USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > Los Angeles from the mountains to the sea : with selected biography of actors and witnesses to the period of growth and achievement, Volume II > Part 25
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"Bishop Johnson is known abroad in the community as a man of
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breadth of interests, with a capacity for making friends, and adaptability to all sorts and conditions of men and all sorts and conditions of situa- tions. He is an executive of ability, a public-spirited citizen, a leader among men. Of all the qualities that cause him to be admired, those who are intimately associated with him in the work of his diocese are fully aware and justly proud, but the things that mean the most to those who are privileged to come into closest contact with the Bishop, that give him a place apart in their affections, are the rare simplicity of his char- acter, the humility of his spirit, the leniency of his judgments, the sunny optimism of his disposition that finds him at the end of the hardest day sometimes cast down but never destroyed, the warmth and naturalness of his friendship and, above all, the sincerity of his religious life.
"When Bishop Johnson was consecrated to the Episcopate in 1896. this prayer was said by the bishops and the clergy and congregation that was present: 'So replenish him with the truth of Thy doctrine and adorn him with the innocency of life that, both by work and deed, he may faithfully serve Thee in this office, to the glory of Thy name, and the edifying and well governing of Thy Church.' It seems to us who know him from the intimacy of long association in the work of this diocese that in Bishop Jolinson this prayer has been singularly fulfilled."
WILLIAM C. MUSHET, former city auditor of Los Angeles, and head of the Mushet Audit Company, has for many years been a man of prominence in business and civic affairs and has been a resident of Los Angeles thirty years.
Mr. Mushet was born in Manchester, England, December 22, 1860, a son of George and Mary Cresswell Mushet. He was graduated from an English high school at the age of twenty, then taught school, and took a thorough business and law training at the Victoria University. He received his degree A. C. P., and in 1886 came to America and located at San Francisco, where he practiced public accounting until 1889. After that he continued his profession in Los Angeles, and built up a large and representative clientage. In 1900 he was made secretary of the Whole- salers' Board of Trade and the Los Angeles Credit Men's Association. He is still secretary of the Credit Men's Association. In 1908 Mr. Mushet was elected city auditor. In 1910 and 1912 he was candidate for mayor, and in 1918 he made a spirited race for Congress. He has been active head of the Mushet Audit Company since 1910.
Mr. Mushet is one of the leading laymen of the Episcopal Church in southern California, being treasurer of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles for the past twenty years, a member of the Board of Missions. director of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the diocese of Los An- geles, and chairman of finance of the diocese. He has been elected four times to the triennial convention of the Episcopal Church, at Louisville, New York, St. Louis and Detroit. Mr. Mushet is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a member of the Union League Club and is a republican in politics. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention held in Chicago in 1915 which nominated Hughes for president of the United States.
At San Bernardino, California, October 27, 1889, he married Miss Hattie A. Lobdell. Mrs. Mushet, who died March 12, 1919, after nearly thirty years of happy married life, was born at Fairfield. Connecticut. August 27, 1864. For many years she was a prominent club woman, being past vice president of the California Federation of Women's Clubs and past president of the Los Angeles District Federation of Women's
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Clubs, was president for two terms of the Wednesday Morning Club and chairman of its Building Committee, was a member of the Friday Morning and Ebell Clubs, and was very active in church work. Mr. Mushet has three children. The oldest, Mrs. Galett M. Rindge, is a graduate of the Girls' Collegiate School. The younger child, Isabel, is now attending the Girls' Collegiate School. The son, William Lobdell Mushet, born in 1898, is a graduate of the Harvard Military School and during the war served in the Navy, receiving his honorable discharge in January, 1919. He is now on his three hundred twenty acre ranch near Victorville, California.
REV. JAMES A. REARDON, whose services in the Catholic Church has been distinguished by many responsibilities, has been the faithful and efficient pastor of St. Anthony's parish at Long Beach since April, 1907.
This parish was established in 1902 by Father Ferrer. Prior to that time the Catholics of this community had worshiped at Wilmington, California. The first church was erected in 1902. In 1913, under Father Reardon, the cornerstone was laid for an edifice of imposing dimensions costing a hundred thousand dollars. The late Bishop Conaty officiated at the cornerstone laying. The church was dedicated November 26, 1914, by Archbishop Francisco Mendoza of Mexico, who happened to be in California at that time. There were only twenty families in the parish when it was organized. Most of the prosperity of the parish falls within the time of Father Reardon's pastorate. Today there are six hundred families, and the church is one of the most prosperous in Long Beach.
James A. Reardon was born in Tazewell county, Illinois, June 16, 1881. His father, John Reardon, was born in Tipperary, Ireland, June 13. 1840, and first attended the national schools of Ireland. In 1850 his parents came to America and settled at Providence, Rhode Island, where he continued his education in the public schools. In 1857 the family moved west to Tazewell county, Illinois, where John Reardon took up farming. He was one of the sturdy sons of Illinois whose loy- alty needed no arousing and early in the Civil war he enlisted as a pri- vate in Company H of the 115th Illinois Infantry. His record shows that he was a splendid soldier. He was promoted to sergeant, second lieutenant, first lieutenant and captain, and at the close of the war was brevetted major for gallantry on the field. After the war he served as United States store keeper at various points.
He left the army, and on June 4, 1870, married Mary A. Murphy at Delavan, Tazewell county. After his marriage he farmed in that county until 1883, when he removed to Peoria and became a contractor, most of his work being street grading. In 1888 John Reardon came to Los Angeles, and continued as a contractor in the same line in this city until his death January 10, 1895. He was the father of six children : Nellie C., of Los Angeles; Genevieve, who died in 1889; John S., of San Francisco; Frederick L., who died in 1908; James A. and Mary G., of Los Angeles.
Father Reardon was seven years old when his parents came to Los Angeles. He attended the Cathedral parochial school, also the public schools, including the Los Angeles High School, and in 1898 gradu- ated from St. Vincent's College. In preparation for the priesthood he attended St. Mary's Seminary at Baltimore, Maryland, taking the philo- sophical and theological courses, and finishing his studies in 1904. Re-
James a. Reardon
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turning to Los Angeles, he was ordained at the Cathedral January 6, 1905. Father Reardon was assistant pastor of St. John's Church at Fresno until June 2, 1905, was then secretary to the late Bishop Conaty a year and a half at Los Angeles, and for two months was acting pastor of St. Joseph's Church at Pomona, and acting pastor of St. Joseph's Church at San Diego until April, 1907, when he entered upon his pres- ent duties in St. Anthony's parish at Long Beach. Father Reardon is a fourth degree member of the Knights of Columbus, and a member of the Sons of Veterans.
WILLIAM R. FEE. The community of San Gabriel welcomed the advent of William R. Fee not only because of his position in the business world, but for the obvious advantages of his personal character and resources. Mr. Fee has been a resident of California only a few years and still retains many of his personal business interests in Ohio, where he has long been identified with the ownership and management of large public utilities and various banks and other instruments of capital.
Mr. Fee was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was educated in the grammar and high schools there. He also attended the Cincinnati Col- lege of Pharmacy. He passed a successful examination before the State Board of Pharmacy, and was first employed in a minor capacity by the Standard Drug Company. He worked up until he was made manager of the city business of this company, during which time he operated three retail drug stores. In 1900 he assisted in organizing the Clere- mont Telephone Company, and thus he came into the field of public utilities, where his work has been most conspicuous since then.
Mr. Fee was vice president and general manager of the Cleremont County Telephone Company until 1909. In 1903 he organized the Citizens National Bank of Milford, Ohio, of which he was president until 1906. After that his home was in Portsmouth, Ohio, where he be- came president and general manager of the Portsmouth Telephone Com- pany. In a remarkably short time he had built up the business of that public utility from fifteen hundred telephone subscribers to forty-two hundred. In 1910 he organized the Ohio Valley Bank of Portsmouth and remained president of the institution until 1914.
Mr. Fee gave up all his executive positions in these various con- cerns in 1913, when he moved to Los Angeles, though retaining most of his stock. In 1914 he organized the Bank of San Gabriel, of which he is now president. For eight years Mr. Fee was vice president of the Ohio State Telephone Association, and for one year was vice president of the National Telephone Association. He was also vice president of the Portsmouth Board of Trade and an officer in various other organiza- tions, commercial, civic and social, in Ohio.
July 20, 1890, at Cincinnati, he married Anna Sutton. Their only child, Anna Louise, is now the wife of San Gabriel's city attorney, Mr. McFadden, who is serving as captain of Company M, 140th Regiment of Infantry, 35th Division, in France.
HOMER LAUGHLIN gained a high position in American industry as the founder and upbuilder of the greatest pottery plant in the United States, and when he retired from business about twenty years ago and came to Los Angeles, his interests as a business man were not allowed to lapse, and in this city he has used his capital and his personal influence in many ways for the upbuilding of Los Angeles as a city.
Mr. Laughlin was born at Little Beaver, in Columbiana County,
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Ohio, March 23, 1843, son of Matthew and Maria (Moore) Laughlin. The Laughlins were Scotch-Irish, who settled in colonial times in west- ern Pennsylvania. Grandfather James Laughlin was a native of Mary- land, but spent many years of his life in Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. Matthew Laughlin was born in Columbiana County in 1814, and for half a century was in the milling business on the Little Beaver River.
Homer Laughlin was educated in the common schools, in the Ne- ville Institute, and on July 12, 1862, at the age of nineteen, enlisted at Liverpool, Ohio, in Company A of the 115th Ohio Infantry. He is one of the interesting veterans of that great war for freedom, and served almost three years, until mustered out as sergeant of his company at Cleveland July 7, 1865.
He soon afterward became interested in the pottery industry at New York City. He and his brother, Shakespeare Moore Laughlin, be- came wholesale importers of English earthenware. The firm of Laughlin Brothers continued from 1871 to October, 1873. In the latter year they built a pottery plant of their own for the manufacture of fine white earthenware at East Liverpool, Ohio. The deserved fame of East Liver- pool as one of the greatest pottery centers of America is in no small degree the result of the enterprise of the Laughlin brothers. In 1879 Homer Laughlin bought out his brother's interest and continued the Homer Laughlin China Company under his direct and personal super- vision until 1897.
In the latter year Mr. Laughlin sold his interests in an industry, which has continued to grow and flourish in eastern Ohio, continuing under the name Homer Laughlin China Company. On coming to Los Angeles Mr. Laughlin immediately supplied a large fund of capital and business enterprise to the needs of the city for high-class buildings. His first monument was the Homer Laughlin Building on Broadway, re- garded as the first fireproof office building in southern California. In fact, it set a standard for fireproof construction which was not reached generally for several years. In 1901 he erected another building a few doors south of the Laughlin Building, on the site of the old First Meth- odist Church. In 1905 was begun the construction of the annex to the Homer Laughlin Building. This has the distinction of being the first reinforced concrete building in southern California.
Mr. Laughlin has been a figure and influence in the larger business affairs of America for many years. He was for a long time president of the United States Pottery Association, chairman of its executive com- mittee for twenty years, and the products of his plants received medals from the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, the Cincinnati Exposition of 1879, and from the Columbian Exposition of Chicago in 1893. Since 1882 he has been continuously a member of the Board of Managers of the American Protective Tariff League. Mr. Laughlin was for over thirty years an intimate friend of William McKinley, and was president of the reception committee when President Mckinley and cabinet visited Los Angeles.
Mr. Laughlin is a prominent Mason, was a member of the First Crusaders party of Knights Templar to Europe in 1871, is an honorary life member of Girvan Encampment of Glasgow, Knights Templar of Scotland, a member of Allegheny Commandery No. 35, K. T. He is a member of the Republican Club of New York and the California Club of Los Angeles. June 18, 1875, Mr. Laughlin married Cornelia Batten- berg of Wellsville, Ohio. They had three children, Homer Jr., Nanita (deceased) and Gwendolen V.
ElSargent.
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EDWIN W. SARGENT is known as the "father of the land title business in Los Angeles," and, very appropriately, is vice president of the Title Guarantee and Trust Company, being one of the founders of this cor- poration and also of the Title Insurance and Trust Company.
Mr. Sargent is a lawyer of forty-five years' experience, and for more than thirty years has been a resident of Los Angeles. He was born at Oregon, in Dane County, Wisconsin, August 15, 1848, son of Croydon and Lucy W. (Hutchinson) Sargent. He was reared in Wis- consin, attended the public schools, and from 1868 to 1870 was a student in the literary department of the University of Wisconsin. In 1873 he entered the law department of the University of Iowa, receiving his LL. B. degree in 1874. After being admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of Iowa, he practiced five years at Denison, Iowa, and from 1879 to 1886 was a lawyer at Atchison, Kansas. While at Atchison he became known as an expert in land titles, and that experience he brought with him to California and it became the basis of the great and enduring reputation that he now enjoys.
Mr. Sargent came to Los Angeles in 1886, just before the great real estate boom. Almost immediately his services were in demand by the real estate interests as a title expert. Up to that time no guarantees of title had ever been given in southern California, and Mr. Sargent recognized the opportunity for the establishment of a land title guarantee business such as he had become familiar with in the middle west.
This business in its earliest form was created by Mr. Sargent in establishing as evidence of title in Los Angeles city and county the "cer- tificates of title" practically in the form in which it is used today in real estate transfers, and has been so used for thirty years.
During the real estate boom of 1887 many persons engaged in the abstract business drove a thriving trade by searching the records by the name index for the investigation of title, making expensive abstracts and obtaining expensive legal opinions of lawyers upon the same. In order to put an end to this extortionate practice, Mr. Sargent brought about the organization of the Los Angeles Abstract Company, conceived in a spirit of fair dealing and on a comprehensive scale, with Mr. Sargent and several wealthy men of Los Angeles as its organizers. This company adopted what is known as the "Property System" by following the title to each individual piece of land by the different references that are made by all instruments affecting the title. The company merely completed an abstract plant in the fall of 1887, and then began making full and un- limited certificates of title at a moderate price upon any and all real estate in the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County.
It was the unusual legal ability brought to this company by Mr. Sar- gent that enabled it to issue certificates of title. The community soon learned that for a moderate price they could obtain the most competent legal opinion that could be given on titles to real estate. These unlimited certificates of title soon commanded the confidence of real estate dealers, money lenders and banks, and in a few years there was a complete change in the business of furnishing evidence of title, done quickly and at a great deal less expense than under the former system. More credit is due Mr. Sargent for these unlimited certificates than to any other one person.
The Los Angeles Abstract Company soon absorbed other firms, and in 1894 it was reorganized as the Title Insurance and Trust Company. In 1895 Mr. Sargent retired from that institution and organized the Title Guarantee and Trust Company. Both companies are still in exist-
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ence and their homes are in two of the largest office structures in Los Angeles. Mr. Sargent is still active in his distinctive branch of the law profession, is considered a past authority on land ownership and titles in southern California, and his professional services alone have been a big contributing factor to the permanent growth and prosperity of Los Angeles. He has been not less deeply interested in every movement for the civic welfare, the promotion of institutions and the broad and bene- ficient growth and power of the greater Los Angeles.
Mr. Sargent is a member of the Jonathan Club, is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, and his name properly belongs among the builders and makers of southern California.
MARSHALL L. CARTER, who was born in Iowa and received his early business training there as a banker, has been a resident of Los Angeles since 1901, and is an important factor in the general loan and investment business as secretary and manager of the Carter Investment Company.
Mr. Carter is a son of Julius Carter, a veteran cattle man of the old-time west, now living in California, and though past eighty years of age, still enjoying an occasional scouting trip around the cattle ranches. The Daily Drovers Journal, the great live stock paper of Chicago, in the fall of 1918, published an interesting article on J. E. Carter, particularly with regard to his experiences as a feeder and shipper of cattle for forty years. He was born in Ravenna, Portage County, Ohio, November 12, 1834, and spent his boyhood in the time of tallow candles and other primitive facilities. When he was fifteen years old his father trusted him with a thousand dollars to go into the western counties a hundred miles from home and buy cattle. He was highly commended by his father when he returned from the three weeks' trip, and from that time on he was engaged in buying and driving cattle. At the age of seven- teen he and an older brother drove a large herd of cattle from western Illinois to Dutchess County, New York. In 1854 he and his brother began their operations as cattle buyers in Missouri, and they took their first herd to Chicago in the fall of 1855, where they found only two packers in business. They sold their cattle for three and a half cents a pound, but made a profit even at that low price. The approach of the Civil war put an end to their operations in 1859, and from that time forward they made their headquarters and home in Iowa, where they bought a section of land. Every year for twenty years he and his brother fed from two hundred to five hundred cattle. They continued a congenial and profitable partnership until the death of his brother in 1889, and there was a large property to divide, consisting of three thous- and acres of land, a bank, store, lumber yard and elevator, all in Jones and Clinton Counties, Iowa. In 1900 Mr. J. E. Carter closed out his Iowa business and brought his family to California. Here he became interested with his sons in real estate and land development, and has also spent much time in travel, having visited Japan, China, the Panama Canal, England, France and Germany. He is a member of the Octo- genarian Club and is still a man of much physical vigor. He married, at Kewanee, Illinois, November 12, 1867, Miss Anna Hutchinson. Three of their children died in infancy and the other three are married and living in California. The mother died at Oxford Junction, Iowa, in 1891. Mr. J. E. Carter now lives with his daughter, Mrs. F. C. Langdon.
Marshall L. Carter was born at Oxford Junction, in Jones County, Iowa, July 2, 1877. He was liberally educated, attending high school to the age of eighteen, then entering Shattuck Military Academy at Fari-
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bault, Minnesota, from which he graduated in 1897. He then became cashier of his father's bank, the Oxford Junction Bank, but in 1901 fol- lowed his parents to Los Angeles and for a year was a salesman and part owner in the Hoffman hardware store. Selling his interests with that firm, he engaged in the dental supply business with Dr. F. C. Lang- don, his brother-in-law, under the firm name of Carter Dental Supply Company, at 1191/2 South Spring street. Three years later he disposed of that business to engage in the loan and real estate business as secre- tary and manager of the Carter Investment Company. His father for several years was president of that company, but the president is 110w the other son, J. E. Carter Jr. Mr. Marshall L. Carter is also secretary of the Linen Laundry and Supply Company.
He is well known socially, being a York Rite Mason and Shriner, member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Advertising Club and is a member of the Westlake Methodist Church. Politically he is a republican. At Los Angeles, December 15, 1903, he married Mary Elizabeth Inch. They have one son, Marshall L. Jr., born in 1907, and a student in the Harvard Military School.
VICTOR H. ROSSETTI. The. Los Angeles financial and civic com- munity chose Victor H. Rossetti as a successful banker, a man of dis- tinctive leadership and personality, who has accepted many opportunities and responsibilities for broad and patriotic service. Not many years ago he was a hard-working minor clerk, in a San Francisco bank, and he knows as well as the next mian what it means to live independently, though on a scale of modest and self-respecting poverty.
He was born in Virginia City, Nevada, February 19, 1877, son of Alexander and Madeline (Bassetti) Rossetti. As the place of his birth would indicate, his father was at one time connected with some of the centers of mining activity in the far west. Alexander Rossetti was born at Biasca, Switzerland, July 15, 1837. He attended the public schools there, and on March 12, 1858, left his native land and came to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama. He reached San Francisco June 5th of the same year, and for three years was a miner in Matt Canyon, in Calaveras County. In 1861 he removed to Placerville, where he con- tinued mining, and in 1862 was one of the pioneers in the new mining district of Virginia City, Nevada. For several years he operated a hotel there and then resumed mining. He finally retired in 1898 and lived in San Francisco until 1914, then at Santa Barbara until January 1, 1919, and has since been a resident of Los Angeles. At Virginia City, Septem- ber 8, 1870, Alexander Rossetti married Madeline Bassetti. She was born at Locarno, Switzerland, October 12, 1850. She left her native land August 17, 1868, reached San Francisco the 3rd of October, and on the 6th of the same month arrived in Virginia City, Nevada, where about a year and a half later she became a bride. She and her husband were the parents of eight children, seven of whom are still living.
Victor H. Rossetti graduated from the high school of Virginia City in 1893. A youth of sixteen, he sought opportunity in San Francisco, where he was employed as messenger boy for the Wells-Fargo & Com- pany Bank. He attracted attention by his eagerness and enthusiasm and diligence and was promoted to various responsibilities until he became chief clerk. In 1905 the Wells-Fargo & Company Bank was consolidated with the Nevada National Bank under the name Wells-Fargo Nevada National Bank. Mr. Rossetti then continued with the consolidated in- stitution in the same capacity until 1907, when he was elected assistant cashier.
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