Alameda County
Biographies
WILLIAM BLANCHARD BANCROFT.
William Blanchard Bancroft is a man of initiative, enterprise and discrimination and in the course of a long and successful business career has been identified with a number of important corporate interests in various parts of the United States and London and was for many years one of the greatest individual forces in the upbuilding and development of the Bancroft Publishing Company of San Francisco. For a number of years past he has been identified with the real-estate business in Oakland, and he controls today a large and representative patronage. He was born in Grand Prairie, Dunklin county, Missouri, September 27, 1847, and is a son of Curtis and Louisa J. (Lamb) Bancroft, the former a native of Grandville, Ohio, and the latter of Kentucky. The parents crossed the plains to California in 1850 and arrived in Hangtown, now Placerville. The father afterward engaged in mining on Rich Bar, Plumas county, and later built and operated the National Hotel at Bidwell's Bar.
W. B. Bancroft came by the Nicaraguan route to California in August, 1854, being at that time seven years of age. He made the journey up the coast to San Francisco on the historic old steamer Brother Jonathan and from San Francisco pushed on to Bidwell's Bar, where he acquired his preliminary education in private schools and subscription schools. He later attended the Oak Grove Institute of Alameda, being but twelve years of age, the youngest boarding pupil, and he also studied in the public schools of San Francisco. In 1861 he entered the employ of H. H. Bancroft & Company, booksellers and stationers of San Francisco, and for twenty-nine years thereafter did able work in the service of this corporation. Starting in as an errand boy he rose through every department, learning the business in principle and detail. He spent some time as a bookkeeper and was later, at eighteen years of age, sent to New York, where he took complete charge of the company's wholesale department. He subsequently returned to California and traveled all over the Pacific coast in the interests of the company, which numbered him among its most trusted and able representatives. The period of his connection with H. H. Bancroft & Company was not continuous, for in August, 1869, Mr. Bancroft went to San Diego, purchased three lots and built a small store, engaging in the book and stationery business for himself. When he returned to San Francisco he again joined the Bancroft Company, becoming manager of the printing, bookbinding and publishing department, a position which offered adequate scope to his initiative power and executive ability. Under his administration the business increased from sixty-five thousand dollars a year to half a million in 1886 when the building was destroyed by fire.
Mr. Bancroft later went to New York, where he became associated with the American Trading Company and was sent by them to London as resident agent with the full unrestricted power of attorney to reorganize their London office. He accomplished this work so successfully that he purchased for them a business worth twelve and one-half million dollars. After a number of years of unusually able and discriminating service Mr. Bancroft resigned from the employ of the American Trading Company and again entered the publishing business. He compiled in London a book called "Bancroft's Americans in London," which was made a standard volume and published every year for six years. At the request of his brother, H. P. Bancroft, Mr. Bancroft of this review returned to California and became associated in the real-estate business in Oakland with the Breed & Bancroft Company. At the end of six years he returned to London but after one year came again to Oakland, resuming his real-estate operations independently.
Mr. Bancroft is a member of the London-American Society and well known in club circles of the world's metropolis, holding membership in the Queen's Athletic Club and the Balham Constitutional Club of London and also the London branch of the United States Navy League, of which he was one of the incorporators. He is prominent in the affairs of the Athenian Club of Oakland. He is a man of broad culture, progressive views and high ideals and is well and favorably known in the social life of the community. In business circles he occupies a place of prominence and distinction, being widely recognized as a man of tried integrity and worth.
Past & Present of Alameda County, California – Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914
p. 277
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
OLIN D. JACOBY.
Since 1908 Olin D. Jacoby has been cashier of the First Trust and Savings Bank of Oakland, occupying a foremost position in the financial life of that city. He was born in Towanda, Pennsylvania, in December, 1880, and is a son of E. H. and Maria (Trumbull) Jacoby. He attended public and preparatory schools until nineteen years of age, when he went to New York city and entered the office of a marine insurance company as a clerk, remaining with that firm for one year. He then was for six months clerk and stenographer in the employ of the Western National Bank. At the end of that time he crossed the continent to Los Angeles and for three months held a position as stenographer with the Santa Fe Railroad Company in that city. His next position, covering a period of six months, was as clerk of the West Side Lumber Company at Tuolumne, California. Upon coming to San Francisco he became a clerk in the American National Bank, continuing in that position for three years, when he was made assistant cashier of that institution. In 1908 Mr. Jacoby came to Oakland as cashier of the First Trust and Savings Bank, and he has ever since held that position. This institution has greatly prospered under his able management and has gained in prestige and solidity.
On July 6, 1903, Mr. Jacoby married, in Los Angeles, Miss Elizabeth Jones, and they have three children, Esther Barbara, Harold Stanley and Roger De Vere. Mr. Jacoby is a democrat and thoroughly in accord with the principles of his party. He is conversant with the issues of the day and deeply interested in the growth of his city and county, although not an office seeker and not anxious to actively enter into political contests. He is a member of the Methodist church and is deeply interested in its work, and is also president of the Alameda County Epworth League Alliance. Mr. Jacoby is an American citizen of the highest type, a man who is considerate of the interests of others and who is ever ready to promote the general welfare and the growth and expansion of his community.
Past & Present of Alameda County, California – Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914
p. 279
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler