San Diego County
Biographies
JOSEPH V. COLLINS
is a native of Cortland, New York, born May 9, 1829. His father, Jabez Collins, was born in Connecticut in 1806. He was a farmer. His grandfather was a native of Connecticut and was a Presbyterian minister. Mr. Collins' mother, Adeline (Doud) Collins, daughter of Truman Dond [Doud], was born in Cortland, New York, in 1810. Her ancestors settled in Connecticut in 1737. Mr. Collins was the second in a family of five children. He spent his childhood and young days in Cortland, New York, where he finished his education and learned the painters' trade. He went to Rhode Island and remained there two years and then returned to Cortland and carried on painting, brick-making and building. He continued there until 1855 and then went to Pennsylvania, where he engaged in the lumber business with his brother, T. D. Collins, and they have continued that business ever since. Their lumber output amounts to 10,000,000 feet annually. They own in the vicinity of 30,000 acres of land in Pennsylvania. Mr. Collins has also been in the oil business in Pennsylvania. He was a pioneer in that business, as he commenced putting down wells when there were only three producing wells in the State. He was also an oil refiner. In 1865 he sold out, but afterward started the petroleum business again and has been interested in it ever since. In 1873 he built the Collins House at Oil City, Pennsylvania, which was one of the largest hotels in the city, covering an acre of ground. It had a capacity for 150 guests, was furnished with all modern conveniences, and under Mr. Collins' management was crowded with guests. It cost, furnished, $140,000. In 1887 he sold it and came to California. He had been here eight months before and had made investments. He is now engaged in the completion of the Bay View Hotel, situated in San Diego, corner of Twelfth and I streets. It is built of brick, three stories high, and has a frontage on Twelfth and I streets of 300 feet. Each story has a balcony on each street. It has two fine observatories from which you get a grand view of the bay and ocean and the distant mountains. The office of the hotel is partially under a large skylight and from every floor in the upper stories of the house you can see the office and speak with the clerk. The rooms are large and airy and are fitted with most modern improvements for the health and comfort of the guests. This house will be opened by Mr. Collins about December 1, 1889, and will be second to no house of its size in the State.
Mr. Collins was married in 1850 to Miss Mary C. Medes, daughter of Mr. Ira Medes, born in Courtland, New York, in 1833. They had four children, two of whom survive: Edward, born in Cortland, New York, in 1852, and Ohio Theresa, born in Cortland, New York, in 1854. She is now the wife of Mr. William F. Clark and resides in Cortland, New York. Mrs. Collins died in 1857, and Mr. Collins was afterward married to Miss Happy M. Medes, a sister of his former wife, and the result of this union has been thirteen children, nine of whom are still living. They were all born in Pennsylvania, and their names are as follows: Carrie M., Mary C., Ann Leverne, Gustin, Maud, Joseph E., Jr., Jabez, Truman and Earl. Mr. Collins has been a hard worker, working nearly eighteen hours per day for a great part of his life and has given very little attention to either politics or office. He is still, to all appearances, a hale man and is trying to take life easy.
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.- 353-354
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
HARRY L. TITUS,
an attorney at San Diego, was born in Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana, December 3, 1858. He studied law under the preceptorship of Hon. John B. Works, in that town. He removed to San Diego in April, 1883, and entered upon the practice of his profession as a partner of Judge Works. He has been appointed city attorney of San Diego twice by the city council, and elected once to the same office by the people. Since his term in that office expired he has built up a good, growing practice. He married Miss Mary Horton, a niece of Hon. A. E. Horton, in May, 1887.
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.- 354
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
JAMES CRESAP SPRIGG, JR.,
a leading young business man of San Diego, California, is a descendant of the prominent Sprigg family, of Maryland, that owned large land grants in Maryland, part of which was Northampton, in Prince George County, which Governor Sprigg's widow sold in 1865. The original patent for this property was granted to Colonel Thomas Sprigg, Jr., in 1667. " Black Oak Level," in Prince George County, Maryland, was granted to Thomas Sprigg, Jr., in 1703, and that addition to Eden's Paradise Regained was surveyed for patent by Richard Sprigg, May 17, 1774. It was then Frederick County, but is now Allegheny. Osborn Sprigg, second, who was a half brother of Governor Samuel Sprigg, lived on the Potomac river, about fifteen miles below Cumberland, in Hampshire County, Virginia. He married Sarah, youngest daughter of Captain Michael Cresap, of Revolutionary fame, who led his famous company of 100 riflemen on foot from western Maryland to the siege of Boston in 1775. Osborn Sprigg's death occurred in 1813. He left four sons; one of these sons, Michael Cresap Sprigg, was born in 1799, and married Mary, daughter of Colonel William Lamar. Michael Cresap Sprigg was a member of Congress from the Sixth. Maryland District; was president of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company, and served many sessions in the Maryland Legislature. He died in 1845, leaving three sons. One of these sons, James Cresap Sprigg, was born in Allegheny County, in 1827, and was chief engineer and manager of the Petersburg Railroad. His whole life was spent in building railroads through the South. It was his energy that built the road through Dismal Swamp. He married Miss Lucy B. Addison, of Georgetown, District of Columbia, and has six surviving children. The second of these children, James Cresap Sprigg, Jr., is the subject of this biography. He was born in Petersburg, Virginia, March 16, 1868, land was educated at the University at Petersburg; then in the Glenwood Institute, of Maryland, and finished in the University of West Virginia. The last year he was junior member of the faculty and was an observer of the Signal Corps of the army at the university, having charge of that station, and he studied law there and graduated. His health failing, he went to Washington, where he remained for one year; but, his health not improving, his physician advised him to come to California, and in 1884 he accordingly arrived in San Diego. For the first two years here he was an officer of the Signal Corps, and then He organized the firm of Woolwine, Sprigg & Co., engaging in the real-estate and general brokerage business; he is now carrying on the business himself as successor to the firm. He is a capitalist and stockholder in the First National Bank.
He was united in marriage with Miss Gertrude Whitney, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Whitney, formerly of Toledo, Ohio, now residing in San Diego. She was born April 16, 1867.
Mr. Sprigg is a member of the Episcopal Church and also of the I. O. O. F. Governor Sprigg, of Virginia, was his grand-uncle. Their ancestry were of the nobility in England, the first emigration to America settling in Maryland.
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.- 354-355
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler