USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego county, California; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume II > Part 8
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and is one of the largest enterprises of this kind in the city. In twenty-four years Mr. Schiefer has built up the business through successive stages of progress and advancement and has made it prominent in industrial circles of the city. He is a judicious and able man and has, therefore, an extensive patron- age, which is constantly increasing, owing to his straightforward methods and unfailing cordiality.
Mr. Schiefer was married in Saxony, Germany, in February, 1873, to Miss Amelia Reuschel, and they became the parents of ten children: Frank, Jr., who is thirty-two years of age and who is a building contractor in San Diego; Mrs. Leta Hall, of Los Angeles; Mrs. Ella Cornell, of San Diego; Mrs. Elizabeth Dorsen, of Alaska; Hattie, who lives at home; Paul, who is a partner in his father's business; Arthur and Ernest, who are also associated with their father; Julia, who lives at home; and Carl, who is attending high school.
Mr. Schiefer gives his allegiance to the democratic party and, while he is never active politically, lias done much during the course of his career to pro- mote the public interests. He belongs to the Fraternal Brotherhood, his only fraternal affiliation. He is a devout adherent of the Lutheran church. Mr. Schiefer is a progressive business man, alive to the trend of modern develop- ment and capable of commanding and making use of opportunities. Through legitimate lines of trade he is building up a growing enterprise, which in its steady expansion is indicative of his spirit of enterprise and his keen discrimina- tion.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM MIFFLIN SMITH.
Although retired from active business for many years, Captain William Mifflin Smith is prominently and widely known in San Diego. While he has now reached the advanced age of seventy-six years, he is still active in various connections and at all times keeps abreast with the interests of the age. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 23, 1836, and is a great-grand- son of Governor Mifflin of Pennsylvania, who also served as general in the Revolutionary war, and after attending private schools continued his educa- tion in Bolmar's Academy at Westchester, Pennsylvania. He served a term of apprenticeship in the Norris Locomotive Works, now the Baldwin Locomo- tive Works, of Philadelphia and, attracted by the broadening opportunities of the far west, came by way of the Panama route to California in 1855. He settled first at Clear Lake in Lake county and there engaged in buying and selling horses and cattle, thus becoming a factor in the pioneer development of the Pacific coast country. In 1861 he joined the Fifth Regiment, California Infantry, and served on the frontier throughout the period of the Civil war, doing duty in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, during which period he par- ticipated in many battles with the Indians. He was twice shot in the leg and had his front teeth knocked out by the butt of a gun. He went through all the hardships of Indian warfare and campaigning, meeting the treacherous and wily savage in his own country. He afterward helped to raise the famous
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New Mexico Infantry and was its captain but later resigned and returned to his old regiment.
While a resident of Lake county Captain Smith was elected to the state legislature but did not take his seat, having no political aspirations. His first visit to San Diego was made in 1857, in which year there was not a tree grow- ing upon the site of the city nor was there a drop of water to be obtained within what is now its precincts. He came to San Diego to reside in 1894, taking up his abode in a city whose beauty is far famed, for the labors of man have converted the barren desert tract into a place of comfortable and stately homes surrounded by beautiful lawns and gardens. For many years he has been retired from active business, yet never ceased to feel a deep interest in all that pertains to the general welfare of the city or to the interests of the country at large.
Captain Smith was married in 1872 to Miss Mary L. Lash, a native of Pennsylvania, and they have three children: Jessie, William Taylor and John W. Captain Smith is prominently known in various fraternal connections. He belongs to the Grand Army of the Republic, to the Loyal Legion, to the Masonic fraternity and to the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. He is one of the oldest Elks in the country and was one of the first members of the old lodge known as "The Jolly Corks," the predecessors of the Elks. He was the third man initiated in Lodge No. 2 in America. He has taken an active part in the work of the local lodge at San Diego, has occupied all of its offices save that of exalted ruler and secretary and was actively inter- ested in the building of the beautiful new Elks Hall in 1907. He hauled the first wagon load of dirt from the excavation when the hall was built and sold it for ten dollars to Thomas Anderson. The spirit of comraderie among its members makes strong appeal to him. Much of his life has been spent in the southwest, where comradeship counts for much and where the individual is rated at his true personal worth and not by his pretensions nor by his pos- sessions.
CAPTAIN E. H. LAYMAN.
Among the citizens of San Diego who are veterans of the Civil war is num- bered Captain E. H. Layman, whose most creditable military record entitles him to the gratitude of the nation. When at the close of the Civil war the victorious Union army marched through the streets of Washington amid cheer- ing thousands who stood on each side of Pennsylvania avenue, there was sus- pended across that great thoroughfare a banner bearing the words: "The only debt which the country cannot pay is the debt which she owes to her soldiers." For four years Captain Layman was at the front, meeting every experience that fell to the lot of the soldier on the march, in battle and in the long, hard campaigns leading up to the final victory that crowned the Union arms. He was a young man of but twenty years at the time of his enlistment, his birth having occurred in Putnam county, Indiana, in 1841. His parents were Albert G. and Jane E. Layman, the former a native of Virginia and the latter of
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Albany, New York. Her father was supreme judge of the state of New York for a number of years and is accounted one of the most distinguished jurists who have sat on the bench of the court of appeals of the Empire state. Captain Layman was the third in order of birth in a family of seven chil- dren, four of whom are living. He spent his youthful days in his father's home and his time was largely devoted to the acquirement of an education. He watched with interest the momentous events which preceded the Civil war and resolved that if a blow was struck to overthrow the Union he would stand loyally in its defense. Accordingly in 1861 he offered his services to the government, joining Company C, One Hundred and Fifteenth Indiana Infantry. During his military career he organized three different companies. His own valor and meritorious conduct won him promotion to the rank of captain and as such he served until September, 1865, being mostly with the Army of the Cumberland in the many hotly contested engagements in which it participated. He sustained two slight wounds during the conflict and after the close of the war was mustered out at Nashville, Tennessee. He never faltered in the performance of any duty, however arduous, and his own bravery and zeal awakened and inspired courage in the men who served under him.
In 1866 Captain Layman removed to Des Moines, Iowa, and for two years was president of the Layman Cold Storage Company there. He then turned his attention to the real-estate business in which he continued until 1904, winning a substantial measure of success in that connection. On leaving the middle west more than eight years ago he came to California, settling at Pacific Beach within the city limits of San Diego, purchasing ten acres of land on which he has erected a fine residence and made various other modern and attractive improvements. He also owns another tract of forty acres also improved and inside the city limits and a farm of three hundred and twenty acres lying within the corporation limits of Des Moines, Iowa, on which there are two coal shafts, the mines paying him a royalty. He also yet owns a fine residence in that city containing twenty rooms and standing in the midst of two and a half acres of ground in one of the most beautiful residential dis- tricts there. At one time he platted forty acres of land inside the city limits of Des Moines but has since disposed of these and is now living retired, his property interests and investments returning to him a gratifying annual income which is the merited reward of his earnest labor, indefatigable energy and sound business judgment of former years.
In 1869 Captain Layman was united in marriage to Miss Maggie Cornelius, a native of Indiana and a daughter of the Rev. W. H. Cornelius, for fifty- two years a member of the Indiana conference. Mrs. Layman was the sev- enth in order of birth in a family of eight children, five of whom survive. To Captain and Mrs. Layman have been born seven children. Albert W. is a practicing attorney of Rapid City, South Dakota. He has recently resigned a position in the government land office and at one time he served as treasurer of Polk county, Iowa, and also as chairman of the republican central com- mittee, being accounted one of the leading and prominent citizens of Des Moines. Jennie K. is the wife of Harry F. Groves, of Des Moines, Iowa, who served for three terms as city treasurer and is vice president of the Merchants
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National Bank there. George H. is at home. Neal W. is living on his father's old homestead at Des Moines and for eight years has served as city assessor there. Daniel W. is a practicing physician of Garwin, Iowa. Estes H. died at the age of six years and Blanch died in infancy. The children have been pro- vided with excellent educational opportunities, Dr. Layman having graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago.
Captain and Mrs. Layman have an extensive circle of warm friends in San Diego, for their sterling worth has gained them high regard during the years of their residence here. In matters of citizenship he is public-spirited and progressive, manifesting the same zeal for and loyalty to his country that he displayed when he followed the old flag on the battlefields of the south.
JUDSON CARTER FRISBIE.
In a history of the development of San Diego and southern California it is worthy of note that Judson Carter Frisbie was the pioneer in planting lemon trees in this section. He was the promoter of much that had direct and import- ant bearing upon the welfare and prosperity of the district and at the same time he was a most active and earnest factor in support of any good work done in the name of religion, temperance or charity. A native of New York, he became a resident of Chicago when fourteen years of age and continued his education as a pupil in a Chicago academy and graduated there. When text- books were laid aside he turned to the business world in search of a favorable opening and eventually became a member of the firm of Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Company, wholesale hardware merchants. In 1876, however, he left the middle west and removed to California where he invested in three hundred acres of land in Sunnyside valley of San Diego county. It was upon that tract that he set out the first lemon trees in this section of the state. For some time he engaged in the cultivation of lemons there and was otherwise regarded as authority upon the subject of fruit-raising. He studied questions relative to horticulture and his knowledge was broad and comprehensive, being based not only upon the reading of scientific works but upon actual study of soil and climatic conditions and experiments in the production of fruit. At length his land was platted into tracts and sold. He made many profitable investments in San Diego real estate and at his death was still the owner of considerable holdings.
At all times Mr. Frisbie took a deep and helpful interest in matters relative to the public welfare. He was an active member of the Chamber of Com- merce and had charge of its fruit exhibit at the mid-winter fair held in San Francisco. He took, too, a deep and most helpful interest in matters rela- tive to the material progress of the community, was an active worker in the cause of temperance and the organizer of the San Diego Anti-Saloon League. He was also an honorary member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and all of his work for the benefit and uplift of the race had its root in his religious faith. He was converted when ten years of age, becoming an active member of the Presbyterian church, but later he became united with the Bap-
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tist church with his first wife, and remained in that faith until his death. A deeply religious spirit actuated him throughout his life and made him a kindly, sympathetic man, charitable in his opinions and in his acts.
Mr. Frisbie was twice married and by the first union had a daughter, M. Jennie, now deceased. In 1897 he wedded Carrie R. Bennett, a native of New York, who gave the site on Fourteenth street in San Diego for the church of the Nazarene and the private school connected therewith, while to the build- ing fund of both she was a generous contributor. She has been a very active helper in all lines of church work, cooperating heartily with the plans of the pastor, the Rev. A. M. Bowes. She has likewise been a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Mr. and Mrs. Frisbie were in full accord in their efforts to help mankind and San Diego lost one of her best citizens when on the 30th of November, 1907, he was called from this life. He left behind an example well worthy of emulation and his memory is enshrined in the hearts of all who knew him.
W. H. ALLEN.
In the list of notable men who have from an early age worked steadfastly and sincerely along worthy lines, met difficulties, conquered obstacles and finally accomplished a triumphant success the name of W. H. Allen, successful busi- ness man and inventor, stands forth conspicuously. He is one of the most deservedly prominent men in San Diego and he has achieved the difficult feat of making a substantial and growing prosperity entirely secondary in import- ance to the honorable and upright methods by which it was attained. A native of New York state, Mr. Allen was born in Elbridge, near Syracuse, April 14, 1859. When he was six weeks old his parents started for California by way of the Isthmus of Panama and landed in San Francisco on the 4th of July, 1859, the mother dying some time later in Calaveras county. His father enlisted in the Bucktail Cavalry, a member of a force of one hundred men who fur- nished their own equipment and paid their own expenses to the front. He became noted later as a sharpshooter and served with loyalty and ability until the end of the Civil war, and was mustered out in Washington in 1865. While in active service he was severely wounded and later captured by the rebels and sent to Andersonville prison, where he spent three months. After his discharge he returned to New York, but died soon afterward from the effects of the hard prison life.
Mr. Allen of this review remained in California until he was three years of age and was then shipped by express to New York, growing to maturity in that state. He is truly a self-made man and in his life has shown the sturdy, reliant and independent spirit which his early responsibilities engendered. Mr. Allen remained in the eastern states until 1900 and then came to California for the second time, taking up ranch lands in the Imperial valley. He was among the first men to cultivate the soil in that region, now famous as the garden spot of the world, and at the present time owns a large part of the city of Imperial, holding title to eighty lots and three houses. Mr. Allen is an
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energetic, aggressive and discriminating business man and in the course of years has become interested in many of the most profitable enterprises in southern California. He is the owner of a wonderful gypsum deposit, covering six hun- dred and forty acres, in which there are ninety-eight million, eight hundred thousand cubic yards of gypsum. This material makes the most durable plas- ter of paris ever yet manufactured and products made from it are rapidly superseding plaster of paris articles imported from Germany. The gypsum deposits, which are being rapidly developed, have aided greatly in the expan- sion of this section of the state and Mr. Allen is now negotiating for the con- struction of a railroad into the territory in order to facilitate the transporta- tion of the raw material.
While his work along business lines has been worthy and effective, it is not as a promoter of business enterprises that Mr. Allen has his truest claim to distinction. He is known besides as an inventor of great talent and has many useful devices upon the market, among which may be mentioned the Sure Hold E. Z. Truss, which commands a ready sale all over the Pacific coast. Mr. Allen is known also as the inventor of the Allen Wave Motor, which is destined to revolutionize the systems of heating and lighting all over the United States. This has been examined by over one thousand of the leading mechanical and hydraulic engineers in the country, all of whom have pronounced it practically perfect. Mr. Allen has offered to pay one thousand dollars to any one who can suggest an improvement upon the article, and as yet his offer has gone unaccepted. For a number of years he has been interested in inventions of all kinds and, because he possesses true inventive spirit, coupled with natural mechanical genius, his work has been productive of some notable and far-reaching results. Men who have examined his devices now upon the market and who have studied his methods and come in contact with his concise, systematic and brilliant mind do not hesitate to predict that his name will ultimately be linked with that of Marconi on a list of men whose work shall live after them to the lasting benefit of mankind.
On November 8, 1885, Mr. Allen was married to Laura E. Rice, a native of New York and a daughter of David M. and M. O. Rice. Mr. and Mrs. Allen have two children, Florence E. and George H., both living at home.
S. G. AMES.
S. G. Ames, of the Ames Realty Company, has along well defined lines of labor reached his present position as a strong and forceful factor in the busi- ness circles of San Diego. He handles ranches, fruit farms, acreage, lots and tracts, and many years' experience with local conditions have splendidly qualified him to conduct negotiations for the transfer of property. He is acquainted with every phase of the business and in addition he possesses the qualities of enterprise and resolution which have brought him to success. Mr. Ames is a native of Maine, his birth having occurred in Palermo on the 6th of Sep- tember, 1867. His parents were Paul and Jane E. A. (Lowell) Ames, the latter a cousin of James Russell Lowell.
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In the acquirement of his education S. G. Ames attended and was gradu- ated from the high school of Unity, Maine, and at the age of eighteen, attracted by the broader opportunities of the growing west, made his way to Nevada, where he engaged in dairying and stock-raising. In 1892 he went to Lakeport, California, and was there married to Miss Lizzie A. W. Nicholl. In Novem- ber, 1893, he arrived in San Diego, where he took up the business of growing citrus fruits. From that time forward he has been identified with business interests in the southern part of the state. In 1900 he removed to Los Angeles, where for three years he was engaged in cement construction work. With his return to San Diego in 1904 he became identified with real-estate dealings and is now conducting extensive and important interests under the name of the Ames Realty Company. He is also interested in properties at Placerville, California. His long residence in southern California, his study of all the conditions affecting the development and welfare of the state, have made him particularly well qualified to carry on the work which now claims his attention and activities and he is meeting with well deserved success.
In 1912 Mr. Ames became largely interested in a colonization project in the Gila river country of Yuma county, Arizona, which contemplates the develop- ment of fifteen thousand acres of agricultural lands.
Unto Mr. Ames by his first marriage was born a daughter, Hope W., on the Ist of January, 1895. The wife and mother passed away on the 19th of December, 1896, and on the 14th of February, 1904, Mr. Ames was again married, his second union being with Miss Helen E. Clapp. She is a daughter of J. D. Clapp, whose history is that of one who was ever consistently master of himself and of those things which go to make up life's contacts and experi- ences. He was resourceful and this led to his connection with various lines of activity affecting both individual and public interests; he was determined and carried forward to successful completion whatever he undertook; he was reli- able and honorable, and thus won the confidence and good-will of all. More than that, there was a strongly developed humanitarian side to his nature that prompted his ready but unostentatious assistance to those in need. He was for a long period a resident of southern California, settling in Riverside at an early period in its development and thereafter closely associated with the fruit- growing interests of that district. He came of New England ancestry, repre- senting a family founded in that section of the country in pioneer times. His father, Nathan Clapp, was a native of Connecticut and in that state was reared and married. He removed with his family to York, Livingston county, New York, when his son, J. D. Clapp, was a little child of two years, and there his boyhood days passed uneventfully. Although his educational opportunities were somewhat limited, owing to the usual condition of schools at that period, he was an ambitious and diligent pupil and acquired a thorough knowledge of the branches of learning which he studied, supplementing his public school course by attendance at the Wyoming (N. Y.) Academy, a well known insti- tution of that day. He possessed marked talent in penmanship and his fine writing always attracted attention and praise. For a time he was a teacher of penmanship in Temple Hill Academy at Geneseo, New York, but later he turned his attention to merchandising. He was a man of patriotic spirit, ever loyal to the best interests of his country, but ill health prevented his enlistment
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for active service in the Civil war. During the period of hostilities between the north and the south he was a resident of Hazel Green, Delaware county, Iowa, but later returned to Livingston county, New York, where he turned his atten- tion to general agricultural pursuits, settling upon a farm. His health, how- ever, remained impaired and he determined to come to California to try the benefits of the salubrious climate of the Pacific coast. Accordingly in 1871 he arrived in Riverside, where he soon regained his health to a considerable degree. Greatly attracted by the place and its opportunities, as well as its cli- matic conditions, he decided to cast in his lot with its citizens, believing that it would one day become a much more populous and prosperous place. He lived to see Riverside the center of one of the best known fruit sections of America and deserved much credit for his contribution to this result. Soon after his arrival there he purchased twenty acres of land on Brocton avenue, which he planted to oranges of various kinds as well as other fruit. In 1880 he bought two and a half acres on Ninth street, on which he erected a pleasant residence in which his last days were quietly and happily passed in the midst of his family. His death there occurred March 23, 1896, when he was seventy-eight years of age. His various enterprises had brought him prosperity and he was able to surround wife and children with all the comforts of life. During his entire business career he never displayed a tendency toward reckless invest- ment but on the contrary was conservative, reaching conclusions after care- fully weighing every side of the question. His opinions were always sound and worthy of respect. While he was without ambition for public office, he was a stanch republican, giving his support to the men and measures of the party. During the latter part of his life he held membership in the Congre- gational church and he was a generous contributor to many charitable and benevolent projects and also gave liberally in private charity. He almost liter- ally followed the scriptural injunction not to let the left hand know what the right hand doeth and never made boast of his kindly aid extended in an hour of need.
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