning to England in 1887, he married the only daughter of Thomas M. Machell, Esq., of Newby Bridge, Lancashire, and towards the end of the same year he came to California, settling at Santa Monica, where he has resided continuously for the last twenty-one years. In 1900 he was elected to the office of City Clerk and Assessor, for the term of two years, and in 1904 he was again appointed City Assessor, continuing in office for two years more, proving an effi- cient and popular public servant. Besides being a Mason, he is a Forester of America, and a prominent and influential Elk, holding the office of Secretary since the organization of the lodge five years ago. For a number of years he has acted as Clerk of the Vestry for the Parish of St. Augustine-by-the-Sea. He has two sons, James Machell and Gilbert, both "Native Sons." Mr. Procter is an enthusiastic sportsman, and was one of the first to introduce the game of polo in California. For many years he was engaged in the real estate and insurance business, and is now manager of the extensive property interests of Mrs. Arcadia B. de Baker at Santa Monica.
484
BIOGRAPHICAL
OLIVER S. WESTOVER, a well-known and highly esteemed citizen of Santa Monica, is a native of Indiana, having been born in Fayette county, near Con- nersville, October 11th, 1832. He is the son of Hiram Westover, a farmer of Ilolland Dutch descent, his ancestors having come to America before the War of the Revolution. There were three brothers who were active participants in the war, one, a loyalist, removed to Canada, one located in New York and one in Virginia.
Hiram Westover, the father of the subject of our sketch, was born in Cen- tral New York, on the shores of Cayuga Lake, was a farmer, and married Minerva Campbell, a grand-niece of Alexander Campbell, the founder of the Campbellite Church. About 1820 the family came West and located in Fayette county, Ind. Later they removed to the northern part of the state and located in Huntington county. In this county, Hiram Westover donated land and laid out a town, naming the place Clayville in honor of Henry Clay, for whom he had great admiration. The first brick house in Clayville was his spacious and substantial home, which has withstood the ravages of a vigorous climate for over fifty years and is still in good condition. He raised a family of seven chil- dren. of whom Oliver S. is the third.
The subject of this sketch spent his boyhood on the farm, attended the local schools and, at twenty-two years of age, taught the district school at Clayville and the adjoining county. In 1852, he married Miss Lucinda Lewis, by whom he has one daughter. In 1859, Mr. and Mrs. Westover located in Union county, lowa, near the town of Afton, at that time the county seat. They were among the first settlers of that frontier county. The daughter, Cinthia, wife of John Alden of Brooklyn, New York, is known throughout the world as Cinthia West- over Alden, the founder and President-General of the International Sunshine Society. She is a woman of brilliant attainment and pleasing personality and is devoting her entire time to the work of her organization.
Mrs. Westover died in 1862. In 1863, he was again married to Miss Isabel Cornelius, a daughter of James Cornelius, a Kentuckian, owner of valuable lands near Ashland in Fayette county, the heart of the famous " blue-grass region." Mrs. Westover's ancestry is in direct line from the famous MacClouds of Scot- land, her father's mother having borne that illustrious name.
At this time Mr. Westover held the offices of Justice of the Peace, Township Supervisor and Assessor. They lived at Afton about four years and then joined the gold rush for Pike's Peak, which resulted in their locating at Denver, Colo .. then a small frontier mining town. Here Mr. Westover spent four years mining and prospecting in Gilpin county. It was during this time that Mrs. Westover became interested in mineralogy and geology, gaining a practical and compre- hensive knowledge of the same. She interested her husband in these subjects and for some years they carried on a business of preparing collections of miner- alogical specimens for educational and other public institutions. The Westovers
485
BIOGRAPHICAL
were proprietors in Denver of a large store, mineral and geological, carrying on an extensive business.
On account of the high altitude, they left Denver in 1887, coming to Los Angeles, where, with W. D. Campbell, they engaged in the curio business. They also owned a store in Pasadena. In 1893, they came to Santa Monica. They have two children, Walter R. of Denver, an expert on Indian blankets and bas- ketry, and Grace, the wife of John B. Fraser of Sacramento.
PETER H. SONNESYN, successful and popular merchant of Sawtelle, was born of well-to-do parents near the town of Bergen, Norway, in the year 1868. He received a good high school education and, at nineteen years of age, left his native land and embarked for America. Upon his arrival in the United States he went directly to Mankato, Minn. There he clerked in a wholesale and retail drygoods store for W. W. P. McConnell for a period of about nine years. In 1896 he went to Spokane, Washington, and engaged in the retail fruit business for three years, his place being at the corner of Sprague and Lincoln streets. In 1899 he came to California and engaged in the clothing business, remaining until 1901, when he came to Sawtelle and opened a drygoods and men's furnishing goods store. He did business for about four years on Fourth street and in 1906 moved to more spacious quarters on Oregon avenue. Mr. Sonnesyn has acquired a wide and favorable acquaintance and has built up a profitable business. He married at Spokane, Washington, in 1898, Miss Anna Sederberg, a young woman of Danish parentage and birth. The Sonnesyn resi- dence, the finest in the city of Sawtelle, is at the corner of Third street and Indiana avenue.
HENRY PEACHEY WILBER, D.D., of Santa Monica, is a native of Ohio and was born in the town of Elyria, Lorain county. His father. Francis Augustus Wilbur, Ph. D., was born in Vermont, a descendant of Captain Church of King Philip's War fame. His grandfather saw service in the Revolutionary War and his father was a soldier in the War of 1812. Dr. Wilber's mother, Favelle Peachey Wilber, was born in London, England, and came to this country in childhood. She grew to womanhood in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, graduated from Mrs. Ryland's School for young ladies and became a teacher in the Cin- cinnati public schools before her marriage. The Rev. Francis A. Wilber was a Presbyterian minister at Elyria, Ohio, for a period of about thirteen years. Later he conducted classical academies in Ohio and Indiana. Dr. Wilber was pre- pared for college at his father's academy in Wabash, Indiana, and graduated from the classical department of Wooster University, Wooster, Ohio, in 1887. He studied theology at Princeton and at Union Seminaries. Before coming to
486
BIOGRAPHICAL
California he was professor of Latin in Pierre University at Pierre, South Da- kota, and subsequently was pastor of Presbyterian Churches at St. Lawrence and at Rapid City, South Dakota. In January, 1893, he came to California and was pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Fernando from 1893 to 1898. From 1898 to 1899 he was professor of Latin in Occidental College, Los Angeles. In the year 1900 he assumed the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church at Santa Monica, which he relinquished in 1907. Dr. Wilber received the honorary degree of D.D. from his Alma Mater, the University of Wooster, Ohio.
COL. JAMES A. LOUDON. Santa Monica by the sea, with its superb scenic sit- uation and surroundings, its delightful climate and splendid public institutions, has drawn permanently to its confines many people of culture, refinement and wealth, seeking retirement from the strenuous life of a business world. These people have purchased its choicest residence property, own its most luxurious homes and have become a most important factor in making it one of the wealthiest and most attractive seaside home cities of the Pacific Coast. Colonel Loudon is one of its recently most welcome citizens. Colonel Loudon is a native of Ten- nessee and grew up in the city of Memphis. His paternal ancestors were Scotch and are directly descended from Lord Loudon, who was the owner of Loudon's Bonny Hills, Woods and Braes, one of the most beautiful feudal estates in the lowlands of Scotland. Col. Loudon is a son of John Loudon, father of eleven children, all of whom, save three, the subject of this sketch, a brother, Hopkins Loudon, and Miss Debbie Loudon, died before the demise of the father. Col. Loudon grew up in the city of Memphis amid the busy scenes of a most delightful social influence and broad hospitality of southern life. When the calamities of civil war overtook his home city he, even though a youth of fifteen years, volun- teered in the Confederate army and served with distinction throughout the entire conflict, from 1861 to the final ending in 1865, in defense of his country's cause. He entered the cavalry service as a private soldier and at times was in the hottest of the fray. He was three times captured by the enemy and twice escaped. (See " Harvey Mathew's History of the Old Guards in Gray " and also " His- torical Biography of Eminent Americans.") Col. Loudon, at the close of the war, in 1865, was paroled as a Confederate officer from the military prison at Little Rock, Arkansas, and returned to his native state. For many years he has been intimately associated with the business, civic and political growth of the city of Memphis. Essentially a man of affairs, his activities have been along business lines and his rewards amply the result of successful enterprise.
Col. Loudon, January 13, 1870, married Miss Virginia Lewis Shanks. She died leaving a son, Lewis S. Loudon. September 7, 1904, he married Miss Sarah, daughter of Hon. Albert K. Hancock, then a prominent lawyer of the Memphis bar and a member of the Tennessee State Senate, now a resident of
487
BIOGRAPHICAL
Santa Monica and practicing his profession in Los Angeles. Mrs. Loudon is a lady of charming personality and social refinement. They have two daughters, Lou Lou Ann, aged three years, and Arlington, a native daughter of California, aged one year. Col. Loudon, in January, 1906, with a view of retiring from active business pursuits, came to California and to Los Angeles and purchased a home in Ingraham street, where the family lived for a period of about eight months. The following November he purchased an orange grove at San Gabriel and there lived for a time. The following August of 1907 he purchased Gray Gables of the W. H. Perry estate on Ocean avenue, Santa Monica, which they regard as their permanent family home. Col. Loudon declares to the writer that " Santa Monica has, in my opinion, the finest climate on earth " and here hopes to exceed the age of his lamented mother's father, David Trowbridge, who lived to the age of one hundred and one years, "' and here, where the sunset turns the ocean's blue to gold ' may I be buried, if it is God's will."
JAMES P. KEENER, well-known citizen of Sawtelle, is a native of the state of Iowa, and was born in the city of Des Moines, April 29th, 1854. His father, George W. Keener, was a farmer and was interested in woolen mills which manufactured cashmeres, flannels and other woolen fabrics. He was a native of Holland and came to this country when a child, the family locating in Tennessee. He married Miss Amanda Langford, who bore him nine children, of whom James P. is the second born. He grew up in Des Moines, worked in a machine shop, where he learned the millwright trade in Centerville, Iowa. In 1875, he came to California, reaching San Francisco April 22nd of that year, and for a time worked in the Hendee Iron Works. From San Francisco he went into the mines and erected quartz mills, having a seeming monopoly of the business in Plumas, Lassen and Sierra counties. He also built mills at Tombstone, Arizona, and one on Frazer river, British Columbia, on the Carribou mine. In 1904 he came to Southern California and located at Sawtelle. For a time he engaged in the grocery business, which he finally disposed of. He has acceptably filled the office of City Marshal of Sawtelle during the years 1906 and 1907. He is now engaged in the cigar and tobacco business. Mr. Keener married at Crescent Mills, Plumas county, California, Miss Nancy, a daughter of William E. Taylor, a grandson of General Zachary Taylor, twelfth President of the United States. Mrs. Keener died at Susanville. Lassen county, California, in 1897, leaving three children-Elsie, who is now Mrs. G. W. Walker of Modoc county, California ; Viola, Mrs. George Odette of Susanville, and Howard, who is gunner's mate in the U. S. Navy on the Cruiser Milwaukee. Mr. Keener again married, in the year 1900, Miss Ella Moore, at Johnsville, Plumas county, California. The family residence is No. 234 South Seventh street, Sawtelle.
488
BIOGRAPHICAL
H. L. MITCHELL, for many years a well-known citizen of Santa Monica and now (1908) holding the office of City Superintendent of Buildings. Electrician and Plumbing Inspector, is a native of Hud- son, Lenawee county, Michigan, where he was born May 10th, 1871. His father, Eli Mitch- ell, was, by trade, a millwright and gunsmith. Ile was a native of New York and one of the pioneers of Lenawee county. In 1875 he lo- cated on government land in Custer county, Nebraska, when it was a new and compara- tively undeveloped country and civic and so- cial conditions very much unsettled. In 1879, during the exciting times in that State involv- ing differences between homestead settlers and stockmen, Mr. Mitchell and a fellow pioneer were murdered in cold blood at Plumb Creek, Nebraska. The widow and family of eight children removed to the eastern part of the State and located at Weeping Water. where she married Mr. John C. Marvin in 1882. In 1884 the family removed to San Antonio, Texas, where they lived until 1895 and re- moved to California, locating at Santa Monica. H. L. MITCHELL. At San Antonio Mr. Mitchell learned the car- penter's trade and followed the same as an oc- cupation, at times carrying on a contracting business. Soon after arrival in Santa Monica in 1895 he married Miss Emily Catharine Loeffler, a native of San Antonio, Texas. The year 1897 Mr. Mitchell held the office of Township Constable. He served as Deputy City Marshall under M. K. Barretto for a period of about seven years, from 1898 to 1906. In 1907 he was appointed to the position he now holds, one of responsibility which he fills with marked credit to himself and entire satisfaction to the people of his city.
HENRY SCHULTZ, owner and editor of the Sawtelle Sentinel, was born in Brownsville, Texas, December 19th, 1872. His father, Gustave Schultz, was a native of Hamburg, Germany. He came to America in 1861, and joined the Union army as a member of the First Wisconsin Cavalry, under General, then Colonel O. H. La Grange. In 1864, he returned to his native home and almost immediately joined the French army, where he was commissioned lieutenant- colonel and, under Maximilian, took part in the French invasion of Mexico.
Later he returned to the life of a civilian and kept a hotel at Brownsville,
489
BIOGRAPHICAL
Texas. He there met and married Miss Frances Frazer, a native of Dublin. Ireland. He lived at Brownsville until his death in 1892. Henry Schultz spent his boyhood at Brownsville and later entered the employ of Clark & Cowts, lithographers and printers of San Antonio, Texas, as an apprentice. He re- mained with this firm for a period of five years and thoroughly mastered the trade. In 1899, he came to Los Angeles and was employed on the Los Angeles Herald. Later in the same year he came to Santa Monica and, until 1904, he worked as the foreman of the printing office of the Santa Monica Daily Outlook. In Angust, 1904, he purchased the business of the Sawtelle Sen- tinel of C. B. Irvine, which he has ably conducted, materially improving the pub- lication and the plant until it is one of the most complete in equipment in the Santa Monica Bay district. March 30th, 1907, Mr. Schultz married Miss Alice A., a daughter of the late Arthur Clarence Alger, of Sawtelle. Mr. Alger was a highly esteemed citizen of Sawtelle, a native of Afton, Wisconsin, where he grew up. He married in Nebraska and engaged in business. By reason of failing health he came to California in 1903 from Lincoln, Neb., located in Sawtelle and engaged in the furniture business. He was a nephew of the lamented General Russel A. Alger, late U. S. Senator from Michigan and Sec- retary of War in the Cabinet of President William Mckinley. He was a pop- ular citizen, a member of the F. and A. M. and the M. W. of A. He died August 1st, 1906, leaving a widow and daughter. Mrs. Alger was, by maiden name, Mary Woodman, a daughter of Daniel and Mary Woodman of Ohio. She was born in Waushara, Wisconsin. She descends from Puritan stock, her earliest ancestors having come to America in the Mayflower. Mrs. Schultz is a woman of literary accomplishments, and is a constant contributor to the Scientific American, writing upon scientific subjects. She is also on the literary staff of the Los Angeles Eraminer. Mr. and Mrs. Schultz have one son, Arthur Clarence, born February 14th, 1908.
H. M. CRANE, Sawtelle, was born in Bridgeport, Fairfield county, Conn .. July 11, 1861. His father, Charles S. Crane, a farmer, and his mother, Imogine J. (Morris) Crane, are both natives of the "Nutmeg" state. In 1866 they came West to Michigan and located at Marshall, in Calhoun county. Here Mr. Crane engaged in the milling and grain business. In 1876 he removed to Caldwell county, Missouri, and located near the town of Breckenridge, where he engaged in farming.
The subject of this sketch passed through the public schools of Marshall, Michigan, and Breckenridge, Missouri. In 1886, he married Miss Flora, a daughter of James J. Nellis, now a well-known citizen of Sawtelle. In 1905 they came to California, and located at Sawtelle, where, for a time, he engaged in banking and held the position of cashier of the Citizens' State Bank. Mr.
490
BIOGRAPHICAL
Crane has made liberal property investments in Sawtelle and, since retiring from the bank, is engaged in the real estate and insurance business as a member of the firm of Putnam & Crane. The family home, one of the most attractive in the city, is 2015 Oregon avenue. Mr. and Mrs. Crane have two daughters, Letha F. and Imogine.
O. A. KIRKELIE, an active and well-known business man of Ocean Park, Santa Monica, was born in the town of Harmony, Fillmore county, S. E. Minnesota, April 6th, 1867, a son of Arne Kirkelie, a native of Norway, a land owner, an itinerant Lutheran preacher and a man of influence. Mr. Kirkelie grew up in his native town, passed through the public schools, and pursued a course of study at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., Decorah Institute, Deco- rah, Iowa. In 1888, being then twenty-one years of age, he held the office of Deputy County Recorder of his native county. About this time he married Miss Levina, a daughter of Joseph Pickett, she being also born and reared in Fillmore county and in the town of Harmony. Mr. and Mrs. Kirkelie almost immediately came to California on a pleasure trip. Returning home, he engaged in the furni- ture and undertaking business at Wykoff, Fillmore county, Minn., until April, 1905, when lie disposed of his business and came again to California. Mr. Kirke- lie is a successful business man and has built up a substantial undertaking busi- ness. He is a member of the B. P. O. E., I. O. O. F., D. of R., K. of K. and Modern Woodmen. He is an active and effective worker in the Republican party. Mr. and Mrs. Kirkelie have one daughter, Myrtle.
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.