San Bernardino County
Biographies
HON. FREDERIC W. GREGG,
of the law firm of Harris & Gregg, is a Green Mountain boy, born in Vermont, thirty‑two years ago; was educated in Dartmouth College, celebrated as the alma mater of eminent men of action, men who have led in the fields of law and politics and commerce, where a combination of mental and and physical vigor are the motive power of success. Graduating from Dartmouth in the class of 1878, Mr. Gregg studied law in the office of Hon. Frank Plumley, United States District Attorney for Vermont, and at the Columbia Law School. In June, 1881, he came West and opened a law office in Tucson, Arizona. In March, 1882, he was appointed United States Commissioner for the First Judicial District of Arizona, which office he filled for three years. In November, 1882, he was elected a member of the Board of School Trustees of Tucson. He ran for district attorney of that county in 1884 on the Republican ticket and was defeated by a few votes. In March, 1885, upon the petition of the bar of the county, Mr. Gregg was appointed County Judge of Pima County, and at the expiration of the term of two years was elected to the office as his own successor, receiving a larger vote than any other candidate on the county ticket. In the summer of 1887 he removed to San Bernardino and entered into partnership with William A. Harris, which still continues. Harris & Gregg are both gentlemen of fine legal attainments and exceptional ability, and already occupy a prominent position in the bar of Southern California. Their legal business is one of the largest in San Bernardino County. Judge Gregg is a scholarly, polished gentleman, whose affable manners win the friendship and esteem of all with whom he comes in contact.
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.- 589-590
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
CALVIN LOGAN THOMAS,
a rancher, two and a half miles southeast of San
Bernardino, was born in Bledsoe County, Tennessee, January 5, 1837. His father,
E. H. Thomas, was a native of Kentucky, and his mother, Edna (Zinn) Thomas, was
born in South Carolina. His parents moved to Jackson County, Missouri, when the
subject of this sketch was
but four years old. From there the removed to McDonald County, where they
remained until 1852, when they crossed the plains by ox team to Oregon. When
they got to Utah, however, they found it was too late in the season, so they
changed their original plan and came by the southern route to California. They
arrived in San Bernardino County December 25, 1852. Here Mr. Thomas remained, a
true and trusted citizen, until his death in 1874. He had a family of seven
children, of whom the subject of this sketch is the third. He received a good
common-school education, and in 1866 was married to Miss Salome Wells, who was
born in Iowa, the daughter of Otho and Salome (Stewart) Wells. Her father was
born in Virginia; her mother in Ohio, and they had eight children. Mr. Wells was
murdered in Western Texas in 1875. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have four children: Dell,
now Mrs. John Blackburn; Adeline, now Mrs. Mason Binkley; Eva and Alzada.
Politically Mr. Thomas affiliates with the Democratic party, and for ten years
has faithfully filled the office of deputy assessor. He held this office
previous to this, in 1868, and at one time was constable. Socially he is an I.
O. O. F., Token Lodge, No. 396, San Bernardino.
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.- 590
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON SOULE,
Auditor of San Bernardino County, and founder of the mining
town of Calico, is a lineal descendant from Puritan stock, and was born in the
State of Maine, in July, 1836. He was reared from early childhood in
Massachusetts, and started to learn the printer's trade in Boston at the age of
fourteen. He came with his parents to Kansas in 1854, and set the first
stickful of type ever set within the boundary of that State, on the Herald of
Freedom, established at that time in Lawrence.
Being like his illustrious namesake,
an uncompromising enemy of slavery, and an active participant with John Brown
and other champions in the five years' struggle which made Kansas a free State,
besides being born and bred an Abolitionist, the son of a man who had worked
shoulder to shoulder with Garrison, Greeley and Gerrit Smith in the anti-slavery
cause, he had, as a journeyman printer, traveled quite extensively in the South
and had personally witnessed the blighting effects of human slavery.
In 1859 Mr. Soule took a quartz mill to Colorado, which he set up and ran for two years. Returning to Kansas in 1861 he served as city marshal at Lawrence until that city was destroyed by Quantrell and the rebel guerrillas, in 1863. Soon after that event he entered the army and served throughout the time, a portion of the time as superintendent of the quartermaster's department under quartermaster Rankin, in the Department of the Cumberland, in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, with Sherman's command. On retiring from the army he returned to Colorado, and was for a time connected with the editorial staff of the Colorado Farmer, and while there he collected the matter and wrote part of the work entitled "The Black Hills and Big Horn Country," a twelve-mo. volume of about 500 pages, published by Robert Strahorn. During the years intervening between 1873 and 1879 Mr. Smile filled the offices of Justice of the Peace and Postmaster in Ouray and Gunnison counties respectively. Was the first Justice of the Peace in Ouray County: served as Postmaster at Irwin, Gunnison County, two years.
In December, 1879, taking the advice of his physicians, he came to California, for the benefit of his health. After spending the winter in San Diego, and finding his health improved, he was seized with the prospecting fever, and, starting out, finally located on the site of Calico, where he erected the first building, opened the first store and founded and named the town in 1881. He was the first Postmaster and the first Justice of the Peace in the place; is still a joint partner in a general store in Calico, and also has some mining interests there. His partner, Mr. Stacy, is his successor as Postmaster. He has considered San Bernardino his home for the past three years. He was elected Auditor of San Bernardino County on the Republican ticket in the fall of 1888, and assumed the duties of office January 1, 1889.
Mr. Soule married Miss Wagner, daughter of Judge Wagner, deceased. She is a native of the Pacific slope. Her parents came from Illinois. Mr. Soule's only brother, Captain Silas Soule, of the First Colorado Regiment, was assassinated in Denver while Provost Marshal; was also a radical Abolitionist and possessed the courage of his convictions. When Dr. Charles Day was in jail in St. Joseph, Missouri, for assisting slaves to run away, he went to the jail, and as a raw Irishman got permission to visit the jail, and notified Day of an attempt to rescue him that night. About ten o'clock at night he again went to the jail in company with the subject of this sketch and several other friends, who claimed to have just arrested him (Silas) for some crime committed, and wished him locked up for the night. The jailor opened the door and was at once disarmed, the keys taken from him, Day released and the other prisoners locked up securely. Day was taken across the Missouri river in a skiff, and by wagon to Lawrence. They were pursued several miles into Kansas, but, having the fleetest horses, escaped.
After John Brown's capture at Harper's Ferry and incarceration in prison, Silas Soule went to the prison and, feigning the drunken Irishman, succeeded in getting locked up for the night, and, while confined in the prison that night investigated the situation of Brown and his other friends with a view of planning their escape; but, finding no hope of being able to release them, he sobered up and was set free next morning without his identity or his intentions being even suspected by the authorities.
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.- 590-591
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler