San Bernardino County
Biographies
CAPTAIN NELSON GREEN GILL,
Postmaster of San Bernardino, came to California from
Toulon, Illinois, in March, 1849, with a team composed of four oxen and two
cows. He came by way of St. Joseph, Fort Laramie, Fort Hall and Lassen's
cut-off, with a train composed of twenty-two wagons. They brought with them a
ferry-boat, which they used in crossing the North Platte and Green rivers,
afterward selling it for $100. They arrived in Sacramento valley, September 26,
1849. Leaving his ox teams at Bidwell's
ranch, Captain Gill started for the mines on Feather river. After he had been in
the mines a few months, provisions ran short, and he and a fellow miner started
with their oxen and wagon for Sacramento to lay in a supply. The Sacramento
river was swollen to a flood, and, becoming involved in the flood, they lost
their wagon and oxen, and Mr. Gill's companion lost his life. Three months
elapsed before Mr. Gill got back to camp; he had lost everything he started
with, including $600 in gold. Not being successful at mining and being troubled
with scurvy, as were many others, he, accompanied by a mining companion, started
for Los Angeles, walking to Marysville on foot. They took a row boat to
Sacramento, thence, by steamer, to San Francisco; then, not having money enough
to buy two tickets, they walked all the way, 500 miles, to Los Angeles, arriving
in November, 1850. He and his friend rented twenty acres of land about twenty
miles from Los Angeles, from John Reed, sowed ten acres of it to wheat and ten
to barley during the winter of 1850–'51. They had an extraordinary crop, the
yield being 400 bushels of clean wheat and about the same quantity of barley.
This wheat was ground in John Rowland's mill and hauled to Los Angeles and sold;
it was probably the first wheat grown in California for market. Mr. Gill then
returned to the mines and spent the years 1852–'53 mining with indifferent
success. Returning to Los Angeles he engaged in herding stock and shipping
Mission grapes (the only variety then known here) to San Francisco. Returning to
mining he spent some two or three years on Feather and Trinity rivers, and in
1857, went East, via Arizona and Texas, driving a six-mule team for the overland
mail company, and reaching home in January, 1858.
In August, 1861, he entered the Union army as a private in the Thirty-third Illinois Infantry, known as the "Normal" Regiment, being composed largely of students from the State Normal School. He served four years in the army and rose by successive promotions to Captain, having command of a company nearly two years before being mustered out. After the war he settled in Holly Springs, Mississippi, where he took an active part in politics, and filled a number of important local offices. He was first appointed Postmaster by President Grant; subsequently was appointed by the Governor, President of the Board of Supervisors; and was twice elected to the Mississippi Legislature, serving four years in that body. Fearless in advocating his political convictions and entering into each campaign with a will and energy that brooked no defeat, Captain Gill was recognized as a power in that State. In 1879 he removed to Kansas, settling near Emporia; while there he was a delegate to the county convention two years, also a delegate to the convention that organized the State Farmers' Alliance, and elected first vice-president of the Alliance. In the spring of 1882, he removed to California and settled at Ontario, San Bernardino County, his being the first family in that place. He plowed the ground and planted out seventy-three acres of raisin grapes and oranges and they are now bearing. In 1884, he was elected Sheriff of that county and served two years. In March, 1886, he bought twenty-two acres on the north border of the city, which he still owns, besides being interested in several other pieces of property. June 18, 1889, he was appointed by President Harrison to his present position, and took charge of the postoffice August 1, 1889.
Captain Gill has been twice married. His first wife, Miss Whitford, was quite renowned as an educator, having founded and made a great success of the freedmen's school at Holly Springs, which under her administration grew till it had as high as 250 pupils in attendance, requiring a number of assistant instructors. She was the mother of one son by Captain Gill, who now resides in San Bernardino County. The Captain's present wife was Miss Winnie Whitford, born and reared on the border of Chautauqua lake, New York. Two children, a daughter and son, constitute their family. Captain Gill was also born in New York, in 1830. He is a gentleman noted for his social qualities, and his inherent force of character adapts him for a leader among his fellows.
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.- 579-580
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
COLONEL WILLIAM R. TOLLES,
President of the San Bernardino Board of Trade and one of the most enterprising and public-spirited citizens of the county, was born in Litchfield County, Connecticut, in 1823. His father was one of the original settlers of the famous "Western Reserve" in northern Ohio, having moved there and settled in Geauga County in 1837; there William passed his youth, excepting five or six winters which he spent in the South for the benefit of his health. He was in Arkansas when the Legislature of that State declared its secession from the Union, and he was a passenger on the last river steamer coming northward that was not intercepted. On reaching home he enlisted as a member of the Forty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, as Captain of a company. In 1862 he returned, and aided in recruiting a regiment of 1,180 men in three weeks, and was commissioned its Lieutenant-Colonel, it being the One Hundred and Fifth Ohio Infantry. Colonel Hall, his superior, died about three months after the regiment was organized, and Colonel Tolles was promoted to the command of the regiment, and filled the position until his broken health compelled him to resign in the early part of 1865. He went to Ohio, remaining until the spring of 1867, when he went to Michigan, and in company with a brother, engaged in the lumber business till 1872. The following spring he came to California almost a complete physical wreck. He came directly to Los Angeles and spent several months prospecting over that and other counties of Southern California, choosing San Bernardino as the most desirable as a permanent home for climatic and other reasons: he located on a soldier's homestead of 160 acres, in what is now Redlands. He stuck the first stake and made the first improvements on that now valuable and popular locality, which up to that time had been used as a cattle range. In the fall of 1873 he built a house, and, January 8, 1874, moved into it. The location was named Lugonia, in memory of the Lugo brothers, the former owners of the grant of which it was a part.
Having read the best Spanish authorities on orange culture in Europe, he was convinced that they could be raised at Lugonia, and, notwithstanding the prevailing opinion to the contrary, sent to San Francisco for a barrel of rotten oranges, cleaned and planted the seeds in June, 1874. The seventh year from the seed, these seedling trees bore a partial crop, and the eighth year a full crop. He planted fifty acres of his land, dividing it equally between oranges and lemons, deciduous fruits and raisin grapes. In May, 1874, his residence and all it contained was destroyed by fire, which was a severe loss to him at the time, as he was not financially forehanded, for, although he owned a farm in Michigan, it yielded little or no revenue then. He cultivated the land between the rows of young fruit trees to vegetables, from which he realized $50 per acre. In 1878 his nursery stock of peach and apricot trees was large enough, so he planted ten acres of orchard, and in 1881 he received $100 per acre for the fruit crop on these trees; and the same year he grew and harvested nearly 9,000 pounds of sweet potatoes between the trees on the ten acres, which he sold at from three to five cents per pound. While improving his ranch, he, with others, succeeded in purchasing 1,500 acres of land, subdivided it and sold some of it to settlers for $25 per acre, which, now with its improvements, is worth $1,000 per acre. In 1882, Colonel Tolles sold his ranch for $250 per acre. He and his family spent one summer on the terrace north of Colton, and have since resided in San Bernardino. In the summer of 1887 they made a tour up the coast to Alaska, which they enjoyed much. Besides several ten-acre tracts which he has in Lugonia, he is a joint owner in seventy acres of very choice land at Old San Bernardino.
Colonel Tolles has been thrice married. His first wife was the only child of Richard and Lucinda Beach. No issue now living. His second wife was Miss Hitchcock, an Ohio lady, whose father was one of the pioneers of the Western Reserve, settling in Burton, Geauga County, Ohio, was a lawyer by profession and for twenty-two years a Supreme Judge of the State. Her brother, Professor L. Hitchcock, was formerly president of Hudson College. Another brother, Reuben Hitchcock, a noted lawyer, was many years attorney for the Pittsburgh & Fort Wayne Railroad; and still another, Peter, was State Senator and Representative of Geauga County, Ohio, for several years, and a director of the public Institution for Feebleminded Children, at Columbus, Ohio. She left two children. The Colonel's present wife was Miss Fisk, a native of New York, whom he married in Iowa, but whose home from the age of six had been near Kalamazoo, Michigan. They have one daughter, residing with her parents. Colonel Tolles was one of the organizers and principal promoters of the San Bernardino Board of Trade, and is now president of that body, whose laudable object is to encourage and advance by every honorable means the growth and prosperity of San Bernardino County.
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.- 580-581
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler