Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or Santa Clara county, California, Part 70

Author: Foote, Horace S., ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 844

USA > California > Santa Clara County > Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or Santa Clara county, California > Part 70

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Mr. Collins was married, in 1866, to Miss Jennie

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Wilson, a native of Lowell, Massachusetts. To them have been born two sons: Richard E., Jr., engaged in business with his father, and Albert, who is manag- ing the ranch. Mr. Collins is a member of the Masonic Order and Knights Templar. He is also a member and Treasurer of Mt. Hamilton Lodge, No. 43, A. O. U. W., and for eighteen months was a mem- ber of the Board of Education of San Jose. He is a Democrat, and in favor of a modification of the tariff. His parents were Richard H. and Mary (Taylor) Col- lins, both natives of New England. His mother died in 1848, and his father still lives in Boston.

FAPT. HENRY M. BENSON. The life of a man is not counted by the number of years he lives, but rather by the events of that life, and still more largely by the character of those events. Captain Benson, U. S. A., on the retired list, and late Major of the Fourth Infantry Regiment, California Volunteers, has been a resident of this State since 1850. He was born in 1838, in old Franklin, Mis- souri, a town once opposite Booneville, Missouri, but since washed away. His parents were Dr. James Hord and Ruth P. (Switzler) Benson, his father a Kentuckian and his mother a Virginian. His father died in 1849, and in the following year Captain Ben- son came to California with his mother and uncle, his mother marrying Col. Henry P. Watkins, a nephew of Henry Clay, in 1853, in San Francisco. He was educated at Marysville and Oakland. In 1853 he joined the expedition of General Walker to Sonora and Lower California, shouldering his musket and doing a soldier's duty, although a boy only fifteen years of age. It will be seen that he was in good hands, however, when it is stated that General Walker was his step-father, Colonel Watkins' law partner, and he was thus drawn into the venture. On his return to California he attended school for a while, went to the mines for nine months, and then returned to Marysville, where he accepted a position in the post- office. In 1860 he was appointed Port Warden of San Francisco, for which he qualified, but never assumed the duties. Resigning, he commenced the study of law at Marysville, and was appointed Notary Public. In response to the call of Lincoln for volun- teers from this State, in 1861, these duties were re- signed, and he joined the army. They expected to be hurried East and into active service, but the com- mand was sent into Arizona and New Mexico, and

the borders of Texas, to prevent the Confederates from making their way into California. He was with the advanced column that had a sharp skirmish with a detachment of Confederates at Picacho Pass, near Tucson, Arizona Territory, interesting as the nearest point to California where an armed encounter between the opposing forces took place. During this cam- paign he was promoted to the First Lieutenancy, and later to the Captaincy of his company. After the dis- banding of his regiment he was appointed Major of the Fourth Infantry, California Volunteers, serving until it was mustered out, at the close of the war. During the latter two years Captain Benson saw a great deal of service against Indians, and received honorable mention. In 1866 he was appointed Second Lieutenant, and shortly afterward. promoted to be First Lieutenant U. S. A., and has seen active service on the frontier during the greater part of his military career. In the Nez Perces campaign, under General Howard, in 1877, in Montana, during a fight with Chief Joseph and his band, he received a bullet through his hips, and as a result he was laid up for several months. On May 1, 1882, he was promoted to the Captaincy, but his health being impaired on ac- count of his wound and hard service, he went to the Sandwich Islands. On April 24, 1886, he was placed on the retired list, U. S. A., with the rank of Captain.

Captain Benson was married, in 1867, to Miss Mary Francisca Paty, a native of the Sandwich Islands, of American parentage. Her father was Captain John Paty, who owned and commanded a trading vessel that rounded the Horn in 1835, and rendered valuable assistance to General Fremont in the conquest of California. They have six children: Maud, Mary R., Henry P., Dora Brice, Frances, and John Paty, and it is to afford them educational advantages that Captain Benson took up his residence in San Jose. Since retiring from active service he has become interested in mercantile pursuits in the island s.

R. EUTHANASIA S. MEADE. It has re- mained for this age and these climes to disprove conclusively the alleged incapacity of women for the arduous duties of the medical profession. Yet what more fitting than that she who best knows how to soothe the moments of anguish and pain should also watch over and destroy the seeds of disease, and check and alleviate the pangs of suffering and dis- tress. Above all things a physician must be wise,

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tender, and sympathetic, and it is in these very prov- inces that woman is supreme. Hence it is that we hail with joy the enlarging of the mental vision of our days which permits woman to take her proper station by the bedside of illness and disease as a physician.

Among the ranks of the medical profession in San Jose general esteem centers upon Dr. E. S. Meade, a graduate of the regular school, and a physician in large and successful practice. Her attention was first drawn to the profession by incidents occurring during the last years of the War of the Rebellion. At St. Joseph's Hospital, Philadelphia, she gained her first experience in the care of the wounded taken to that point. Four years after the war she graduated at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and practiced under her preceptor, Dr. Wilson, in Philadelphia, visiting the hospitals and gaining practical experience. In 1876- 77 she spent eighteen months in Europe, visiting Vienna, Paris, Berlin, London, Naples, and Rome, omitting no opportunity to perfect her medical knowl- edge both from hospital and other studies in these large cities. In 1869 Dr. Meade came to San Jose and began regular practice. She was the pioneer in San Jose of the idea that woman can intelligently sustain the duties of the medical profession, but she has since demonstrated beyond contradiction the capacity of woman, when properly fitted and prepared by a judicious training, for carrying to the highest suc- cess the best efforts of the physician.

Dr. Meade is a native of Genesee, New York; and by long and severe study, heightened and made prac- tical by travel, observation, and experience, has raised herself to a prominent position. She is a woman of a single purpose, wholly wrapped up in her profession.

RANK BRUNST, manufacturer of and dealer in cigars at No. 131 West Santa Clara Street, San Jose, was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1842. He attended the public schools up to the age of fourteen years, when he commenced learning the cigar and tobacco business, working in his native town for eight years. In 1863 he came to the United States, arriving in New York January 19, 1864, and came almost immediately, via Panama, to San Fran- cisco. He remained in San Francisco four years working at his trade. In 1868 he came to San Jose, where he has remained, engaged in cigar manufactur- ing and dealing. He first commenced this business

with F. Bunemann (lately deceased), but for the last sixteen years has been alone in the business. He sells the most of his goods to dealers in Santa Clara County.

He was married in 1870, to Miss Annie Mercker, a native of Bavaria, Germany. They have one child, Frank Brunst, Jr., engaged in the factory with his father. Mr. Brunst is a member of the Independent Order of Red Men, of Hermann's Sons, and of the Turnverein in San Jose. His parents were John and Magdalena (Gutfreund) Brunst, both natives of Ba- varia. His father died in his native place and his mother came to California and died at the home of her daughter, at the age of eighty-one years.

M ILES HILLS, who has a beautiful home and an orchard of ten acres on the corner of Lincoln and Minnesota Avenues, has been a prominent resident of Santa Clara County for the past twenty years. His home place is planted in three acres of cherries, three acres of apricots, and the bal- ance in a variety of fruits, only partly in bearing, as some of the fruit originally planted has been replaced with others. He also owns a place of 100 acres at Los Gatos, of which thirty-five acres are in prunes, thirty-five acres in almonds, and the remainder will be planted in fruit. He had about ten tons of almonds from the Los Gatos place, but has since grafted prunes on many of the almonds. This year (1888) will be the first in which he will probably have a full crop of both prunes and almonds.

Born in Goshen, Litchfield County, Connecticut, in 1819, he lived there until five years of age. His par- ents were Levi and Huldah (Loomis) Hills, natives of Connecticut. His mother died in Savannah, Georgia, in 1820, when he was about one year old. His father removed in 1824 with his family to Oneida County, New York. There his father carried on a general merchandise business for about ten years. The family again removed, in 1833, locating in La Salle County, Illinois, between Joliet and Ottawa, and there he again engaged in the general merchandise business, in which he continued for about twenty-five years, at Morris, Illinois, where he died in 1865. When the subject of this sketch accompanied his father to Illinois in 1833, the Indians were about selling out and moving West. They passed through Chicago, which was at that time merely a trading station, there being at the mouth of the Chicago River Fort Dearborn, with a few troops, and a few small stores, but no regular streets. The

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town had just been platted that fall. These stores were supported by the Indians and a few straggling settlers who came in to do their trading and sell their peltry and products. During the years Mr. Hills lived in that section it filled up with settlers and be- came wealthy. For twenty-five years the people of his neighborhood, and for much greater distances, hauled their grain and products by wagon to Chicago. He engaged in farming and buying and selling grain during that period, doing business in Morris, Illinois, for about seven years of that time.

He married, in 1847, Miss Charlotte Bushnell, in the town of Lisbon, Kendall County (formerly La Salle County), Illinois. There were born to them six children, four of whom died in infancy. Harriet, born in Lisbon, Illinois, in 1848, is now the wife of Rev. J. H. Wythe, residing in Oakland, California. Edwin M., born in Morris, Illinois, in 1858, is now engaged in managing a stock ranch in Monterey County. Mr. Hills originally came to California by the Panama route in 1855, locating in Santa Clara County. He engaged in buying and selling land in various parts of the State. He returned to Illinois in 1857, and after a residence of ten years in Minneapo- lis, Minnesota, he returned with his family to Cali- fornia and located in San Jose, where he has since resided. Mr. Hills is a Republican in politics and a supporter of tariff for protection.

A. HALE. This representative business man of California is a native of New York, having

150 been born in Phoenix, of that State, in 1852. His parents, Marshall and Prudence Hale, re- moved to. Schoolcraft, Michigan, in 1867, and here young Hale attended the usual school in that section. Coming with his parents to California in 1876, with his father and brother he established a dry-goods business in San Jose, having previously, in New York and Michigan, been engaged in general merchandis- ing. They opened in San Jose, at Nos. 142 and 146 South First Street, in a store 17x40 feet in dimensions, employing one clerk, and a boy to sweep and make himself generally useful. Later, four other brothers joined the firm, which now (1888) has seven stores, one each in San Jose, Stockton, Sacramento, Salinas, Peta- luma, Los Angeles, and San Diego, and are doing prob- ably the most extensive business, in their line, in the State outside of San Francisco. They deal entirely in dry and furnishing goods, some of the stores add-

ing boots and shoes, and absolute sales in excess of a million and a quarter dollars per year are made. The firm imports goods directly from Europe through the importing agencies, one brother having an office in New York to attend to the purchasing and for- warding of goods. In their stores they have but one price, and deal on a strictly cash basis, all goods being marked in plain figures, and a child can buy at the same price as an expert. The firm is doing a large mailing business, orders being received for goods from all parts of the coast. Mr. Hale's success in business is not a phenomenon, nor a question of luck, but is simply the inevitable result of energy, foresight, and push, applied to his business upon a basis of strict honor, integrity, and square dealing. The result, from the forces in operation, is as certain as a simple problem in mathematics.

In 1880 Mr. Hale was married to Miss Mary Bas- sett, a native of California, whose parents were among the pioneers of Santa Clara County, having come across the plains from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, about 1855. Mrs. Hale is a graduate of the California State Normal School, and, previous to her marriage, taught in the San Jose public schools. One child has been born to this marriage, Clarissa J., born in 1883.

In 1887 Mr. Hale was elected Alderman for the city of San Jose, and, having been appointed Chair- man of the Finance Committee, discovered a short- age in the city's cash, thereby saving to the city about $3,500. He has brought his business experi- ence and ability to bear on the city's financial inter- ests with the very best results. He is still a member of the Board of Alderman. He is also a member of the A. O. U. W., and always in the front rank for improvements of all kinds.

ENRY C. AHLERS, importer and dealer in diamonds, solid gold watches, and solid gold jewelry, conducts his business in the same rooms where he established himself nine years ago, on the corner of Santa Clara and First Streets, over the First National Bank of San Jose. Here may be met, at almost any hour of day, inspecting or purchasing, or having former purchases reset or repaired, one or more of the solid people, or of the jeunesse doree, of Santa Clara County. Mr. Ahlers makes a specialty of diamonds, fine jewelry, their setting and manufact- ure. Realizing, while yet learning his business, that a reputation for thoroughness and reliability was es-

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sential to success, also that there was a higher grade of business support in his line, difficult to reach but secure when once had, he kept these objects well in view. Opening his rooms in July, 1879, more espe- cially for the manufacture and repair of fine jewelry, he gradually purchased a stock of goods suitable to his class of customers, not handling any jewelry ex- cept that in solid gold. Being an expert in the se- lection and setting of diamonds, his patrons receive the benefit of his knowledge and judgment, all goods being sold with an absolute guarantee, at a standard price to which a fair profit is added. The successful diamond merchants of the world have been invariably men unerring in selection of gems and unquestionably reliable in their sale. In 1887 Mr. Ahlers carried a stock of diamonds costing as high as $25,000. His watches are almost exclusively of American manu- facture, and from the best makers, among them the Howard, Waltham, and Elgin Watches. When nec- essary, he also manufactures any article of jewelry specially ordered, and carries no jewelry or watches except those in solid gold. Buying all his diamonds unmounted, he sets them in the latest styles or in any special style to order. Some of the work on exhibi- tion in Mr. Ahlers' establishment shows an excellent taste and superb workmanship. There can be seen diamonds varying from the small chip to the larger solitaire of purest water.

A native of Germany, where he was born in 1858, he at an early age came to America, engaging at once in learning the jewelry business, in which he has re- mained continuously up to this time. Besides his jewelry trade, Mr. Ahlers is largely interested in fruit- growing, having a half interest with Mr. F. Brassy in an orchard of 200 acres, seven miles from San Jose, and adjoining the well-known orchard of S. F. Lieb, and the Pourtal vineyard on the Stevens Creek road. They have 160 acres in prunes and forty acres in wine grapes just coming into bearing. He and Mr. Brassy also own an addition to San Jose, consisting of sixty lots on Alum Rock Avenue, near Mclaughlin Ave- nue, called the Brassy & Ahlers tract. There they have erected handsome residences for themselves, and will sell lots only to those who will make corresponding improvements. These gentlemen deserve credit for the valuable improvements in that neighborhood. They have also erected another building of similar charac- ter to help start the movement of the better class of residents in that direction, and have purchased the lots on the opposite side of the Alum Rock Avenue to prevent an inferior class of buildings getting

lodgment there. Mr. Ahlers has been indeed the architect of his own fortunes. Starting in life with no capital but that of ready hands, a clear head, and willing heart, he has while yet young in years achieved a notable success, arising at first from a thorough mastering of his business and a strict attention to it, and later from the judicious investments afforded to his surplus capital in this beautiful and prosperous valley.

EORGE W. OUSLEY. The subject of this sketch is one of the fortunate owners of a fruit farm in the Willows of San Jose, he having eleven and three-fourths acres in that favored locality. Of this tract three acres are in apricots, three acres in pears, three acres in prunes, and one and one- half acres in peaches; the apricots and peaches are in bearing. In 1887 he had about twenty-six tons of apricots, five tons of peaches, and five tons of pears. He bought this place in 1879, paying $440 per acre, and immediately planted a portion to fruit. He has never irrigated his land, as below the first soil is a stratum of water-bearing sandy deposits.

Mr. Ousley was born in Edgar County, near Paris, Illinois, in 1831. He remembers going to Chicago with his father about 1839, at the commencement of Martin Van Buren's presidency, with a load of wheat, which was to be sold to pay the usual taxes. This wheat was hauled about 165 miles, to Chicago, and sold for thirty-five cents a bushel, as money was a very scarce commodity in those days. Considerable corduroy road was traversed in this journey, and five yoke of oxen were required to draw the load.

Mr. Ousley left Paris March 12, 1849, for California. His health being bad, and he having heard much of the healthfulness of the "plains," and of California, he decided to make the trip in that way. His parents,. Henry B. and Sarah (Potts) Ousley, had died when he was a child-his mother when he was three, and his father when he was twelve years of age. His father was a native of Kentucky, but left there in 1831, as he was opposed to slavery; his mother was also a Ken- tuckian, and both parents from the neighborhood of Crab Orchard Springs. Both his paternal and mater- nal grandfathers came from Maryland to Kentucky in the footsteps of Daniel Boone, having been soldiers in the Revolutionary War. They located land warrants at Crab Orchard, Kentucky, and were the first settlers of that place.

Mr. Ousley's journey across the plains was made

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with seven companions and two teams, all arriving safely in California. The train crossed the Missouri River at St. Joseph, May 8, 1849, and arrived at the spot where Placerville is now located on the twenty-fourth of August of the same year. In the fall of 1852 Mr. Ousley located 160 acres and commenced farming in Humboldt County, near Arcata, having previously, in 1850, become interested in a schooner that ran to Humboldt County, also taking a little dip into the mining excitement at Salmon and Klamath Rivers. He left the farm in 1857 to go into the harness busi- ness in Arcata, leaving this in 1861 to go East and enter the United States' service. On his way from New York to Illinois he was prostrated with pneumo- nia and compelled to return to California. In the spring of 1863, Governor Stanford commissioned Mr. Ousley Captain to enlist a company in the northern part of the State to resist the depredations of Indians who had been incited to revolt by sympathizers with the Southern Confederacy. The Captain was in act- ive service in Indian warfare almost continuously un- til his honorable discharge in May, 1865.

Captain Ousley was married May 27, 1863, to Miss Sophronia Underwood, a native of Naperville, Illinois. Five children were born to them, three dying in early infancy, and two-Agnes A., born April 22, 1868, and George W., born July 23, 1869-now attending school in San Jose. Captain Ousley is a member of Phil. Sheridan Post, No. 7, G. A. R., of San Jose, and of Friendship Lodge, F. & A. M. He is also a mem- ber of the Willows Horticultural Society, and is Re- publican in politics, having voted for Fremont in 1856.

RS. PHILIPPINA GRIBNER. This lady, the widow of John Gribner, owns a tract of eight acres on Willow Street, near Lincoln Avenue, San Jose, which is mostly in prunes and cherries, partly bearing. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gribner were born in Germany, the former in Saxonia, in 1825, and the latter in Bavaria in 1832. Mr. Grib- ner came to the United States in 1844, settling in St. Louis. Mrs. Gribner came to St. Louis in 1849, and they were married in 1850. Mr. Gribner was in the blacksmithing business in St. Louis for some years, but in 1852 he and a party of friends bought an ox team and came across the plains to California, stop- ping at Downieville, and mined in that vicinity for about four years. In 1856 Mr. Gribner went back to St. Louis, and in 1857 returned with his wife to Cali-

fornia, coming by way of Panama. In 1858 he went to the Fraser River mines, returning in 1859 to Marysville, where he established a hotel, which he conducted until his death, on the eighth of March, 1884. After her husband's death, Mrs. Gribner re- moved with her family to Santa Clara County, Mr. J. Gribner having purchased the place in the Willows previous to her removal here.

Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Gribner: John V., born in 1851, died in 1852; and George T., born in 1858, is now living in the Willows engaged in fruit-culture on his own place, which is opposite that of his mother. Mrs. Gribner's parents, John and Johanna (Schneider) Hein, were natives of Bavaria. They had eight children, two of whom died in early infancy, the remaining six coming to St. Louis. Of Mr. Gribner's family, although there were several brothers and sisters, he and a brother and sister were the only members to come to the United States. He was a member of Marysville Lodge of Odd Fellows, No. 45.

ILLIAM B. AND JAMES A. McCARLEY, proprietors of the Occidental Stables, at Nos. 28 to 34 North Second Street, have been en- gaged in business in San Jose for the past four years, and for twenty-five years have been residents of Santa Clara County. Their parents are Samuel W. and Hannah A. (Harbert) McCarley, who came to Santa Clara County from Iowa in 1862, where their father engaged in farming until 1880. The boys worked on their father's farm and went to school together until they grew to manhood, and then for five years they farmed together. William B. was born in 1857, and James A. in 1860. In 1884 they established the livery business, in which they have been interested since that time. They own the property on which their stables are located, being 64x 1371/2 feet. By careful attention to their customers, and looking after every detail, they have built up a good business, having added largely to their stock of horses, buggies, and carriages.

William B. was married in 1882 to Miss Mary C. Eddy, of Contra Costa County. They have one child, Lena May, born July 20, 1886. James A. was married in 1884 to Miss Maggie E. Tarpley, of Mar- tinez, Contra Costa County. They have one child, James A., Jr., born in March, 1886. There were six children in Samuel W. McCarley's family, viz .: Annie

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B., the wife of D. B. Fuller, of Evergreen; William B., James A., Mary E., the wife of W. B. Rucker, Deputy County Clerk; Frank J., owning and running a carry-all; and Samuel W., attending school in San Jose. Mr. McCarley owned 200 acres of land eight miles from San Jose, which he sold in 1887 and pur- chased his beautiful home in San Jose. He is a native of Kentucky, near Lexington, and first moved to Illinois, and from there to Jefferson County, Iowa, and thence to California. Mrs. McCarley is a native of Illinois, where she met and married Mr. McCarley.

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Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or Santa Clara county, California, Part 70

Author: Foote, Horace S., ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 844

Author: Foote, Horace S., ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 844