Los Angeles County
Biographies
HENRY DWIGHT BARROWS
was born February 23, 1825, in Mansfield, Tolland County, Connecticut, near the Willimantic river, which separates the town of Coventry from Mansfield. His ancestry came from England to Plymouth Colony, and afterward two brothers by the name of Barrows moved from Plymouth to Mansfield, where they settled. From these two brothers, who seem to have been a hardy stock, sprang a great number of descendants, many of whom still remain in Mansfield. The subject of this sketch says he counted over thirty heads of families of that name in his native town in 1845. Indeed, it was the most numerous family name in the town at that time and for years afterward; besides, many married and acquired other names, and many scattered throughout the United States. His ancestors on his mother’s side were Binghams. Mr. Barrow’s early years were spent on a farm, and he received a good, thorough English education in the common schools and academies of Tolland County. He also taught school several winters, commencing when only seventeen years old. Early in life he acquired a strong love for music, which he cultivated as he had opportunity, learning to play on any instrument he could get hold of. He took lessons on the organ of a Mr. Monds, an English organist in Hartford, Connecticut. He also became the leader of the local brass band of his native town when he was only eighteen years of age. He was fond of books and devoured all he could get hold of in the neighborhood, which, however, was not very rich in literature of any kind. He read through the Bible and Shakespeare and Byron, including all the prose writing of the latter. A stray copy of Dr. Dick’s “Christian Philosopher” he read with delight, and he thinks to this day that it is one of the best books that can be placed in a boy’s hands to enlarge his ideas of the worlds around him. He went to New York in 1849 and engaged in clerking; and while there had a touch of the California gold fever which prevailed so generally that year. However, he did not decide to go to the new El Dorado till some years later. In 1850 he went to Boston, where he lived something over two years, being employed as book-keeper in the large jobbing house of J. W. Blodgett & Co., on Pearl street. This firm sold goods in every State in the Union and in Canada, doing an immense business; and the experience and discipline acquired here were invaluable to him in after life. During his residence in Boston he of course enjoyed the lectures, music, etc., of that center of intellectual activity. He says he retains to-day a vivid recollection of Theodore Parker’s preaching, the Lowell Institute lectures, the concerts of the Germanians, Jenny Lind, etc. In the spring of 1852 he finally concluded to come to California, and April 1 he left Boston for his home in Connecticut to get ready for the trip, and on the 28th of that month he sailed from New York on the steamer Illinois, with a large number of passengers. The hardships of crossing the Isthmus at that time were great, the railroad having been finished only a few miles out from Aspinwall, the balance of the way being made by row-boat up the Chagres river to Gorgona, and from thence twenty-six miles on mule-back or on foot to Panama. To a Northern man the heat of all seasons seems formidable on the Isthmus. Especially is this true at Aspinwall, where the heat becomes more oppressive on account of the excessive humidity of the atmosphere. It used to be said that it rained there all the time in the “wet season” and twenty hours a day in the “dry season.” The connecting steamer of the Illinois on the Pacific was the Golden Gate, Captain Patterson, of the navy, commander. About 1,700 passengers came up on this trip. Soon after arriving in San Francisco, Mr. Barrows started for the Northern Mines above Shasta; but he worked only a short time at mining, as (it being the month of June) the dry season had set in, and he returned down the valley as far as Tehama, where, about five miles back, he went to work on Thom’s creek for Judge Hall, who had a contract to furnish Hall & Crandall, the stage contractors, some 200 tons of hay. There were great numbers of deer and antelopes roaming over the plains of the Upper Sacramento valley at that time. One day, as Mr. Barrows was walking along Thom’s creek alone, a California lion jumped out from a clump of bushes within a few feet of him and made off out of sight in a few muscular bounds. Coming down the Sacramento valley to Marysville, where he made a brief stop, he arrived in San Francisco the last day of July; and having his system full of chills and fevers, then so prevalent in the neighborhood of Tehama, and the contrast between the heat of Sacramento valley and the cold of San Francisco being so very great, he found himself very ill with congestive chills, from which he did not entirely recover for nearly a year afterward. When he first arrived in California he knew nothing about the great differences in climate of the different sections of the State. Having suffered much, including an attack of Panama fever, in coming through the tropics, he had an aspiration for a cool climate, which he thought could be found in going 500 miles north from San Francisco; but if, instead, he had come 500 miles south and kept near this coast he would have found the blessed temperature he sought. But he had never heard of Los Angeles. Finding that he could not get rid of the chills in San Francisco, he went in August to San Jose. There he staid about a year; and there he met two men who were from this same town from which he came. One of them, Captain Julian Hanks, had come out to this coast many years before, and had married at San Jose, Lower California, and afterward moved to San Jose, Upper California, where he was living with his family at this time (1852). He had a vineyard and orchard and also a flouring-mill at his home place not far from the center of the pueblo; and he also had a ranch about four miles south of the town. Mr. Barrows went on to this ranch and raised a crop of wheat and barley. He says that the rains were very heavy that winter, and that the house in which he lived was for some time surrounded by water. Flour was very dear, being worth 25 cents per pound. James Lick (since the founder of the magnificent Lick Observatory) was then building very deliberately, and finishing off somewhat elaborately, a fine flouring-mill just north of San Jose, on Alviso creek, where he lived. Citizens urged him to finish it whilst flour was so scarce and high, and grind up some of the wheat which was abundant, and thus benefit the public as well as himself; but he gruffly replied that he was building the mill for Lick and not for the public. Among other eccentricities he insisted on having mahogany railing for the stairway of his flour-mill. Mr. Barrows, in the fall of 1853, went to Jamestown in the Southern mines, where he worked at mining for awhile. Afterward he secured an engagement as teacher of music at the Collegiate Institute in Benicia, where he remained during the greater part of 1854. While there, the late William Wolfskill engaged him to teach a private school in his family in Los Angeles, whither he came in December, 1854. He has made his home in Los Angeles ever since. He taught four years, or until the latter part of 1858. During 1859 and 1860 he cultivated a vineyard that is now owned by Mr. Beaudry, on the east side of the river. In 1861 he was appointed United States Marshal for the Southern District of California, by President Lincoln, which office he held four years. In 1864 he engaged in mercantile pursuits, in which he continued about fifteen years. At present (1889) he is in no regular business. He has been thrice married and has three children living, all grown.
Mr. Barrows has made frequent visits to the Atlantic States, once in 1857 by steamer, once in 1860 by the Butterfield stage route, and several times by rail. In 1875 he spent the summer in the East with his family. He has been a member of the city school board many terms, and was county superintendent for one term, and he has always taken a lively interest in educational matters. He has been a frequent writer for the local and other papers on economic and social questions. Besides much that he has written for the public press over his own name during his long residence in Los Angeles, he has said many things and made many arguments that have been admitted into the editorial columns of sundry journals at different periods. For nearly ten years, from 1856 to 1866, he was the regular paid Los Angeles correspondent of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. He has enjoyed the respect and confidence of his neighbors among whom he has lived so many years. He has administered, first and last, several large estates, including those of William Wolfskill, Captain Alex. Bell, and others. Was appointed by the United States District Court one of the commissioners to run the boundary line between the “Providencia Rancho” and that of the “ex-mission of San Fernando.” Also, by appointment of the Superior Court, he was one of the commissioners that partitioned the “San Pedro Rancho,” which contained about 25,000 acres. For the year 1888 he was the president of the Historical Society of Southern California, of which he has been an active member since its organization. In the publication of the society for 1887, Mr. Barrows explains the theory of rainfall, or of aqueous precipitation generally, whether in the form of rain, hail or snow, and also explains the cause of California’s wet and dry seasons. He has written brief sketches of a considerable number of the early pioneers of Los Angeles, many of whom he knew personally.
An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower California, from the Earliest Period of Occupancy to the Present Time.... - Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890.
p. 821-824
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler