USA > California > Alameda County > Past and present of Alameda County, California, Volume II > Part 6
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As president of the Gardiner Mill Company Mr. Knowland occupied a prominent place in industrial circles, but his interests were not by any means confined to this one connection, as his business ability soon carried him forward into important relations with a number of other equally important enterprises. He was the principal owner of the well known whaler, the Amethyst, which was wrecked some time ago, the crew being rescued by a government relief vessel. He was at one time interested with the Hoopers and Talbots in the San Pedro Lumber Company and acted as director of that concern and also had large interests in the Southern Lumber Company of San Diego, having acted as president and a member of the board of directors. With Governor Lowe, Egbert Judson and other prom- inent men he was at one time extensively interested in mines in Tomb- stone, Arizona. In Alameda he was one of the largest stockholders and a member of the board of directors of the Alameda Bank and a trustee of the Gas Consumers Association, with which he was identified for seventeen years. He was also vice president of the Kennedy Mining & Milling Company of Jackson, Amador county, one of the largest mining industries on the coast, employing about three hundred men at the plant.
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On the 13th of May, 1863, Mr. Knowland was united in marriage to Miss Hannah B. Russell, a native of Bingham, Maine, and they became the parents of the following children: Joseph R .; Hollis P., deceased; Sadie E., who married Professor George E. Coe and who died August 24, 1905; and Lucy B.
Mr. Knowland was well known in fraternal circles, having been made a Mason in Golden Gate Lodge in San Francisco in 1864, although he later transferred his membership to Oak Grove Lodge, No. 215, F. & A. M. He was a member of Alameda Chapter, No. 70, R. A. M .; Oakland Commandery, No. 11, K. T .; Oakland Consistory ; and Islam Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. A short time before his death he was raised to the first section of the thirty-third degree. For a long time he was associated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, belonging to San Francisco Lodge, No. 3. In citizenship he was progressive and public-spirited and took a most helpful interest in matters looking toward municipal advance- ment. He was a constant contributor to the Old People's Home, of which he was one of the trustees, and made various gifts of a similar character, always following the Bible maxim of not allowing his left hand to know what his right hand did. A man of broad and unostentatious charity, of progressive views and stanch honesty of purpose, he rose to a high place among the representative citizens of California, and his name adds to the list of those whose labors have been so far-reaching and beneficial in effect that they have influenced many phases of community development.
CENTRAL NATIONAL BANK.
Among the solid, conservative and most thoroughly reliable moneyed institutions in Alameda county is numbered the Central National Bank of Oakland, which with its savings affiliation, the Cen- tral Savings Bank, has long been a prominent factor in the financial development of this section of the state. The Central Savings Bank is the older institution, having been organized in 1892 as the Home Savings Bank. This title was subsequently changed to the Central Bank and under this name it continued as both a savings and com- mercial bank until August 12, 1909. On that date the commercial business of the Central Bank was turned over to a new institution known as the Central National Bank of Oakland, with a paid up capi- tal and surplus of one million, one hundred and twenty-five thousand
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dollars, which has since been increased to one million five hundred thousand dollars. The Central Bank afterward continued as a strictly savings institution and in April, 1911, its title was changed to the Cen- tral Savings Bank of Oakland, its capital having previously been increased from three hundred thousand dollars to five hundred thou- sand dollars, with a surplus and undivided profits of three hundred and twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars. The combined re- sources of the two banks are approximately sixteen million two hun- dred and sixty-eight thousand dollars. The Central National Bank has assets in the neighborhood of nine million dollars, and the Cen- tral Savings Bank takes rank with the largest institutions of its kind in the city, its assets being approximately seven million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The two banks are housed in a five-story brick and stone building at the northeast corner of Fourteenth street and Broadway, a property which the Central Savings Bank pur- chased in 1892 and which it has occupied continuously since that time. The building has a floor area of about one hundred by one hun- dred feet and this affords ample room for the conduct of the banking business as well as for a spacious lobby. The directors have recently installed new coin and book vaults of the latest design, the former being practically impregnable. The safe deposit vaults are located on the Fourteenth street side of the building and entrance to them may be had both from Fourteenth street and from the lobby of the bank. These are the property of the Central Savings Bank and have the largest and finest safe deposit equipment to be found in Oakland.
The officers of the Central National Bank are as follows: J. F. Carlston, president; H. N. Morris, R. M. Fitzgerald and H. A. Mosher, vice presidents ; and A. J. Mount, cashier. Both banks are under the control of the same board of directors, which is composed of the following members : J. F. Carlston, president; H. N. Morris, vice president; R. M. Fitzgerald, vice president and attorney at law in Oakland; John P. Maxwell of the Maxwell Hardware Company; J. W. Phillips, president of the Grayson-Owen Company, wholesale butchers; T. A. Crellin, of the Morgan Oyster Company and the Ruby Hill Vineyard Company; W. G. Manuel, capitalist; George L. Kraft, capitalist; J. K. Moffitt, vice president and cashier of the First National Bank of San Francisco; A. S. Blake, president of Blake Brothers, Incorporated, and W. T. Veitch, contractor and capi- talist. All of these men have proved their capabilities in representa- tive lines of endeavor and are recognized as farsighted, keen and discriminating business men. They have made the policy of the Cen- tral National Bank and of the Central Savings Bank of Oakland
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one of progressiveness tempered by a safe conservatism and under their efficient management the banks have had a steady and rapid growth, both being known today as being among the leading financial institutions in Alameda county.
CAPTAIN CHARLES NELSON.
The death of Captain Charles Nelson occurred June 5, 1909, and he was buried June 8th, from his beautiful home in Oakland, inter- ment being made in Mountain View cemetery. The many flowers sent as tributes of love and respect by individuals and societies served as a slight indication of the place he held in the estimation of the people of the Bay country. His demise brought to a close a long, honorable, useful and successful life the influence of which was felt as a factor in the pioneer development of the state, as an element in the industrial, social, economic and civic upbuilding of San Francisco and as an influence upon the standards and ideals upon which rest the permanent growth and greatness of the Bay cities. He was numbered among the representative citizens of California and among the men who played an important part in the history of the state. His name was well known in financial circles as president of the Merchants National Bank of San Francisco and in industrial circles as president of the Charles Nelson Company, controlling large lumber and shipping interests and conducting one of the most stable enterprises of its kind on the Pacific coast.
Mr. Nelson was born in Denmark, September 15, 1830, and was a descendant of an old Danish family, whose members for many generations had lived and died in that country. When he was only thirteen years of age he left his family and went to sea, securing a humble position on a vessel and receiving for a month's laborious work seventy-five cents. From this position he rose to that of mate on the ship, for it was found that he had mastered practically every detail connected with the operation of the vessel and could even take the place of cook when necessity arose. On one of his voyages he went to New York in 1847 and two years later sailed from that city for his old home in Denmark, having promised his mother when he left that country that he would return in five years. This was the last time he saw his parents, for his father died in 1850 and his mother in 1863. In the former year Captain Nelson came to California, arriving in the harbor of San Francisco in July, 1850.
CAPTAIN CHARLES NELSON
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He had been attracted by the news of gold discoveries in the state and accordingly turned his attention to mining. However, meeting with only fair success, he determined to engage in work to which he was better adapted and with which he was more familiar and accord- ingly secured an interest in a whaling boat at Sacramento. With the assistance of a comrade he rowed this from Sacramento to Marys- ville, a distance of ninety miles, carrying freight and passengers, and he made the trip frequently, often buying vegetables and garden produce, which were sold in the city. At this time also Captain Nelson took up a government claim, paying two dollars and fifty cents per acre for two hundred and fifty acres of land. During the winter months, when his shipping operations ceased, he engaged men to chop wood and this he sold to the steamers which were engaged in the river trade. In this way he accumulated a small sum of money, and he placed it in the Adams & Company Bank, intending to use it to defray the expense of rebuilding his vessel. However, before he did this the bank, together with other financial institutions in San Francisco, closed its doors and he never received one cent of his hard earned money. He did not, however, allow this to discourage him, but continued his shipping operations, becoming interested in 1862, in connection with a partner, John Kantfield, in a barkentine, this being the first vessel of its kind built on the Pacific coast. Cap- tain Nelson still later became interested in a larger vessel in San Francisco and his holdings along this line increased rapidly and became very extensive with the passing years.
Mr. Nelson's identification with the lumber business in San Francisco dates from 1867, when he purchased an interest in the Kimphill Lumber Company, which controlled large sections of tim- ber land in Humboldt county, California. Mr. Nelson had a great deal to do with the rapid extension of the scope of this business, for he aided in improving the facilities for the manufacture of lumber and was instrumental in securing the purchase of a line of tow boats, on which were shipped large quantities of lumber from the mills to all points along the coast, as far south as San Pedro and north to Portland and Seattle. As his financial resources increased Mr. Nelson invested in vessels of his own and developed a large lumber shipping business on the coast which he owned himself and which he organized and incorporated in 1901 as the Charles Nelson Company, of which he remained president and active manager until his death. This company controls a fleet of steamers, among which is a new one of steel built by Moran Brothers of Seattle. During the period of Mr. Nelson's connection with this concern the officers were
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as follows: Charles Nelson, president; James Tyson, vice president and treasurer; and P. Thompson, secretary. The company enjoys an excellent business reputation and controls a large share of the business in their line in San Francisco and the surrounding country. Their trade has grown so that their territory includes China, South America, Australia and intermediate points. Mr. Nelson remained active in the conduct of his immense shipping interests until a short time before his death, which occurred in 1909, when he was seventy- nine years of age. His unremitting work, his ability, industry and untiring ability constituted some of the greatest and most signal forces in the upbuilding and growth of the business controlled by the Charles Nelson Company. He was endowed by nature with retentive, keen and incisive qualities of mind and in whatever com- plex situation he found himself he possessed the faculty of grasp- ing its details and the no less important ability of executing what he had planned. Under his hands his business grew along con- structive and modern lines, becoming a great, well managed and important institution, a worthy monument to his energy and acumen and a factor in the industrial expansion of a great state.
Captain Nelson was twice married. He wedded in San Fran- cisco on the 13th of October, 1856, Miss Metha Clausen, a native of Denmark, and six children were born to their union, all of whom died in infancy with the exception of one daughter, Margaret, who is the widow of Eugene Bresse of San Francisco. Mrs. Nelson passed away in 1896. She was well known in charitable work in San Francisco and was especially prominent in the affairs of the Old Peoples Home, with which she had been identified for a number of years. At first this was restricted to those of Danish origin, but it finally opened its doors to old people of all nationalities. It is now in charge of Mrs. Bresse, who was appointed president upon the death of her mother. Captain Nelson's second marriage occurred at San Francisco, in 1901, when he wedded Miss Helen Stind, also a native of Denmark. They took a trip around the world, seeing much of interest in the many lands visited. They lived on Seminary avenue in Oakland in one of the fine residence properties of the city, the ten acres of well kept grounds beautified by flowers and trees affording an appropriate setting for the pleasing architecture of the house, and there Captain Nelson spent the later years of his life, going daily to his office in San Francisco.
He was a stanch republican and was identified with the Masonic fraternity. He was also a member of the Dania, a Danish society of Oakland. For four years he served in a creditable and able manner
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as president of the Chamber of Commerce and was throughout his life interested in the growth, development and expansion of San Francisco. The cause of education found in him a loyal and earnest supporter, and for a number of years he was a trustee of Mills Col- lege, the widely known girls' school located near his home. He was a personal friend of Mrs. Mills, the founder. He was himself a scholar and a wide reader, familiar with the best literature, well informed upon questions and issues of the day, a fluent and easy speaker. Those who were fortunate enough to come within the close circle of his friendship found him a large-hearted, broad- minded and liberal man, whose devotion to duty was unswerving and whose honesty of purpose unquestioned through over fifty years of prominent activity in California. His name swells the list of San Francisco's pioneer business men who have built for all time and in whose footsteps their successors must follow closely or else be left behind in a race the honors of which are success, prominence and widespread esteem.
ARTHUR HASTINGS BREED.
Among the men whose initiative, enterprise and ability have been active factors in promoting the remarkable growth and prosperity of the city of Oakland is numbered Arthur Hastings Breed, of the firm of Breed & Bancroft, well known real-estate operators of the city. Mr. Breed has other important business affiliations, and his interests have extended also to politics, in which field his prominence is attested by his position in the state senate, representing the fifteenth senatorial district. He was born in San Francisco, California, No- vember 27, 1865, and is a son of Daniel C. Breed, who came to California by way of the isthmus of Panama in the '50s and was afterward for many years a well known wholesale grocery dealer in San Francisco.
Arthur Hastings Breed acquired his education in the public schools of his native city and after his graduation was for five years connected with the wholesale book and stationery firm of Samuel Carson & Company. He afterward turned his attention to the real- estate business and with this has been connected continuously since that time. He is president of the real-estate firm of Breed & Ban- croft, a corporation, one of the leading companies of its kind in the state, and through his work as its head has proven himself a man of
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administrative ability and executive power of a high order. In addition to this Mr. Breed is president of the Magnesite Dock & Land Company, president of the Pardee Park Company, president of the Roseville Heights Land Company, a director in several other land corporations and also in the Oakland Bank of Savings and the Bankers Trust Company-connections which prove the extent, variety and character of his business interests.
Politically Mr. Breed is a stanch republican and is without doubt one of the leading representatives of this party in Alameda county. From 1899 until 1907 he served as auditor and assessor of the city of Oakland and in 1912 was elected to the state senate for a term expiring in 1916. Mr. Breed represents the fifteenth senatorial dis- trict of California, embracing East Berkeley, the town of Piedmont and a considerable portion of Oakland. He has already made a creditable record as a member of the state legislature and it is a certainty that a great deal of important legislation will bear the stamp of his interest and activity.
On the 9th of May, 1893, in Oakland, Mr. Breed was united in marriage to Miss Caroline Hall, and they have become the parents of four children, three sons and one daughter. Two are students in the high school and the other two are in the grammar schools of Oakland.
Mr. Breed is connected fraternally with the Masons, the Elks and the Native Sons of the Golden West, holds membership in the Bohemian Club of San Francisco and the Nile and Athenian Clubs of Oakland and is a devout adherent of the First Congregational church. Broad-minded and liberal in his views, he has wrought along the lines of the greatest good to the greatest number and his city and state have profited by his efforts in various fields of endeavor. His unbending integrity of character, his fearlessness in the discharge of duty and his appreciation of the responsibilities which rest upon him make him a citizen whose worth is widely acknowledged.
IRMA I. MOON, D. O.
Among the women who have entered the medical profession and proven that their ability is equal to that of brother practitioners is Dr. Irma I. Moon of Oakland, who has her offices in the Union Sav- ings Bank building and who, by the consensus of public opinion, is accounted one of the most skilled and learned representatives of the
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HISTORY OF ALAMEDA COUNTY
medical fraternity. Dr. Moon is a native of Colusa county, Cali- fornia, and in her girlhood days went to San Jose, where she attended high school. Having decided to take up the practice of medicine as her life work, she entered the Pacific College of Osteopathy in Los Angeles. The faculty of this college includes many regular medical practitioners, as well as osteopathic practitioners. Its students, there- fore, have an unusual opportunity to gain an unprejudiced knowl- edge of the differet systems of treating diseases. The school ranks today among the foremost in America, and it was from this institu- tion that Dr. Moon was graduated. Immediately afterward she established an office in Oakland, and since 1905 she has continuously enjoyed a growing practice in the city-a practice that is now very extensive.
Dr. Moon belongs to the American, Bay and State Medical Asso- ciations, which were organized to further the interests of osteopathy through uniting the members of that branch of practice more closely. They have also thus been enabled to keep their practice upon a high ethical standard. Since taking up professional duties, Dr. Moon has been an active member of those organizations. She is also well known in social circles of Oakland and is a member of the Home Club and of the Eastern Star.
WILLIAM H. L. HYNES.
William H. L. Hynes, as district attorney of Alameda county. has discharged his duties with a sense of conscientious obligation, combined with ability that has made his record a notable one. He is an able and learned lawyer, whose progress has been continuous and gratifying, since his admission to the bar. He was born in San Francisco, June 12, 1874, and is a son of Patrick and Alicia M. Hynes, who in 1877 removed to Oakland, so that the son became a pupil in the public schools. He passed through consecutive grades until he graduated from the high school, with the class of 1893, after which he attended the University of California and was grad- uated in 1897. He next became a student in the Hastings College of the Law, in which he completed his course with the class of 1898, and in January, 1899, he entered the office of the district attorney in Oakland, in the capacity of deputy. He was gradually advanced in that connection, until 1907, when he became first assistant, and on the 2nd of December, 1912, he was elected district attorney, which
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position he is now capably filling. He has prosecuted all the im- portant civic cases during the past six years and has made a splendid record, standing stanch and firm in support of the legal interests of the district. His cases are prepared with thoroughness and care and the strength which he manifests in their prosecution is evidenced in the favorable verdicts which he has won. Aside from his active duties as prosecuting attorney, he is now professor of medical juris- prudence in the Oakland College of Medicine.
Mr. Hynes was married in Alameda, California, to Miss Pauline Merle on the 5th of February, 1902, and they have one child, Adrien M., who is eight years of age. In religious faith, Mr. Hynes is a Catholic, and his political belief is that of the republican party. He is prominently identified with various fraternal and social organ- izations, being a member of Piedmont Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West and member of the grand parlor; a past exalted ruler of the Elks lodge; a member of the Moose; of the University of California Club; the Unitarian Club of Alameda ; and the Alumni Council of the Newman Club of the University of California.
His social qualities and personal worth have won him wide popularity, while his professional ability ranks him with the repre- sentative citizens of Oakland.
GEORGE WATKINS HOLLISTER.
One of the most prominent, able and successful members of the Alameda county bar is George Watkins Hollister, who since 1895 has been in the general practice of his profession in San Francisco. He was born near Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, October 15, 1866, and is a son of Levi J. and Lydia ( Dodge) Hollister, the former a native of Ithaca, New York, born in 1820, and the latter of Wisconsin. The father went to the latter state in 1840 and twenty years later moved to Kansas, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits. From Kansas he went in 1880 to Oregon, turning his attention to farming and merchandising and continuing in both lines of occupation until his death, which occurred in 1904.
George W. Hollister began his education in Wisconsin, later moving to Kansas, where he continued his studies, graduating from the high school in Ellsworth in 1881. After laying aside his books he turned his attention to farming and followed this occupation for about eight years, abandoning it eventually in order to take up the
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HISTORY OF ALAMEDA COUNTY
study of law, a profession which had always attracted him and which he had determined to make his life work. In 1889 he began reading with the firm of Bonham & Holmes of Salem, Oregon, and in 1894 was admitted to the bar, coming in the following year to California and settling in San Francisco, where he has since engaged in the practice of his profession. Well merited success has attended his labors during the years, and he has built up a large and representa- tive patronage, connecting him with much important litigation. He is known as a strong and able practitioner, possessed of a compre- hensive and exact knowledge of the underlying principles of his profession and logical in his application of them, and his success places him today among the leading members of the legal fraternity in this section of the state.
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