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 III > Part 10
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Mr. Townsend came to Lugonia, California, in 1881 with his par- ents, his sister, now Mrs. Sarah Catherine Townsend Gee, and his broth ers Alfred I. and Francis M. at the time Judson and Brown were plot- ting the colony of Redlands. Mr. Townsend's first employment was carrying chain and driving stakes in laying out that colony. May 17, 1882, he removed to Los Angeles and engaged in the practice of law, acting as clerk in the office of Henry T. Hazard, then city attorney. Mr. Townsend was admitted to the bar by the late Judge Ygnacio Sepul- veda. In 1882 he began practice as a patent attorney and has ever since specialized in that branch of the law. The firm of Hazard & Townsend had their office in the old Downey Block until 1896, at which time Mr. Hazard withdrew and Mr. Townsend formed partnership with his broth-
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ers Alfred I. and Francis M. under the name Townsend Brothers. In 1897 they removed from the Downey Block to the Potomac Block, and in 1902 removed to the Bradbury Building. Alfred I. Townsend died by accident in 1898 and in 1905 the other brothers dissolved part- nership. Since then James R. Townsend has practiced alone. His offices now are in the San Fernando Building.
Mr. Townsend is a man of positive character, has always been a student, and has adapted himself to the changing circumstances and currents of both religious and political life. He was brought up a republican, became a prohibitionist in 1883 and on that ticket was a candidate for the City Council of Los Angeles in that year. In 1884 he cast his first vote for president, supporting John P. St. John as prohibition candidate. In 1887 he was converted to the socialistic pro- gram, and has supported every socialist ticket since then except in 1916 when he voted for Mr. Wilson. In 1912 he was socialist candidate in Los Angeles, for state senator, and received three thousand votes.
While not a member of any church Mr. Townsend was reared a Methodist, later became a Congregationalist, and since June, 1889, has accepted and adhered to the doctrines of the Christian Science faith.
On February 21, 1906, at Los Angeles, Mr. Townsend married M. Beulah Peauchette, daughter of Alonzo Peuchette. Mrs. Townsend, who shares with her husband many of his intellectual as well as domestic interests, was born in Kansas, May 1, 1882, was educated in Denver, was a kindergarten teacher, is a graduate of and has taught in a busi- ness college, and in 1915-16 completed the work of the beginners and elementary courses of the Montessori Child Training under Dr. Maria Montessori. She now conducts a small Montessori School at 2347 Ocean View Avenue in Los Angeles, for the benefit of their youngest child. Mr. and Mrs. Townsend have three children: Juliana, born Feb- ruary 2, 1910, a student in 1919 of the Virgil Intermediate public school ; James Robert, Jr., born October 12, 1912, a student before his seventh birthday in the A3 grade in Lockwood Street public school, and Marie Belle, born May 3, 1917, and a student in her mother's school from the age of three months. Juliana in her ninth is publishing a book of poems and prose written by her in 1919.
WILLIAM B. MATHEWS, a special counsel for the municipal govern- ment of Los Angeles, is one of the older members of the bar still in active work, and has practiced in Southern California for a period of thirty years.
He came to California from Kentucky, where he was reared and educated and admitted to the bar. He was born on a farm near George- town, in Brown County, Ohio, March 1, 1865, and the following year his parents, William B. and Margaret (Salisbury) Mathews, moved to Mason County, Kentucky. In that section of the Blue Grass state Wil- liam B. Mathews grew up, was educated in the district, private and high schools, and in 1882 attended Center College, at Danville, Ken- tucky. He received his A. B. degree from that institution in 1885, and then diligently pursued the study of law with W. H. Wadworth at Mays- ville, Kentucky. After being admitted to the bar in 1888, he took ad- vanced work in the Columbia Law College, in New York City, for a year, and at once came across the continent to Los Angeles. Here for two years he was partner with LeCompte Davis under the name Davis & Mathews. He was then associated with Thomas J. Carran until the death of Mr. Carran, two years later. His longest association has been
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with Walter Bordwell. They had a profitable and congenial partner- ship until January, 1901, when Mr. Mathews was elected city attorney. He held that office until January, 1907, and since then has served the municipal government as special counsel on city water and power. Since 1914 he has resumed his private law partnership with Walter Bordwell under the name Bordwell & Mathews.
Mr. Mathews has given freely of his time and abilities to the com- munity and was a director of the Los Angeles Library Board from 1899 to 1901. He is a Mason, a member of the California Club, City Club, Presbyterian Church and is a progressive republican.
January 1, 1891, he married, at Maysville, Kentucky, Susan Avery Hays. They are the parents of five children. Margaret Barbour is a kindergarten director in the Los Angeles schools. John Hays, born in 1893, was recently discharged from Camp Jackson with the rank of second lieutenant and has since resumed his studies in the senior class at the University of California. William Wadsworth was born in 1895, has received his discharge as a first lieutenant at Camp Grant and is now a junior in the University of California. Samuel Salisbury, born in 1897, was attending Stanford University when he enlisted in the Naval Coast Defense Reserve at San Francisco. He was not yet of age. After- wards he learned that his chances for getting to France were slim, and he transferred to Naval Base Hospital No. 3 as a second-class seaman. Under that classification he was stationed at Leith, Scotland, and a short time later was sent to the front in France and remained there until he received his discharge, in February, 1919. He has since resumed special work in the University of Southern California. The youngest child, Caroline Kinard, is a student in the Los Angeles public schools.
RUSSELL HENRY BALLARD. As all the big achievements and de- velopments in the electrical industry, apart from the first experiments and inventions, might be comprised in a survey of four decades, it is possible to call Russell Henry Ballard, with his thirty years of con- tinuous association with the electrical business, one of the oldest men in the business today, though in years he has hardly reached life's prime.
Mr. Ballard, who is first vice president of the Southern California Edison Company, the history of which organization is given on other pages of this publication, was born at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, July 26, 1875. His parents were Walter John and Harriet A. Ballard, both deceased. His father was a native of London, England, and lived in the United States more than thirty-five years. His mother was a native of Toronto. Russell Henry Ballard acquired a grammar and high school education at Hamilton, Ontario; Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Evanston, Illinois. He was fifteen years old when, in 1890, he began as an office boy with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company at Chicago. Con- tinuously since that date he has had some associations with electric com- panies. His business associations have been almost national in extent, having been a factor in such industries at Chicago, Schencctady, New York; Atlanta, Georgia ; Butte, Montana, and Los Angeles. For the year 1919-20 Mr. Ballard was president of the National Electric Light Association. He is a member of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, the greatest scientific body in the world.
During the war he was director of the precinct organization of Los Angeles in the Liberty Loan campaigns. He is a republican, is affiliated with West Lake Lodge of Masons, the Scottish Rite bodies and the Golden West Commandery, also the Mystic Shrine. He is a member of
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the California Club, Sunset Club, City Club of Los Angeles, Rocky Mountain Club of New York.
February 9, 1901, Mr. Ballard married May Spurgeon, daughter of Granville Spurgeon. Her father and her uncle, W. H. Spurgeon, were the founders of the town of Santa Ana, California. Mr. and Mrs. Ballard have one daughter, Harriet Russell Ballard, now a student at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York.
HON. HENRY ZENAS OSBORNE. If Los Angeles had carefully sought to elect to Congress a man chosen in exact conformity with the ideal theory of representative government, a choice could hardly have been better made than when Henry Zenas Osborne was given the honor of representing the Tenth California District in the Sixty-fifth Congress.
Mr. Osborne has been a resident of California forty years, and thirty-five of these years have been spent in Los Angeles. He began life as a printer and also as a Union soldier, has been reporter, editor and newspaper publisher, and has been as completely identified with the life and affairs of Southern California as any other man.
He was born in New Lebanon, Columbia County, New York, October 4, 1848, son of Rev. Zenas and Juliette (Bristol) Osborne. His early education in public schools continued to the age of thirteen. Dur- ing the early years of the Civil war he was working as an apprentice at a printer's case. At sixteen he enlisted as a private in Company E of the 192nd New York Volunteer Infantry, going in February 23, 1865, and receiving his honorable discharge on the 28th of August in the same year. Following the war he worked as a printer in New York, Cincinnati, Memphis, New Orleans and Austin, Texas, and from 1873 to 1878 was a reporter and newspaper correspondent at New Orleans. At the age of twenty-four in 1873 he was president of the New Orleans Typographical Union, and was first vice president of the International Typographical Union. In 1876 he was New Orleans correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.
On coming to California in 1878 he took up his residence in the live gold mining camp at Bodie, where for six years, from 1878 to 1884, he was editor and publisher of the Bodie Daily Free Press. Mr. Os- borne came to Los Angeles in 1884, at which time the city had a popula- tion of fifteen thousand people. Not a phase of its growth and develop- ment since then has escaped his co-operative interest. For thirteen years from 1884 to 1897 he was editor and publisher of the Los Angeles Evening Express. He was engaged in gold mining several years in Cali- fornia and developed the celebrated Dorleska Gold Mine in Trinity County.
Mr. Osborne participated in organizing and conducting many of the civic, social and commercial organizations of the city, among them the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, one of the leading commercial organizations of the United States, and of which he was a charter mem- ber in 1888. He served as president of the Chamber in 1912 and for six years was a director. He was a charter member of the Chamber of Mines and Oil in 1907. He was president of the Southern Cali- fornia Editorial Association in 1889, and vice president of the Cali- fornia Press Association in 1888. For more than thirty years he has served in some official position in the Grand Army of the Republic and was senior vice commander in chief in 1912-13. He is a member of the California Society, Sons of the Revolution, and for six years was captain of the California National Guards, from 1889 to 1895, when he
Henry Z. Osborne
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retired. In Masonry Mr. Osborne is the senior living past master of Southern California Lodge No. 278; senior living past commander of Los Angeles Commandery No. 9 Knights Templar, and a charter mem- ber of Al Malaikah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is a charter mem- ber of the California and Sunset Clubs, and was president of the latter in 1905.
He has held many official positions and responsibilities in California. He was Receiver of Public Moneys in the Bodie Land District from 1878 to 1884; United States Collector of Customs of the Los Angeles District from 1891 to 1894; United States Marshal of the Los Angeles District from 1898 to 1906. During 1914-16 he was a Commissioner of the Board of Public Works of Los Angeles. He has been prominent in the republican party for over thirty years. He served as a delegate to the National Convention in 1888, and except for two years was a mem- ber of the Executive Committee of the Republican State Central Com- mittee from 1890 to 1900. Mr. Osborne was republican nominee for Congress in 1914, and in 1916 he was elected to represent the 10th district, receiving 63,913 votes, giving him a majority of 30,688 over his democratic opponent.
Mr. Osborne entered Congress immediately before the declaration of the state of war with Germany, and his first vote was cast in favor of that declaration, on April 5, 1917. Throughout the war he voted for every measure presented to Congress intended to sustain the hands of President Wilson and the administration in forwarding the American cause and the winning of the war, including the selective draft act, the Overman act, and the various bonding and supply bills, with entire disregard of partisan considerations. In recognition of this service, notwithstanding his well known republican party affiliations in times of peace, and with an express waiving of any political obligation, he was with unanimity made the democratic as well as the republican nominee, and of the prohibitionists as well, and re-elected by the largest vote and the largest majority cast for any member of the Sixty-sixth Congress in any district of the United States-being 72,773 to 9,725 for the social- ist nominee, a majority of 63,048.
At Cazenovia, New York, December 11, 1872, he married Helen Annas. They are the parents of five children, four sons and one daughter : Sherrill B. an attorney; Henry Z., Jr., chief engineer of the Board of Public Utilities of Los Angeles ; Clarence B., a consulting geol- ogist ; Raymond G., a testing engineer; and Edith, who married Samuel S. Stahl, of Sacramento, a highway engineer.
OSCAR M. MORRIS is president of the Morris & Snow Seed Company of Los Angeles, one of the principal houses in the Southwest making a specialty of fancy strains of seed for the garden and private estates and everything for the garden and the domestic market. Mr. Morris has had almost a lifelong experience in this business, having grown up as a boy among his father's trees and fields in San Bernardino.
He was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, January 5, 1863, a son of J. M. and Helen A. (Millson) Morris. His father was born just across the street in Cincinnati. The mother was a native of Baltimore, Maryland. They were married in Cincinnati. J. M. Morris was a Kansas pioneer at the time of the Free State movement. He was injured during that period of hostilities. He was a contractor and builder, and he and a half-brother erected a part of old Fort Riley in Kansas. In 1875 he brought his family to California, locating in San Bernardino. About
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1900 he moved to Inglewood, and about six years before his death, which occurred at Los Angeles in April, 1914, moved to this city. The mother died at Los Angeles in April, 1912. Before her death they had celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary. The father was nearly ninety, and the mother eighty-three years of age, when they died. J. M. Morris had a sub-contract for the mason work on the old San Bernardino Court House. He also filled the office of justice of the peace there four or five terms.
Oscar M. Morris came to San Bernardino with his parents on July 1, 1875. He continued to attend school at San Bernardino and also spent one year in the Sturges Business College there. At the age of eighteen he may be said to have started his career as a nurseryman. His father had a large orchard and in it Mr. Morris served his appren- ticeship in the nursery and seed business. At the age of twenty he was a nurseryman on his own account, and for seven years had his headquarters at Rialto and San Bernardino. In 1895 he moved to Los Angeles. At Rialto for about two years he was associated with M. C. Snow, his present partner. He bought out the interest of his partner and later, coming to Los Angeles, for several years was asso- ciated with the Germain Seed and Plant Company, and later also traveled for the Vaughn Seed Company of Chicago. The Morris & Snow Seed Company was organized in 1906, and in 1908 was incorporated. This is a close corporation with only three members, Mr. Morris being pres- ident, D. F. Reichard vice president, and M. C. Snow secretary-treasurer. The main business offices and store are at 439 South Main Street, while the nursery is located at the corner of South Figueroa and Jefferson Streets, and is under the immediate supervision of Mr. Morris' son, Albert B. Morris. The business is conducted both wholesale and retail. They make a specialty of supplying private estates on the Pacific Coast with seeds, bulbs, flowers and everything required by the landscape, flower and vegetable gardener. .
During his residence at San Bernardino Mr. Morris served several years as a member of the National Guard, Company E, being commis- sary sergeant. He is a republican in politics, is a member of the Rotary Club, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Merchants and Manu- facturers Association.
At San Bernardino, August 6, 1888, he married Miss Mae A. Bud- dington. Mrs. Morris was born at Pontiac, Michigan, and was reared and educated there, being a daughter of Charles O. and Mary (Burwick) Buddington, who came to California from Michigan in 1886 and settled at San Bernardino. Mrs. Buddington now lives with her daughter at Pasadena. Mr. Buddington, who died at Los Angeles in April, 1919, was for a number of years a newspaper man, and after coming to Cali- fornia was connected with the San Bernardino Sun and San Bernardino Index. Mr. and Mrs. Morris have three sons and three daughters, the three oldest born in San Bernardino, and the three youngest in Los Angeles. Alma C., the oldest child, takes an active part in the business of her father; Albert B. has been mentioned as having personal charge of the nurseries; Oscar Milton, an employe of the firm Howland & Dewey, died in October, 1918; Theodore J., who enlisted early in the war, was in the aviation service with the Five Hundred Five Aerial Squadron and was in nearly every aviation camp in this country, but did not get across, and since his discharge has returned to his former position in his father's business; May also assists her father in the store ; and Myrtle is in her senior year in the Manual Arts High School.
Ano. E. Pillsbury
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The only one of the children married is the oldest son. His wife was Miss Gladys Cruickshank of Los Angeles, daughter of Gordon Cruick- shank, proprietor of the Eastern Produce Company of Los Angeles. Albert B. Morris and wife have two daughters, Gladys and Lillian. Mr. Morris and family reside in Vermont Square, 1051 West Forty-seventh Street.
JAMES STARK BENNETT was born at Sherburne, state of New York, on the 7th day of May, 1879, the son of George Calder and Ella J. (Stark) Bennett. The family removed to California and settled at Pomona in 1888, where his father died in 1901. His mother is still living and resides at Redlands, California.
Mr. Bennett acquired his early education in the public schools of Pomona, leaving the high school before the holidays of his senior year. He graduated from the Preparatory School of Pomona College in 1898 and received his Bachelor's degree from the college in 1903. While attending school he was employed by Alden & Merrill in their retail shoe store at Pomona, and in 1900-1901 by Mr. A. S. Avery, who succeeded to their business.
He entered the Law School of Columbia University, in New York, in 1903, and added to his education by teaching English to foreigners in the city night schools. In 1905 he received the Master of Arts from the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia, and his law degree the follow- ing year.
Mr. Bennett was admitted to the bar of New York on examination in November, 1905, and to that of California on motion in July, 1906. During the years of 1906-1909 he was employed by the firm of Hunsaker & Britt, at the end of which period he formed a partnership with Mr. E. J. Fleming, which was dissolved in 1911, when he formed a partner- ship with Mr. Garfield R. Jones, this continuing until 1914. Since the first of the year 1915 he has continued in general practice, with offices in the Van Nuys Building, Los Angeles, where he is a member of the City Club, the University Club and the Chamber of Commerce. Since his marriage he has resided at Pasadena, where he is a member of the Cauldron Club, the Neighborhood Club, the Tournament of Roses Asso- ciation and the Board of Trade. He is also a member of the Political Science Club of Columbia University, of the Sierra Club, of the Los Angeles Bar Association and the California Bar Association.'
In politics he prefers to be a consultant and has never held public office, with the exception of filling a temporary vacancy as city attorney at Pasadena in 1913.
October 8, 1907, Mr. Bennett married Miss Ethelwynn Foote of Pasadena, the daughter of Charles R. and Sarah (Cole) Foote, and they have four daughters, Louise, Caroline, Constance and Margaret, and one son, Rollin.
GEORGE EBER PILLSBURY achieved real success and eminence in a peculiarly difficult profession. He was regarded as one of the most competent technical engineers on the Pacific Coast for many years. He came to Los Angeles in 1885, and ten years later became identified with what is now the Los Angeles Railway Company, serving it as chief engineer.
He was born at Tewksbury, Massachusetts, July 26, 1857, and died at his home, 1242 Orange Street, in Los Angeles, August 5, 1919, at the age of sixty-two. His father was George Pillsbury, a deacon of the
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Congregational church and at one time widely known throughout New England for his prominence as a temperance worker. In those years a vote on the temperance ticket was considered a vote thrown away, but in spite of that handicap he lost an election to the State Legislature by very few ballots, his support being a tribute to his known personal integ- rity and popularity. This George Pillsbury was a grandson of General Moody Adams Pillsbury, and a nephew of General John A. Dix, and further back was descended from one of three notable brothers who arrived at Newburyport, Massachusetts, from England in colonial times, each of whom became prominent in civil, religious, business, professional and political life. All settled in New England and married into some of New England's best families. At that time and for long afterward the life of a farmer's wife was one of drudgery and privation. One of the Mrs. Pillsburys organized the women of her community into a sew- ing club. She herself went to Boston and made arrangements with tailors of that city to send out work to be done by hand. When the work came she parceled it out among the women of the club, and when it was finished she returned it to Boston. In that way she earned the money which educated her sons. These sons invented the roller pro- cess of making flour and established the great industry that bears the Pillsbury name at Minneapolis.
George Eber Pillsbury received his early education in the public schools, and later attended Lawrence Academy, at Groton, Massachu- setts, where, in later years, two of the Roosevelt boys received their preparation for college. While at Lawrence Academy one of his pro- fessors discovered his wonderful gift for mathematics and did all in his power to develop that talent, and they became lifelong friends. In 1880 Mr. Pillsbury became division engineer of the Mexican Central Railway Company in Mexico. He continued with the Mexican Central until he was twenty-seven years of age.
On October 15, 1885, he married and brought his bride at once to Los Angeles. For a period of about eight months he was in the office of the county surveyor, and then formed a partnership with George C. Cleveland, a fellow engineer. Cleveland had built one section of the Mexican Central Railroad. This firm enjoyed a good practice, and Mr. Pillsbury built up recognition as a consulting engineer which made him known far and wide. During the depression following the boom in Los Angeles he went north to build an extension to the Santa Fe from Bar- stow to Bakersfield. This was never completed, as the man at the head of the enterprise was killed in a railroad accident in Pennsylvania and the bonds for construction had not been placed. On returning to Los Angeles he was employed by the Southern Pacific in the engineering department. While there he was offered a salary of ten thousand dollars per year to develop water power for a gold mine in Lower California. He was assured that experts had gone over the ground and reported that water could be developed. He went down to Lower California, ahead of his family, and a complete examination showed him the utter im- possibility of developing water, consequently he returned to Los Angeles and again engaged in business with Mr. Cleveland. At that time business in general was dull and he accepted the post of assistant engineer in the development of the Gila Bend Reservoir and Canal Company in Arizona. He was engaged in that work some two or three years. Upon returning to California, he undertook the survey of the Jurupa Ranch, near River- side. This survey, which cost the firm of Pillsbury & Cleveland con- siderable time, money and labor, since they had a large force of men
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