San Diego County
Biographies
R. G. CLARK,
one of the old residents of San Diego County, was born in Greenville, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1832. He lived upon a farm and attended the district Schools until he was eighteen years of age. He then apprenticed himself to learn the trade of iron-molder, working two years in a foundry in Mercer County. He then went to Springfield, Ohio, and worked in Leffell's foundry until he completed his apprenticeship. During this time he had also mastered the mystery of the steam engine, and was not only able to run one but also understood its construction. This was to serve a good purpose in the future. From Springfield he went to Cincinnati and St. Louis, where he worked at his trade until 1854, and remained through the winter.
In the spring they started again toward the Pacific slope with the first train. After leaving Salt Lake the train was attacked by Indians several times, but they had a strong company and their assailants were repulsed. They arrived at Sacramento June 5, 1855. Then Mr. Clark went to Amador County. It was now that the knowledge of the steam engine he had acquired while working at his trade in Ohio came into play. A man was wanted to run the engine in the Oneida Quartz Mill. He applied for the position and obtained it. Afterward he was foreman, during 1855 and 1856, of the Tibbitts foundry at Sutter Creek. Subsequently he engaged in mining on the Mokelumne river, with varied success. He was for a time general superintendent of a large foundry at Silver City, Idaho, receiving, with one exception, the highest salary paid to superintendents in the Territories.
When the Fraser river excitement broke out in 1858, Mr. Clark caught the fever and made the pilgrimage to British Columbia, returning, with thousands of others, poor in pocket but with an addition to his store of experience. For a short time after this he was foreman of Worcester's foundry at Angel's Camp, Calaveras County. Then in 1859 he went East and visited his old home in Pennsylvania, returning to California the following year. J. S. Harbison had previous to this time imported several colonies of bees from the East, and Mr. Clark and his brother bought some of him and established several apiaries in Ione valley, Amador County. In this venture the brothers were very successful. One year afterward he, in connection with his brother James, went to Nevada and bought a farm called " Little Meadows," now known as Clark's station, on the Truckee river. He prospered in farming on the Truckee and remained there for seven years, but finally, on account of malaria, he was obliged to sell out and seek a change of climate. He decided to come to San Diego and arrived here in 1868. A few months after this he went back to Sacramento, and in company with his old bee friend, J. S. Harbison, engaged in silk culture. Their experiment, however, was not a success, owing to a disease breaking out among the silk-worms, and they gave up the business. Then, in conjunction with Mr. Harbison, he started for San Diego, bringing with them 110 hives of honey bees, arriving here November 28, 1869. From that time up to last spring Mr. Clark continued to be largely interested in bee culture, and did much to create the reputation which San Diego honey enjoys in the market of the world.
In 1876 Mr. Clark began the culture of fruit and forest trees and the making of raisins, in the Cajon valley. He owned at first 230 acres, all under cultivation. Eighty acres were in trees and vines, and the balance in grain. He was the first man in San Diego to practically demonstrate the productiveness of the soil of El Cajon for raisin culture. Cured and made the first raisins in this county in 1878. He introduced a system of sub-irrigation in his vineyard, running a continuous concrete cement pipe, with outlets at convenient distances, under ten acres. His was the only vineyard in the valley that was irrigated, and although it was not necessary the experiment was one that proved not unprofitable, as double the crops could be raised by irrigation. Mr. Clark has always shipped the largest portion of his raisins to the Eastern markets. For the last two years the house of William T. Coleman & Co. has handled his crop. His raisins are pronounced by the best judges to be equal to any imported. When he first came to San Diego Mr. Clark was laughed at for bringing bees here, but before long he demonstrated the natural advantage of the county for bee culture. He was met with the same kind of encouragement when he first began growing grapes in the Cajon. People claimed that the soil was not suited for the purpose. Mr. Clark sold out all his interests in the Cajon in December, 1886, and came to San Diego. On the 13th of April following, in company with his family, he started for an Eastern trip, and traveled all through the Eastern and Middle States, but found no place in which be could be content to live outside of San Diego County. He owns considerable real-estate in the city, and has built a beautiful residence on the corner of A and Thirteenth streets. In the first year of his residence in San Diego County Mr. Clark labored very hard and surmounted obstacles under which men of less determination would have succumbed. When, however, his orchards and his vineyards were well under way, and he began to see some of his most cherished ideas realized, he felt amply repaid for all his trials and temporary disappointments. Ever since his first crop of raisins they have paid him on an average of $100 per acre net. Mr. Clark also planted the first Australian blue gum forest in the county. He is constantly in the receipt of letters from all parts of the country asking information in reference to vine and bee culture.
Mr. Clark was married in 1871 to Mrs. Anna L. Corbitt. They have one child living: Edgar Franklin Clark, fourteen years of age; and have had a daughter, Florence Ida, who is now deceased.
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.- 211-213
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
O. S. HUBBELL
has already accomplished in his brief business career far
more than many men, who deem themselves favored by fortune, have done in the
space of a long and
laborious life-time. Mr. Hubbell was born in Keokuk, Iowa, May 29, 1859, but
removed with his parents to San Diego when he was twelve years of age. On his
arrival here he attended the public schools, graduating at the High School. He
made preparations to enter college, but his health failing he relinquished that
object and entered the employ of the Bank of San Diego, the first bank
established in this city, in the latter part of 1876. He first was bookkeeper,
then teller, and then was appointed assistant cashier. He remained with this
institution three years, and at the age of twenty-one was one of the
incorporators and a stockholder of the Consolidated Bank of San Diego, and also
an incorporator and stockholder in the Consolidated National Bank. He continued
with this bank until 1885, when he resigned and became a stockholder and
accepted the position of assistant cashier in the First National Bank. In 1886
he was elected a director and soon afterward cashier, which position he resigned
January 1, 1889.
Mr. Hubbell was a half-owner of Reed & Hubbell's Addition. This was the first addition of any size cut up from acre property into lots and put on the market with any success. It is situated on the bay between San Diego and National City, and originally consisted of 210 acres, and was first offered in August, 1886. They sold eighty acres in a body and cut the balance up into lots.
Among other land corporations with which Hr. Hubbell is connected are the Escondido Land and Town Company, the San Marcos Land Company, the El Cajon Valley Company, the Morena Land Company, the Junipero Land and Water Company, and the Pacific Beach Company, in each of which he is an incorporator, stockholder and a director. He is a stockholder of the College Hill Land Association. He is a stockholder of the Coronado Beach Company. He was one of the incorporators of the San Diego National Bank, and the Bank of Escondido, and a stockholder in the Bank of Elsinore and the Exchange Bank of Elsinore. He was one of the incorporators and is a director in the Coronado Ferry Company, an incorporator of the San Diego Street Railroad Company, and an incorporator and stockholder in the San Diego and Coronado Water Company, the San Diego & Cuyamaca Railroad Company, the San Diego Old Town & Pacific Beach Railroad Company, and the West Coast Lumber Company. He was one of four in incorporating the San Diego Gas and Electric Light Company. He was also one of the incorporators of the Marine Railway & Dry Dock Company, and an incorporator of the Cuyamaca Club, the leading gentlemen's club of San Diego. Last January he was elected a director of the California Southern Railroad Company. He was one of the organizers of the San Diego City Guards, a crack militia company, in which he has served for six years.
He is now (December, 1889,) engaged in opening the Helvetia mine, which is situated in the Julian mining district between Julian and Stonewall, a mine very productive in the past. He has just been appointed by Governor Waterman as a member of the Board of Bank Commissioners for the State, appointment to take effect January 1, 1889.
He was married in San Diego, in 1881, to Miss Kate L. Groesbeck, a daughter of General John Groesbeck, formerly of New York, who was at the time of his death the oldest member of the order of Odd Fellows in the United States. He has two children, both boys. It is not difficult to analyze the causes of Mr. Hubbell's success. Primarily, he has had the opportunity; secondly, he has improved it. Combining in a wonderful degree keen financial foresight with promptness of decision, failure is to him an unknown quantity. Personally, he is one of the most genial of men; affable in his manners, courteous to all, his popularity is not to be wondered at. If O. S. Hubbell has attained an extraordinary measure of success, the means by which he secured it were such that he has raised up friends rather than enemies along his pathway in life.
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.- 213-214
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler