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 19
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At Redlands, California, January 12, 1897, Mr. Jacobson married Miss Jennie Marie Holmquist. She was born in Illinois, from which state her parents moved to Kansas where her father was a pioneer
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farmer, and also active as a merchant in the town of Assaria. Both her parents were natives of Sweden, and her father volunteered in 1864 in the Union army during the American Civil war. N
JOHN SINCLAIR was for a number of years a well-to-do and in- fluential business man, real estate operator at Los Angeles. In acquiring a modest fortune he wisely and generously distributed his means and was a constructive factor in the upbuilding and growth of the com- munity.
He was descended from an old Scotch clan, and was born in Caith- ness Shire, Scotland, son of Donald Sinclair, a Scotch fisherman. He received his early education in a local school and later in Edinburgh, and served an apprenticeship at the carpenter's trade. From a mechanic he developed a business as a contractor and later as an architect.
On coming to America he located at Chicago about the time of the great fire which destroyed that city. Subsequently he lived at Frankfort, Illinois, where on January 24, 1878, he married Maggie McGlashan. Three children were born to their marriage: Daisy N., Jessie, who died in infancy, and Mary. In 1884 Mr. Sinclair moved to Storm Lake, Iowa, and for twelve years was a farmer in that state. On account of the failing health of his wife, he came to California in the fall of 1896. His wife died in the following .March, 1897. A year and a half later Mary, his beloved daughter, died at the age of fourteen. The greatest affection existed between father and daughter, and Mr. Sinclair never became completely reconciled to her death.
After coming to Los Angeles Mr. Sinclair engaged in the contract- ing and real estate business. He was a member and stockholder of a syndicate which acquired and developed a tract of land known as the Arlington Heights Extension, also Lafayette Square. He was likewise interested in the Country Club tract. He was also a member of the realty firm of Cribb & Sinclair, who put on the market the Garfield and West Garfield Heights tracts, two other valuable and attractive additions to the city. The firm also handled the Venice Annex at Venice.
Mr. Sinclair was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Municipal League. He was very active in the prohibition movement and a member of the Anti-Saloon League. He could be counted upon to contribute to every worthy charity, and was a man of great force of character and of strong religious tendencies. For years he was a mem- ber of the Haven Methodist Church. He was instrumental'in building ยท a new church home there. Later, on account of a change of residence, he became a member of the West Adams Methodist Church and had a constructive part in the building of the present church home of that denomination.
In July, 1909, Mr. Sinclair married Martha Roberts of Cherokee, Iowa, who had come to Los Angeles to make her home. The late Mr. Sinclair was a republican, but was interested in politics only to the extent of his individual vote and influence. In 1919 Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair made an extended trip to several of the Western and middle states. On his return he seemed in the best of health, but he died Janu- ary 30, 1919, after a short illness. Besides Mrs. Sinclair, he is survived by one daughter, Daisy. Daisy is a graduate of the Los Angeles High School and the School of Oratory of Southern California. In Novem- ber, 1906, she became the wife of George W. Baird.
Frank Weg Taylor.
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FRANK WING TAYLOR was a resident of Los Angeles for twenty- three years and he and his family have long been prominent socially, in business and professional affairs of Southern California.
Mr. Taylor, who died in 1918, a short time before the close of the World war, was born at Troy, New York, April 28, 1856, a son of Tracy and Ella (Wing) Taylor. The Taylor home was at 122 First Street, in Troy, and next door lived Russell Sage and wife. Mrs. Sage often took care of Frank Wing Taylor as a baby and loved him as a child.
His mother was a daughter of Abraham Wing, a pioneer lumberman of New York. The Wing mill site for several years was known as Wing's Falls, and later the name was changed to Glens Falls, now an important city of New York State. Abraham Wing was known for his extensive charities and his kind and lovable nature.
Tracy Taylor was a descendant of the Tracy family. Baron John D. Sudley, Lord of Sudley and Toddington, in the year 1140, married Grace, daughter and heir of Henry De Traci, feudal Lord of Barn- stable. The Traci family boasted of descent from the Saxon kings of England.
April 24, 1783, Mary Tracy was married to Nathan Taylor, and their twin children were Tracy and Mary Taylor. The name Tracy has reappeared in every generation of the Taylor family since then.
Frank Wing Taylor received his early education in Bennington, and later attended college at Davenport, Iowa. While in Chicago he met Miss Minnie Cray, and they were married June 6, 1883, at high noon, in Grace Episcopal Church. Miss Cray was an orphan. Her father, Edward A. Cray, had a general merchandise store at Fort Edward, New York, and was a prominent Mason, and died November 3, 1863. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were distantly related. Mrs. Taylor's mother, Mary Eliza Parke, was a daughter of John C. Park of Whitehall, New York, and Mary Eliza Wing, niece of Abraham Wing, grandfather, as noted above, of Frank Wing Taylor.
Before his marriage Mr. Taylor had traveled quite extensively with his mother both in this country and abroad. He had attended the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, and the Paris Exposition of 1878. His mother, Ella Wing Taylor, and his wife's mother were both graduates of the Emma Willard Seminary for Young Ladies, at Troy, New York, a seminary that has since been liberally endowed by Mrs. Russell Sage.
At the time of his marriage Mr. Taylor took a position in the First National Bank of Chicago under Lyman Gage. This was the first and only position he ever held, and he remained there ten years. He left at the death of his mother, which made it necessary for him to take care of his inheritance, which came to him from his maternal grandfather. He never resumed business again beyond the responsibilities required in looking after his private property.
Mr. and Mrs. Taylor moved to Los Angeles in October, 1894. The physicians had given Mrs. Taylor six months to live, but she is alive and well today. They brought with them their five small children. Their first home was at 2110 Grand Avenue, then the only house in the block. After a year, they bought property at the corner of Adams and Grand. Mrs. Taylor was attracted to this home by reason of its trees and flowers. Later they made a trip abroad with their three older sons, and on returning gave their serious attention to the education of the boys.
Edward Cray Taylor, the oldest son, graduated from the Los Angeles High School, and four years later entered the University of California at Berkeley. He remained there until the earthquake, when
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he continued his studies at Columbia University, graduating in architec- ture. He then made a second trip abroad to study at first hand the greatest monuments of architectural genius on the continent and which he had seen only superficially on his first trip to Europe.
The second son, Ellis Wing Taylor, also attended Columbia Uni- versity, but graduated from the University of California in construction engineering. The third son, F. William Howard Taylor, was a student at Berkeley, but graduated in medicine from the University of Southern California and became an X-ray specialist.
At the entrance of the United States into the war, all of the sons of Mr. and Mrs. Taylor enlisted. The three older boys took the exam- ination and all were commissioned first lieutenant, two in the army and one in the navy. The oldest son went to France with the Twenty-fifth Regiment of Engineers, and from March, 1918, was engaged in con- structing roads, railways, hospitals and bridges near the front lines, and performing every other duty required of the engineers. He was instru- mental in having the school of Toulouse opened to the American en- gineers, artists and architects. He has a diploma and medal from Toulouse for work done there. The great sorrow of his family in the death of his father occurred while he was in France, and the news did not reach him for several months.
The second son went to Annapolis and was allowed to choose where he would be stationed. He entered the submarine officers' school at New London, Connecticut, where he was graduated in June, 1918, and passed with such high honors that he was again allowed freedom of choice and selected the Western coast and was made commander of submarine F-3. He was at San Pedro at the time of his father's death and during a furlough proved the stay and comfort of his mother during the sorrowful time.
The third son became an X-ray instructor in the Medical Corps at New York, and was recommended for a captaincy, but on account of his extreme youth the commission was withheld.
The fourth son, Fred Taylor, who had been injured in an accident, also did his bit by work in the shipyards during the war.
The older daughter, Barbara, a gifted harpist, during the war graduated in a course in first aid work with the Red Cross and was busily engaged in war duties, not only with her harp, but with her hand. She is the wife of Charles Roger Kierhulf, a junior member of the firm C. R. Kierhulf & Company, electricians' supplies, and who during the war was in the navy, at the Reserve Training Station at San Pedro.
The younger daughter, Alma, who was born in Los Angeles, was married to William H. Eaton Jr., son of William H. Eaton, after whose family Eaton's Carryon was named, and whose grandfather con- structed the first water line into Pasadena. William H. Eaton Jr. during the closing months of the war was in the Artillery Officers' School at Camp Taylor, Louisville, Kentucky.
The late Frank Wing Taylor was one of the promoters of the Chess Club of Los Angeles, and as a member of the Athletic Club was chairman of its Chess Club. He was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church, and in politics was always a democrat.
TIMON EVANS OWENS. Los Angeles has had a number of years in which to appreciate and estimate the ripe scholarship and versatile gifts and abilities of Timon Evans Owens. Mr. Owens was for a number of years a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church, served one of the
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churches in the Los Angeles district for several years, and while still in the ministry studied law and is now well established in a successful prac- tice.
He was born near Clarksville, in Clinton County, Ohio, May 24; 1874, a on of Rev. Asa H. and Julia (Evans) Owens. His father was a native of Illinois and his mother of Ohio, and they are now liv- ing in retirement at Deerfield, Michigan. Rev. Asa H. Owens spent his active life as a clergyman of the Methodist Protestant Church and did his work for many years in Ohio. He celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday on April 16, 1919. The Owens family came originally from Ireland about 1800. Through his mother Mr. Owens has a strong strain of Welsh. The Evanses came from Wales and first settled near Philadelphia about 1700, and later generations moved to Pennsylvania and Ohio. There was a Timon Evans who was killed as a soldier in the French and Indian war in 1755, and later members of the same. family fought in the Revolution. A grandson of the soldier Timon Evans, who was born in 1805, was the namesake of the Los Angeles lawyer.
The latter is the oldest of a family of two sons and one daughter, and the only member of his family living in the west. He was educated in public schools and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in the class of 1899 from Adrian College, Michigan. During 1902-03 he was a student in Yale University, and in 1905 received his Bachelor of Divin- ity degree from Berkeley Divinity School at Middletown, Connecticut. He was ordained in the Episcopal Church by the bishop of Connecti- cut at Middletown in 1905. For one year he was instructor of Greek in Adrian College, his alma mater, and after that for ten years was in the ministry of the Episcopal Church. He filled pulpits in important churches in Washington, D. C., and Philadelphia, and in 1910 came to Los Angeles as pastor of the Church of the Ascension at Boyle Heights. He remained in the active work of that profession until the close of 1915. Mr. Owens studied law in the Law Department of the University of Southern California. He was admitted to the California bar in 1916, and received the degree Juris Doctor from the University of Southern California in 1918.
He is a member of the Alpha Tau Omega College Fraternity, the Sigma Iota Chi, honorary scholarship legal fraternity; the Union League Club of Los Angeles, and is a Royal Arch and Scottish Rite Mason.
ROBERT IRWIN ROGERS, one of the vice-presidents of the Merchants National Bank of Los Angeles, has been continuously identified with banking in this city and Pasadena for nearly thirty years.
He was born at El Paso, Illinois, son of Samuel Talmadge and Mary Virginia (Pickrell) Rogers. Through both parents he is eligible by ancestral record to membership in the Sons of the American Revolu- tion. His father served four years in the Civil war, being a first lieu- tenant in Company A of the 86th Illinois Infantry. He was successful in business and was a banker at El Paso, where he died in 1884. His widow survived him and came to Los Angeles where she died in 1916.
Robert I. Rogers, only living child of his parents, attended the public schools of his native town and was a student in Eureka College in Illinois. Part of his student life was spent abroad, traveling in Europe during 1886-87-88. During that time he attended a technical school at Leipsic, Germany. After returning to this country and to his old home in Illinois he started West, and for three years lived in Kansas,
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Montana and other states and territories. In 1891 Mr. Rogers came to Los Angeles and in the same year went to work for the National Bank of California. Eventually he was made assistant cashier, but in 1905 he became cashier of the First National Bank of Pasadena. He was also a director of that bank and a director of the Pasadena Savings & Trust Company. Returning to Los Angeles in 1907, Mr. Rogers became cashier of the National Bank of California and in 1908 was elected vice-president. When in May, 1917, the consolidation of banking inter- ests occurred by which the National Bank of California lost its identity in the Merchants National Bank, Mr. Rogers remained as one of the vice-presidents of the larger institution. With the exception of two years, thereafter, he has been a member of the personnel of this bank since 1891.
Mr. Rogers is president of the United Eastern Mining Company, owning the largest gold mine in the United States today. During the war he was a member of the civilian committee to make preliminary investigations prior to the action of military authorities in the case of candidates for officers training camps and other army positions. He is a republican, member of the California Club, Los Angeles Country Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Automobile Club of Southern Cali- fornia, Midwick Country Club, Ceretos Gun Club and Bohemian Club of San Francisco. His favorite recreation is fishing and shooting.
June 28, 1895, Mr. Rogers married Miss Mabel Josephine Clement, who was born at Willoughby, Ohio, and finished her education in LaSalle Academy at Boston, Massachusetts. Her father, the late George W. Clement, was a man of much prominence in Northern Ohio. Mrs. Rogers is also eligible to membership in the Daughters of the American Revolu- tion.
RALPH B. HARDACRE is prominently known in banking circles at Los Angeles and has devoted practically all his mature years to banking experience. He is now vice-president of the Security Trust and Savings Bank.
Mr. Hardacre was born at Englewood, Chicago, Illinois, in Decem- ber, 1878. His father Joseph Hardacre was lieutenant of a company in the Union army during the Civil war. Ralph B. Hardacre was educated in the public schools of Chicago, and acquired his first bank training in that city before coming to Los Angeles. He is well known in clul and social circles, is a Mason, a member of the Sons of the American Revo- lution, an honorary member of the Loyal Legion, and belongs to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the California Club and Los Angeles Country Club.
ELBRIDGE EDWARDS HEWITT was one of the notable pioneers in southern California, was a California forty-niner and became identified with Los Angeles and tributary country during the period of the Civil war.
He was born in Steuben County, New York, August 12, 1828, and died at Los Angeles June 10, 1895. His first American ancestors reached this country and settled in Connecticut in the early part of the seventeenth century. Grandfather Randall Hewitt was an officer in Washington's army during the Revolution. The father, Richard Hewitt, a native of New York state, practiced medicine in New York, Ohio and Missouri over forty years. Dr. Richard Hewitt married Hannah H. Parker, whose ancestors came to America from Wales during colonial times. Dr. Hewitt and wife were married in 1827, and in 1831 moved to Tuscarawas
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County, Ohio, where Elbridge E. Hewitt spent much of his early life. His father represented his district two terms in the Ohio Legislature, and in 1845 he was appointed by the President agent to the Wyandotte Indians, a responsibility that took him out to the frontier at what is now Kansas City, Kansas.
Elbridge Edwards Hewitt was seventeen years of age when the family left Ohio, and in the meantime he had attended district school. From 1845 to 1847 he was clerk in an Indian trading post at what was then known as Westport Landing, but is now Kansas City. In April, 1847, he enlisted in the Twelfth United States Infantry during the war with Mexico. The commander of his brigade was Franklin Pierce, afterward president of the United States. He participated in the ad- vance from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico and fought at Contreras and Churubusco and was slightly wounded in the former engagement. At the close of the war he declined appointment as second lieutenant in the regular army in order to come to California. News of the gold dis- covery had just reached him, and he and two other young men from Kansas City crossed the plains and arrived in the Golden State in Sep- tember, 1849. During the next four years he was engaged in mining and merchandising in Mariposa, Merced and Stanislaus Counties.
Mr. Hewitt first reached Los Angeles July 31, 1863. He soon after- ward walked five hundred miles to a mining camp in Arizona, and after some varied experience entered the service of General Phineas Banning at Wilmington. He was there six years, until the completion of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, of which he became superintendent in 1870. Later he was division superintendent of the Southern Pacific Com- pany and the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, and continued a leading figure in railroad and other financial affairs in southern Cali- fornia until he retired in 1891. He had more mileage under his super- vision than any other superintendent in the United States. His home was at Wilmington until February, 1874, when he removed to Los An- geles. He served as treasurer of Los Angeles County from 1876 to 1878. He declined nomination for Congress, being too busy with his railroad duties to accept the honor. He was at one time brigadier general in the National Guard of California. General Hewitt was the first master of Wilmington Lodge of Masons and was a Knight Templar in that order.
At Wilmington, in October, 1866, he married Miss Susan Garrett, a native of Arkansas. She died at San Francisco November 13, 1907. Mr. and Mrs. Hewitt had three children: Rowena, who died at Bakersfield, California, June 13, 1905; Richard H., now living in Youngstown, Ohio, and Mrs. Phineas W. Bresee of Los Angeles.
SYLVESTER L. WEAVER is one of the most widely known, business men and citizens on the Pacific Coast, though when he came to Los Angeles, less than twenty-five years ago, he was satisfied to work as an office boy.
He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, July 7, 1878, a son of Frank M. and Jane (Laflin) Weaver. Equipped with a grammar and high school education, he reached Los Angeles in 1895, and soon afterward became office boy with a local branch of a San Francisco manufacturing concern. While known in later years as a man of wide and diversi- fied interests, Mr. Weaver made his primary success by keeping close to the work which destiny assigned him. He was advanced eventually to the position of sales manager for the San Francisco house and
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built up a large business largely through his personal following. He resigned in May, 1910, to go into the same business for himself, estab- lishing the Weaver Roof Company, of which he is president and general manager. This company are manufacturers of roofings, building papers and paints, and the product is now shipped to all parts of the southwest- ern states, the west coast of America and to South America. The business is one employing a hundred ten people. Mr. Weaver is also a director of the Los Angeles Pacific Navigation Company and served two terms as president of the Building Material Dealers' Asso- ciation.
He is one of the most prominent members of the Chamber of Commerce, is a vice president, is managing director of the Trade Ex- tension Bureau of the Chamber, also chairman of its Foreign Trade Committee and chairman of the Building Development Board. He is a director of the California Development Board, and during the war was regional advisor for the War Resources Committee for ten counties of southern California. He is a director of the Commercial Federation, was a director of the San Diego Exposition, is a past president of the Rotary Club, is a director of the Los Angeles Council of Boy Scouts, and a member of the Jonathan Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Brent- wood Country Club, Rotary Club, Golden State Lodge No. 358, A. F. and A. M., a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, and a member of the B. P. O. E. No. 99. At the municipal primaries May 6, 1919, Mr. Weaver was one of a number of candidates for mayor, and stood third in the number of votes. He is a Presbyterian.
June 2, 1902, at Santa Barbara, he married Mabel Dixon. They have four children: Sylba Titian, born in 1907; Barnaby Sylvester, born in 1908; Rosemary Patrice, born in 1910, and Glendening Winsted, born in 1912, all students in the public schools.
JOSEPH F. RHODES is a building contractor with a long list of in- dustrial, business and residence construction to his credit in California. He served a thorough apprenticeship at the business and is regarded a master of building technique, as well as highly capable executive and leader of men.
He was born at Chicago November 18, 1881, and was given a liberal school and university training by his parents, J. Foster and Margaret (Patterson) Rhodes. He attended the Harvard School in Chicago until he was twelve years old, and was then sent to St. Paul's School at Concord, New Hampshire. He graduated from St. Paul's in 1899, and entering Yale University, received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1903. As a means of learning the contracting business he entered the services of one of the greatest contracting firms of America, the George A. Fuller Construction Company, at New York City. He was in the estimating department of this company and also in outside work as material clerk for one year. He then came to Pasadena, spent one year as manager of the Blow Planing Mill, and for two years was in the credit department of the Baker Iron Works at Los Angeles. Having properly rounded out his training and experience, he became engaged in the contracting business for himself. Mr. Rhodes erected the factory of the Pacific Coast Biscuit Company at Los Angeles, the Hertel Building in Pasadena, and has built many business blocks, apart- ments, houses, hotels, and some of the fine residences of southern California.
He is a member of the Merchants' & Manufacturers' Association,
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the Los Angeles Realty Board, California Yale Club, California Club, Ceritos Gun Club, Valley Hunt Club of Pasadena, and is a Republican and Presbyterian.
At Pasadena, February 14, 1906, he married Louise Bond. They have four children: Foster Bond, born in 1907; Robert E., born in 1910; Kenneth O., born in 1912, and David E., born in 1915. The three older sons are students of the Polytechnic Elementary School at Pasadena, where the family reside.
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