San Diego County
Biographies
ROBERT C. MILLS, JR.
is the Elsinore hardware merchant. Having a stock of shelf hardware, farm implements, carriages and wagons, fully abreast of the needs of the town, he enjoys the patronage of the county for six miles in every direction. He came from Manitoba to Elsinore in 1885; he had been in the former place, in the real-estate business, for two years. He was born, raised and educated in the Ottawa valley, Canada, and dates his birth October 20, 1854. His father, R. C. Mills, Sr., was also born in Canada, and his mother, nee Miss Anna McVicar, was born in Scotland. The subject of this sketch was the second of a family of eight surviving children. He was in the lumber business seven years before leaving his native place. When he began his hardware business the firm was Mills Brothers, but afterward he bought his brother out, and is now running the business alone. In 1876 he was married in Toronto, Canada, to Miss Eliza Bannerman, a native of Scotland, and they have
four children, three born in Canada, and the youngest born in Elsinore. They are Robert, eleven years of age; Alma, eight years of age; Thomas Murry, five years of age, and Tracy Junor, one and one-half years of age. Mrs. Mills is a Presbyterian, which church Mr. Mills attends. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, is a painstaking obliging business man, and a lover of home. He is well pleased with Elsinore, and is identified with its interests, and has made the United States the country of his adoption.
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.- 128-129
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
HENRY L. DAVIS,
lumberman, San Diego, was born in Brooklyn, New York, in
1860, and was educated in New York city. At the age of twenty-three years he
entered the shipping house of his father, Jonas Smith & Co., New York, as
cashier, and in two years became a junior partner, of which he still remains.
The business of the firm, which was established in 1840, is that of trading with
foreign countries, confined principally to the East Indies, West Indies, and
South America. In 1887 they became interested in San Diego, through the
medium of Mr. E. S. Babcock, Jr., who induced Mr. Davis to send the first
sailing ship from New York via Cape Horn to the
port of San Diego. This vessel, the James A. Borland, with a cargo of 1,200
tons, consisting of coal, iron pipe, plaster, etc., arrived after a passage of
158 days from New York. This inaugurated the opening of a new and economical
means of transportation from the East. Several ships followed, including one
steamer at
intervals, which is now being continued. In August, 1888, Mr. Davis arrived in
San Diego to look after the interests of his firm. He at once purchased several
cargoes of lumber at Puget Sound, and dispatched his ships to bring it to San
Diego, whereupon he established the Independent Lumber Company, and reduced
the price of pine lumber, ranging from $2.00 to $7.00 per thousand feet from the
rates that were being exacted by the combination companies. This created strong
opposition, but had the effect of forcing the combination companies to reduce
prices materially, and which have never been advanced. These operations required
facilities that would reduce the cost of transportation, and handling of lumber
at the minimum of expense. Land was purchased on the water front, a bulkhead and
dock built, in addition to the employment of the firm's ships, which thus
provided means by which lumber could be sold slightly over actual cost and
freight.
In November, 1889, Mr. Davis erected a large warehouse upon his property, which complete facilities for shipping and receiving by rail and water. This was built for the purpose of warehousing goods shipped by sailing vessels from New York, as occasion might require, and for the storage of grain awaiting shipment by sea from San Diego, as return cargoes to the United Kingdom. Mr. Davis is also one of the owners of the Cedros Island Mining Company, located off the coast of Lower California, where the company have fifty men now employed and several vessels engaged in transporting gold ore to San Diego for reduction. The operations of this company, of which little is known to the outside world, are becoming so extensive as to require the erection of smelting works for the treatment of ore, and the purchase of a steamer for transportation, at a very early date.
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.- 129
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler