San Bernardino California

Biography of Charles C. Wainwright, M. D.

Charles C. Wainwright, M D., Coroner of San Bernardino County and City Health Officer, was born in Ohio, in 1851, and educated in Cincinnati. He came to California first in 1870, and spent about three years in teaching school, after which he went back East and completed his course in medicine, graduating at Cincinnati Medical College, May 9, 1876. He returned to California the same year and has practiced his profession in the State ever since. He settled in San Bernardino in 1882, and in 1884 was elected coroner on the Republican ticket; was re-elected in 1886, and again in … Read more

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

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 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 Hon. William A. Conn

Hon. William A. Conn, of San Bernardino, is one of those strong individualities in the pioneer history of California, who by his force of character and intellect stamped his impress upon the early civilization of the Golden State. Though a number of the first years of his residence on the Pacific coast were passed in the northern part of the State, at San Francisco, yet for a third of a century Southern California has had the benefits of his public-spirited patriotism, his business attainments and his generous philanthropy. Mr. Conn was born in 1814, on the West India Islands, where … Read more

Biography of John J. Whitney

John J. Whitney, proprietor of the City Planning Mill and lumberyard, and one of the principal manufacturers in San Bernardino County, was a native of Elmira, New York, and was born in 1843. He inherited a talent for mechanics from his father, and being a contractor and practical builder and the owner and operator of a large planning mill in Elmira, afforded him ample means of exercising and developing his innate tendencies. In 1862, in his nineteenth year, he enlisted in the army as a member of the Fifth New York Heavy Artillery; served till the close of the war, … Read more

Biography of John P. Clum

John P. Clum, of San Bernardino, was born in Claverack, Columbia County, New York, in 1851, and his childhood and youth were passed on the banks of the historic Hudson. At the age of nineteen he graduated at the Hudson River Institute, and entered the freshman class of Rutger’s College, New Brunswick, New Jersey. After completing the first year and creditably passing all the examinations, adverse fortune compelled him to leave college, and in 1871 he entered the meteorological service of the United States Government. Having taken a course in meteorology and signaling, he was ordered to Santa Fe, New … Read more

Biography of William A. Harris

William A. Harris, attorney-at-law and a member of the firm of Harris & Gregg, was born in 1854, in Tennessee. He was educated in the schools of that State; studied law in Memphis with Colonel George Gantt and W. W. McDowell, both distinguished members of the Tennessee bar, and was admitted to practice at the remarkably early age of nineteen. On attaining his majority, after two years of practice in his own state, he came to California, and located in San Bernardino in 1875, and has practiced his profession here ever since, excepting two years spent in Leadville, Colorado, where … 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

Biography of John Hartley Smith

John Hartley Smith, the founder and president of the First National Bank of San Bernardino, and one of the most thorough business men and experienced bankers in Southern California, was born in Jackson County, Virginia, in 1835. He came to Ohio at the age of fifteen, and in 1853 he came to California and spent two years in the gold mines, chiefly in Mariposa County. He was quite successful, and in 1855 returned to Ohio with considerable money and a fund of experience which has proved of great value to him in his subsequent business career, as well as fraught … 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

Biography of Hon. John Lloyd Campbell

Hon. John Lloyd Campbell, Judge of the Superior Court in and for San Bernardino County, was born in Equality, Gallatin County, Illinois, in 1855. His father, Hon. John Lewis Campbell, was connected with the banking business in Shawnee town, and with iron and salt manufacture in Southern Illinois for many years. In 1857 he moved to Sioux City, Iowa, and was there elected County Judge. When the war of the Rebellion broke out, he moved back to Illinois and enlisted in the Third Illinois Cavalry, of which he was made Major. In 1863, while placing his pickets near Jackson, Mississippi, … 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