Alameda County
Biographies
JAMES A. JOHNSON.
For thirty-three years James A. Johnson has been a member of the Oakland bar. He was born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1850. His father, William E. Johnson, was a Methodist preacher and for more than thirty-five years an effective member of the Illinois Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church.
Mr. Johnson was a student in the public schools of Illinois and later graduated from, the Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington in 1872. After his graduation he engaged in teaching in the public schools and later took up the study of law and was admitted to the bar upon examination before the supreme court of Illinois in 1881. Immediately afterward he came to Oakland and was admitted to practice at the bar of California. He has since resided continuously in Oakland engaged in the practice of his profession. He served as city attorney from 1886 until 1896. In his political views, he has always been a republican.
In 1877 Mr. Johnson was united in marriage to Miss Cecelia Johnson. They have two children: one daughter, Ethel Alberta, now the wife of Dr. Elmer E. Brinckerhoff of Oakland; and one son, Elliott Johnson, who is a graduate of the State University of California and is engaged in the practice of law. Fraternally, Mr. Johnson is connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Past & Present of Alameda County, California – Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914
p. 513
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
DR. SAMUEL B. BELL.
Rev. Dr. Samuel B. Bell, who passed away at Santa Barbara, California, in 1897, was one of the earliest and leading ministers of the gospel in San Francisco, winning recognition as a distinguished Presbyterian preacher. He was born in Orange county, New York, and was ordained as an evangelist at Onondaga, that state, in 1852. In November of that year he was sent by the American Home Missionary Society as one of their missionaries to the Pacific coast, and he sailed around the Horn on the clipper ship Trade Wind, landing in San Francisco after a most eventful voyage of one hundred and five days. Upon his arrival in California he commenced his work as a Presbyterian missionary on the shores of San Francisco bay, upon the site where Oakland now stands, and he was thus a pioneer in the foundation of Presbyterian principles and doctrines in this vicinity. He built the first Presbyterian church edifice of Oakland and was its pastor for many years, exemplifying in his honorable and upright life the principles in which he believed.
A man of great breadth of view, activity of mind and of varied interests, he left during the ten years of his first residence in California the impress of his personality and standards upon many of the most notable institutions in the state. He procured the charter for the College of California, now the University of California, and he was one of the founders of that institution. He represented his district in the state senate and in the house of representatives for three years, during which time he was connected with a great deal of important legislation, aiding in the passage of the Homestead law and introducing the bill creating the board of regents in California. He was president of the first republican state convention ever convened in California and in many other ways aided in making political history. He preserved a lively recollection of pioneer times in the state when gold was so plentiful that there were grave apprehensions that it would soon become valueless, and he could remember the period of crime and lawlessness which necessitated the organization of the Vigilance Committee.
After a residence of nearly ten years in California, Dr. Bell returned to the east, making the journey overland to New York. He tendered his services to General Hooker in 1862 but was not permitted to go to the front, the same year witnessing his appointment as pastor of the Fiftieth Street Presbyterian church in New York city. He there became prominent as a lecturer and orator, taking part in many stirring events of that time and making numerous addresses at the laying of corner stones, and before colleges, universities and other learned bodies. He was a member of two general assemblies of the Presbyterian church of the United States and was prominent in the councils of his religious denomination.
From New York city he went to Lyons, in Wayne county, New York, and thence to Hillsdale, Michigan. From the latter city he again removed to California, having accepted a chair in Washington College, Alameda county, which he afterward resigned in order to become pastor of the First Congregational church of Mansfield, Ohio. Afterward he removed to Kansas City, Missouri, and then came again to California, making his home in Santa Barbara, where he lived a retired life until his death, passing away in 1897, in his eighty-first year. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Sophia Walworth, was a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and a descendant of Revolutionary ancestry.
Past & Present of Alameda County, California – Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914
p. 514
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler