Alameda County
Biographies
HORACE AUSTIN JOHNSON.
Horace Austin Johnson, active in the insurance and real-estate field in Berkeley, is thoroughly conversant with the different phases of a business that is bringing him prominently before the public as a successful, enterprising and progressive man. He was born in Faribault county, Minnesota, in 1870, a son of Rufus and Coralinn (Williams) Johnson, both of whom were natives of the state of New York, the latter being a direct descendant of Roger Williams, that great apostle of freedom who, that people might have the liberty of worshipping God according to the dictates of their conscience, founded in 1636, a few miles from the Massachusetts line, the town of Providence. "Religious freedom" were the words on the tongue of every man and woman of that day. It was a desire for that which had brought them to this new land and constituted the guiding star of their lives. Roger Williams' idea of freedom, which in that day was without parallel, was the positive separation of the state and church, a principle that is today regarded as the cornerstone in the foundation of our mighty republic. In recognition of the distinctly individual and advanced belief of Roger Williams and his success in establishing a colony where his theory might be put into practice he is accorded a position among the most prominent of those who have shaped the history of the nation.
Following the marriage of Rufus Johnson and Coralinn Hams, which was celebrated in New York, they removed westward in 1857 to Minnesota, where they resided until 1871. In that year they crossed the plains to California and settled in Santa Clara county, where Mr. Johnson engaged in farming. There the family lived for many years. In the later years of his life Mr. Johnson retired and in March, 1896, wishing to be with his children, who were still in the east, he returned to Minnesota, where in the following summer he passed away. Mrs. Johnson now resides with one of her daughters in Alberta, Canada.
Horace Austin Johnson began his education in the public schools of Santa Clara county, California, but received most of his educational training in Minnesota, his college work being done at Wheaton, Illinois, where he was graduated in 1899, with the degree of B. L. In the year 1899-1900 he took post-graduate work in science at the University of California. It was his purpose to engage in teaching school, but abandoning that plan, he turned to other activities. Upon completing his studies he entered the real-estate field and, finding it most congenial, he has continued active in this line to the present time, confining his operations largely to handling Berkeley property. He also engages in the fire insurance business, representing the Springfield Fire & Marine Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, the Commercial Union of London and the Maryland Casualty Company.
Society or club life has never found in Mr. Johnson a follower, but uppermost in his heart at all times is the cause of prohibition. From the period when he took up his residence in Berkeley he has been active in the behalf of that movement endeavoring in every possible way to promote and establish prohibition in his city and county. He is treasurer of the northern California executive committee of the prohibition party and in 1908 was a candidate for presidential elector on that ticket. He has in many campaigns taken the platform and never hesitates to lend every possible assistance in the war that is constantly being waged against the liquor traffic. At one time he was president of the Anti-Saloon League of Berkeley and was one of the committee of six chosen by the reform element to supervise the enforcement of the law when the new plan of city government was inaugurated. Mr. Johnson is a trustee and is secretary of the Baptist Seminary of Berkeley, which is conducted under the auspices of the Baptist Theological Union. He has been a member of the First Baptist church of Berkeley since its organization and is one of its trustees.
In 1904, at Wheaton, Illinois, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Johnson and Miss Helen Kennedy, a daughter of Thomas E. Kennedy, who was for many years connected with the departments of education of San Jose and San Francisco, having been interested in those matters until his death, which occurred in 1892. Mrs. Johnson is a native daughter of California. By her marriage she has become the mother of two children, Olive Coralinn and Rufus William. Mrs. Johnson holds membership in the same church as her husband and is active therein. In fact, their influence is always on the side of right, progress, truth and reform. They have never been content to choose the second best in anything, but have held to the highest ideals and the loftiest principles in personal conduct, in business and in citizenship.
Past & Present of Alameda County, California – Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914
p. 381
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
THOMAS DYKES BEASLEY.
Thomas Dykes Beasley was born at Woodbury, Cambridgeshire, England, June 23, 1850, and was educated at the Grantham grammar school, in Lincolnshire. In 1868, with two sisters, he came to California, crossing the Isthmus of Panama shortly after the completion of the railroad, and arriving in San Francisco just in time to be impressed by the big earthquake which occurred in the spring of that year, but which he, viewing it as "the custom of the country," accepted as a matter of course.
His first experiences were on a sheep ranch at Jolon, Monterey county, owned by his father, to join whom, he and his sisters had left the old country. His father being anxious to make a lawyer of him, at the end of a year, he came to San Francisco and studied faithfully in a lawyer's office, doing office drudgery the while, for two years, when arriving at the conclusion that the law was the profession for which he was the least suited, he abandoned Blackstone and Kent. After various experiences which included acting as tutor to the three sons of Mr. Edward Taylor of San Mateo, for many years and at the time of his death cashier of the Pacific Mail Company, he took up a timber claim in the heart of the Santa Cruz mountains, situated on the divide between Bear creek and the San Lorenzo river, becoming at the same time a citizen of the United States.
Here he lived the life of a backwoodsman for seven or eight years, in a climate unsurpassed the world over for invigorating qualities, with the result that a somewhat weak constitution and slender physique, were toughened and rendered fit to cope with life's struggles. By the advice of friends he was induced to take a step, since much regretted, of abandoning a life which, but for occasional loneliness, he much enjoyed and, returning to San Francisco, became in 1881 a draughtsman in the office of the United States surveyor general. The coming into power of the democrats under Cleveland led to the speedy decapitation of himself with many others in the office. After an interval of a few weeks spent in roaming the country afoot he was employed by the Coronado Beach Company, among other things making the plat of the town of Coronado. This work led to making the official map of San Diego county, followed by that of San Bernardino county.
Becoming interested in literary work, in partnership with F. E. A. Kimball he founded in San Diego, and for four years edited a weekly illustrated journal, The Seaport News. The town, however, at this time, just after the collapse of the "boom," was little short of moribund. Greatly to his disappointment he was forced to abandon the enterprise and accepted the editorship of a new evening daily, The Tribune, still in existence. Being unable to accept corporation dictatorship, after a six months' experience, he resigned the editorship and though it was twice offered him at intervals of time with the positive assurance he would be given a free hand, he abandoned journalism for good having found by bitter experience the temptations that beset a man who tries to do his duty by the people, his conscience and his employers.
Having by these ventures lost all the money he had accumulated by many years' hard work, he once more became a wanderer, spending a year in the Hawaiian islands just after annexation. While there he made what is now the official map of the island of Oahu. Finding that the languid climate was sapping his strength, he abandoned excellent opportunities and returned to California, vowing mentally he never again would forsake "God's country."
Gradually he became absorbed in the drama, having written while in San Diego, in collaboration with a friend, a little Chinese tragedy, "The Golden Flower," afterwards successfully produced in Albany, New York, Miss Miriam Nesbit playing the heroine. Some years ago it was produced by the Century Club of San Francisco to a fashionable audience of ladies only, all the parts being played by members of the club. It has also been produced by the Larchmont Club, New York.
About this time, he wrote the libretto of a musical comedy, "The Ahkoond of Swat," for Gerard Barton, a well known composer, at that time organist of St. Stephen's Church, San Francisco, and later an organist of the Episcopal Cathedral, Honolulu, and professor of music at the Oahu College. This musical comedy under Mr. Barton's direction was produced in Honolulu with great success, the parts being taken by the leading society people of that city.
The premature death of Gerard Barton—a cousin by the way, of Fitzgerald, who wrote the beautiful translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam—a year later at Toronto, Canada, was a great blow to Mr. Beasley; for apart for his friendship for a man beloved by all who knew him, Mr. Barton was, when carried off by a sudden attack of pneumonia, arranging for a professional production of "The Ahkoond of Swat" at Toronto.
Mr. Beasley had by this time reentered the service of Uncle Sam in his former capacity as a draughtsman in the office of the United States surveyor general, where he is, in fact, today employed. During the past ten years he has worked steadily during spare hours on literary subjects, having among other things written two librettos of comic operas, to one of which, the music has been recently written by a composer of great professional experience. An inherent love of nature and an outdoor life led to tramping as his chief form of exercise, amusement and study of human nature. A little volume, "A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country," recently published by Paul Elder & Company, San Francisco, which is meeting with favor both from the press and the public, was a natural outgrowth of his love for "hiking" and the "hard highway."
Shortly after the big fire Mr. Beasley was married to Miss Margaret Isabella McKellar, who was born in New Zealand, but came as a child, with her parents and brothers and sisters, to the United States. Mr. McKellar made his home in New Mexico, going into sheep-raising on a large scale. His surviving sons and daughters still reside in that state. Mr. Beasley's father died in England many years ago. His sisters are living in Berkeley, the elder, now the wife of Charles W. Jackson, has a beautiful home at Claremont Court; with her, his younger sister, Mrs. Dora Amsden; well known as the author of two books on Japanese art, is now residing. His own home is in Alameda, where he had resided for years previous to his marriage. There are also two sisters in England whom he has not seen for nearly half a century, but the fates permitting, he still hopes to at least bid "hail and farewell."
Past & Present of Alameda County, California – Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914
p. 383
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler