Alameda County
Biographies
HERBERT LESTER ADAMS, LL.B.
The subject of this memoir, whose portrait will be found in the following pages, was born in Buffalo, Erie County, New York, March 24, 1855, of American parents and ancestry. His father, D. L. Adams, was engaged in the then thriving industry of ship-building on the great lakes, he being foreman for the large firm of F. N. Jones & Co., who had yards and dry-docks at Buffalo. The boyhood of our subject was passed amid the busy scenes of the ship-building yard. In his youth he became conversant with the architectural designs of these leviathans; keel-blocks and ways were his elementary training, while rapture and astonishment beamed in his face as he saw the mighty ribs of oak bend to their places. Receiving a good ordinary scholastic training, after two years of study he graduated, and prepared to do battle with the world. In 1869 he was employed as salesman in a wholesale produce store in Buffalo, and from that city, in the year 1870, following the advice of the great editor, he “went west” with his family to Palmyra, Otoe County, Nebraska, a town then consisting of but two houses and a store, and located on a piece of government land, the nearest market being the town of Lincoln, the State capital, and now developed into a thriving and populous city. Lumber being a luxury almost unknown in Nebraska at that time the family constructed for a dwelling what is known as a “dug-out,” consisting of a square excavation hollowed in the hillside, and roofed by leaning branches of trees against a center ridge-pole, the roof being afterwards covered with earth two feet in thickness. After a year’s residence there Mr. Adams and his family came to California, arriving at Franklin, Sacramento County, in March, 1871. Being here met by his uncle, Hon. Amos Adams, ex-Assemblyman and Secretary of the State Grange of California, who owned a large dairy farm in the Sacramento Valley, our subject passed a year with him, engaging in agricultural pursuits, but the memorable drouth of that season having destroyed most of the stock, and rendering farming unprofitable, in 1872 he returned to Buffalo with his family, and once more embarked in his former occupation as salesman, and traveled for a wholesale produce store. And now came the famous “Black Friday,” when thousands of business enterprises went into insolvency. Mr. Adams therefore again turned westward. Proceeding to De Witt, Carroll County, Missouri, where he visited his sister and friends, he continued his wanderings until he was once more brought up in Palmyra, Nebraska. Here he passed the summer of 1874, and saw the first great grasshopper invasion that did so great damage to the growing crops. Thence he made a flying trip through Kansas, after which, returning eastward, he obtained employment in New York form the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company as a car-builder and repairer. Here, by his industry and attention to work, he was placed in charge of a gang of men, but the snow and ice, and the searching winds from the Atlantic made him long for the sunny slopes of the Pacific Ocean. He then, for the second time, made the journey to California, and arrived in Stockton, San Joaquin County, in June, 1875. After a month’s work with the Stockton and Ione Narrow-gauge Railroad, the company failed. Mr. Adams, therefore, found himself once more free, he thereupon again betook himself to a farm life, and subsequently came to Oakland, Alameda County, where he obtained employment as a hostler in the Plaza Stable of Downing & Forrester, on Fourth Street. He soon after met in San Francisco, A. P. Needles, Esq., with whom he at once took desk room and entered upon the study of law, to such good purpose that in September, 1877, he was admitted to practice in the County Court of Alameda by S. G. Nye, on motion of Hon. M. P. Wiggin. In March, 1880, he was admitted to practice in the Superior Court by Hon. W. E. Greene. In the mean time Mr. Adams had become a student in the Hastings Law College of the University of California, from which he graduated May 29, 1882, and received the degree of LL.B. – Legum Baccalaureus (Bachelor of Laws). May 31, 1882, he was admitted to the Supreme Court of California, on motion of Hon. J. Norton Pomeroy, LL. D., and is now in the employment of a large and successful practice. Mr. Adams is an energetic worker in secret societies, belonging to the Odd Fellows, Ancient Order of United Workmen, and Independent Order of Chosen Friends. He was also one of the organizers and is now President of the Board of Directors of the Golden Gate Congregational Church of Oakland. He married, in Oakland, December 12, 1877, Miss Ella N. Crist, of Lodi, San Joaquin County, California, a native of Indiana.
History of Alameda County, California…, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883
p. 836-837
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler