San Bernardino County
Biographies
JOSEPH DAVID GILBERT, SR.,
a prominent farmer near San Bernardino, is a native of
Cattaraugus County, New York, born in 1827. His grandfather ran away from
London, England, and was a soldier in the French and Indian war, also in the
Revolution. His father, Truman Gilbert, married Rebecca Fay, a native of
England, and immediately after his marriage he moved to the Western Reserve in
Ohio, where he remained until 1842, when he moved to the Mississippi river, and
from there to Montana, where he died in 1882. The subject of this sketch kept a
ferry at Montrose, across the Mississippi river, for some two years.
In 1850 he started across the plains
to California. He tarried in Salt Lake City one year. There were twenty-two men
and five women in the company, and they had five ox teams and fourteen horse
teams. They took turns guarding their stock at night and their rule was to
travel from 6 o'clock a. m. to 6 o'clock p. m. each day. They left Springville
March 14, 1850, and arrived here May 31, of the same year. He arrived here when
there was but one house in San Bernardino, and worked on some twenty-three adobe
buildings. He has dealt considerably in land. Where his neat residence stands
to-day on his well improved and fruitful farm, there stood at the time he bought
it but a single cottonwood tree to break the monotony of the barren plain.
He was married at Provo, Utah, January 1, 1854, to Margaret M. Barney, a native of Illinois. Her father, Charles Barney, was from Vermont, and died in the Utah valley. They have five children, viz.: Joseph D., Jr., Ellen, now Mrs. Frank Mecham ; Emmerme, now Mrs. Oscar Weece; Anna B. and Hattie. Mr. Gilbert is a straight-out Republican and an intelligent worker for his party's interests.
SOURCE: An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower California… Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. p.- 644
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
ALFRED A. WOOD,
the senior partner of the well-known firm of Wood & Cunningham, proprietors of the leading hardware establishment of Riverside, is a native of California, dating his birth in Sonoma County in September, 1859. His father, William B. Wood, came to the State in 1850, and spent many years of his life in Sonoma and Monterey counties, and later, in Riverside, he was a business man and engaged in mercantile life. The subject of this sketch was reared and schooled in Castroville, Monterey County, and after his attendance in the public schools entered the State Normal School at San Jose, and after a four-years course graduated at that institution in 1880. He then joined his father at Duncan's Mills, Sonoma County, and was there engaged in business pursuits and teaching until his health became impaired, and he sought the milder climate of Southern California. He first located at San Diego County, in 1881, and was employed as a teacher in the public schools in Ballena, and
then as a clerk in the postoffice at San Diego, after which he entered the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company as a clerk, and finally engaged in mercantile pursuits with Rockfellow & Co., of San Diego. In 1883 he came to Riverside, and entered into his present business with his father, under the firm name of W. B. Wood & Son. The business was established by his father and W. W. Carr in 1882, under the firm name of Wood & Carr. In 1887 Mr. Wood's father retired from the firm, and he conducted the business alone until May, 1888; the firm of Wood & Tibbott Bros. was then formed and conducted the enterprise until September of that year, when Mr. George D. Cunningham purchased the interests of Tibbott Bros., and the firm of Wood & Cunningham was established. Mr. Wood is one of Riverside's leading business men, and is at the head of one of the largest hardware and crockery houses in the county. The reputation of this firm for reliability and integrity is well established, and its success is in no small degree attributable to his able management. He is a believer in the prosperous future that awaits Southern California, and has real-estate interests in various sections of San Bernardino and San Diego counties. He has also been a supporter of the various public enterprises that have built up his chosen city. He is a member of Sunnyside Lodge, No. 112, and Uniform Rank Knights of Pythias, and is the Captain of the latter organization. Politically he is a Republican.
Mr. Wood was married in San Diego in 1881, wedding Miss Etta Choate, a native of Placer County, California. Her father, Daniel Choate, is a well-known pioneer of the State, and is now a resident of San Diego.
SOURCE: An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower California… Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. p.- 644-645
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler