San Bernardino California

Biography of William Jesse Curtis

William Jesse Curtis, attorney at law in San Bernardino, is the oldest son of Hon. I. C. Curtis and Mrs. Lucy M. Curtis. His father was for many years a prominent member of the bar of Marion County, Iowa, and represented that county for several terms in the State Legislature. His mother is the daughter of Jesse L. Holman, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State of Indiana, and a sister of Hon. William S. Holman, now a distinguished member of Congress from that State. Mr. Curtis was born at Aurora, Indiana, on the 2d day … Read more

Biography of Theron H. Palmer

Theron H. Palmer, architect and builder, and a worthy representative of the business men of Southern California, was born February 14, 1849, in Joliet, Illinois, to which place his parents emigrated from New York State several years previous. In his early childhood they removed to the young city of Chicago, where young Palmer attended school, and upon entering his teens started in to learn the drug business. Soon after the war of the Rebellion broke out, though considerably under the required age, fired by youthful patriotism, he attempted to enter the army, and was twice thwarted in his purposes by … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Joseph David Gilbert, Sr.

Joseph David Gilbert, Sr., a prominent farmer near San Bernardino, is a native of Cattaraugus County, New York, born in 1827. His grandfather ran away from London, England, and was a soldier in the French and Indian war, also in the Revolution. His father, Truman Gilbert, married Rebecca Fay, a native of England, and immediately after his marriage he moved to the Western Reserve in Ohio, where he remained until 1842, when he moved to the Mississippi river, and from there to Montana, where he died in 1882. The subject of this sketch kept a ferry at Montrose, across the … Read more

Biography of Colonel William R. Tolles

Colonel William R. Tolles, President of the San Bernardino Board of Trade and one of the most enterprising and public-spirited citizens of the county, was born in Litchfield County, Connecticut, in 1823. His father was one of the original settlers of the famous “Western Reserve” in northern Ohio, having moved there and settled in Geauga County in 1837; there William passed his youth, excepting five or six winters which he spent in the South for the benefit of his health. He was in Arkansas when the Legislature of that State declared its secession from the Union, and he was a … Read more

Biography of William Francis Holcomb

William Francis Holcomb, a member of the Society of California Pioneers of San Bernardino County, and the discoverer of gold in the valley which bears his name, was born in Indiana in 1831, but his parents moved to Will County, Illinois, in his infancy, where they lived till he was eight years old. They then went, in 1839, to Iowa and located in Portland, Van Buren County Iowa. His father having died, his mother moved with her family in 1845 up into Wapello County and took up a piece of Government land. The same year his oldest brother, Stephen Holcomb, … Read more

Turner, Zeek – Obituary

Richland, Oregon Zeek Turner, 91, of Richland died April 23, 2002, at the Boise Veterans Hospital. A Celebration of Life memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Richland Christian Church. Pastor Gordon Bond of the church will officiate. Disposition was by cremation at Gray’s West & Co. Pioneer Crematory. Zeek was born on Dec. 8, 1910, at Homer, La., to Zeban and Rosalee Turner. He was raised by his grandfather at Marshall, Texas. He was married to Margaret Clark around 1960. He served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946. After his discharge he and Margaret … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Amos Stiles

Amos Stiles, retired, San Bernardino, was born in Kennebec, Maine, in 1823. His father, Israel Stiles, a farmer, moved to the northern part of New Brunswick. In 1843 the subject of this sketch went to Ohio, where he remained four years, and then returned to New Brunswick, where he remained until 1819. He was married in Nova Scotia, in 1849, to Miss Rebecca O’Brien, and soon after his marriage he moved to Utah, where he lived four years. In 1860 he left with teams for California, and arrived in San Bernardino in December of the same year. Here he bought … Read more

Biography of George Edmund Otis

George Edmund Otis, a leading member of the Southern California bar, is a descendant of one of the oldest New England families, his ancestors having emigrated from Somersetshire, England, about 1630. That he springs from a cultured family is evidenced in the fact that his paternal great-grandfather was one of the early graduates of Harvard University, as far back as 1752, and his father was a graduate of the same institution ninety years later. His mother was a direct descendant of Judge Sewall, who is associated in history with the hanging of the witches in the seventeenth century. Mr. Otis … Read more

Biography of John Calvin Christy

John Calvin Christy, one of the leading members of the San Bernardino Bar, and Court Commissioner of the County, was born in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, January 1, 1839. He was educated in his native State, attending college from 1855 to 1859. Coming west to Illinois, in 1859, he located in the southern part of the State, known as Egypt, read law during 1859-’60th and in the spring of 1861 was admitted to the bar. He soon afterward entered the army as a member of Company B, Eighteenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served nearly four years, two years of the time … Read more

Biography of Joseph C. Rich

Judge Joseph C. Rich, eldest son of Hon. Charles C. Rich, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this history, was born in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, January 16, 1841. His mother’s maiden name was Sarah D. Pea, good stock all around, his ancestors being of that hardy pioneer school who have subdued the wilds of the middle and western states and made possible the grandeur of those noble commonwealths. When but a boy of five years he, in connection with his parents and several thousand others, was driven from the city of his birth by mobocratic persecution, and commenced … Read more

Biography of John Andreson

John Andreson, prominent among the men whose business sagacity and enterprise have made San Bernardino an important railroad center, and one of the prettiest and most flourishing interior cities of California, was born in Schleswig-Holstein, near the border of Denmark, in 1834. He came to America, sailing around Cape Horn to the Peruvian Guano Islands, in 1850, and returned with the loaded vessel to London, England. While there he taw the grand pageant on the anniversary of the Queen’s birthday, and saw the Queen near Buckingham Palace. In 1852 he returned around Cape Horn to the Pacific coast, and, after … Read more

Biography of David H. Wixom

David H. Wixom, the tenth of a family of twelve children of Nathan J. and Betsy (Hadlock) Wixom, was born in 1848 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In 1850 his parents started with their family, consisting then of ten children, to cross the plains to California. They loaded three ox teams and one horse team with their effects, and brought fifty cows, ten head of horses and a small flock of sheep over as far as Salt Lake, where they spent the winter, and there their eleventh child, Charles W. Wixom, was born. In the spring of 1852 they resumed their … Read more

Biography of John Calvin Dixon

John Calvin Dixon, proprietor of the C. O. D. Grocery, San Bernardino, was born in 1840, in Reynoldsburg, Franklin County, Ohio, and there spent the first eighteen years of his life. In 1858 he moved with his father’s family to Jasper County, Iowa, and there his father, who was a brick-mason by trade, and had also been a farmer, engaged in the grocery business, with John as assistant in the store. Upon the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion he promptly responded to his country’s call for volunteers and enlisted as a member of the Fifth Iowa Infantry … Read more