FREDERICK WILLIAM BARKHAUS

Frederick William Barkhaus. The news of the discovery of gold in California spread all over the world and brought to the state eager men from the most distant points, who sought here an easy road to fortune. Lads, even, came, and bore bravely the hardships which naturally resulted from an overwhelming influx into an underdeveloped region, and many of them remained to become substantial citizens. One of the arrivals of 1853 was a German youth, Frederick William Barkhaus, who had been born in Hanover, November 22, 1836. He went direct to Placer County,and was there engaged in mining for several years, with moderate success. He then decided to enter business life, came to San Francisco, and established his store on Washington near Kearney, and conducted it for forty years, although the location was later changed. His was one of the early book and stationery stores of the city, and became famous as the years went by. On January 11, 1858, he received his final naturalization papers, and always gave to his adopted city and country the most loyal service. For forty years he was a zealous Mason. When he died, January 1, 1904, San Francisco lost one of its most worthy citizens. For many years he was a director of the German Hospital and also of the German General Benevolent Society. His popularity is shown by the fact that he was tendered the nomination for treasurer of San Francisco, but he declined it as he did not have any inclination for public office.

In 1864 Mr. Barkhaus was married to Louise J. Huber, a daughter of Joseph and Katherine (Mueller) Huber, the father a native of Austria and the mother of Bremen, Germany, where he was born in 1785, and she in 1806. Joseph Huber came to the United States in 1853 as a member of a grand opera company. He was a singer of note, and very talented, but he was unfortunate enough to live in a period when proper recognition was not given to grand opera, and so missed the appreciation and financial rewards which would have been his today. His death occurred at the age of eighty-four years. His wife died at the age of seventy-five.

Mr. and Mrs. Barkhaus became the parents of the following children: Henry, who is deceased, was a celebrated artist and died in Germany while studying abroad. He was in many respects a remarkable young man and, in fact, was a genius. His drawings and paintings showed a mastery of the art and were eagerly sought for. Although not twenty-one years of age, his personality was so marked that he numbered his friends by the score; and this was true of the old generation, among whom he was greatly admired. To this day, although nearly forty years has passed since his untimely demise, his name is very often brought up in art circles and among the men of the past generation. Had he lived there is no question but that he would have become a world famous figure. Mollie, who is also deceased; Frederick William; Louise J.; Nicholas, who is deceased; JuliA; William; Carl, and Katherine. None of the children have married, and the survivors are living with their widowed mother. Mrs. Barkhaus remembers much of interest during the early days of San Francisco. She was educated in the Sacred Heart School and recalls distinctly being taken to festivals held on the sands at third and Market streets, where the queen of the revels was crowned. She often recalls her father's attempts to awaken a love for fine music in the people of San Francisco, and regrets that his great talents met with so little recompense. Her life is made happy, however, by the love and care of her children, and her recollections of her husband and the part he played in the business life of their part of the city, where his name stood for sterling honesty and stalwart integrity. The business he founded and developed was destroyed by the great fire of San Francisco. The younger generation of Barkhaus are a credit to their parents, and to their families on both sides of the house.

Source: "The San Francisco Bay Region"by Bailey Millard Vol. 3 page 140-143. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc. 1924.

W. A. BEATTY is one of our young lawyers of whom much may be expected in future years. He is an earnest man in all things, has a proper ambition to make a success of his life, is very energetic, and is well satisfied to work up to his aims. He well recognizes that in the law there is no royal road to position and practice, but that both must be conquered, it may be after years of effort by ability in the profession aided by unflagging industry. For four years he has been practicing his profession and he has followed in the footsteps of those who left good precedent for his guidance, that is, our most successful lawyers. In each instance we may say of all these men they were for years working with zeal, patiently before the reward came, but then it came in full measure. The times now are more conservative than in the beginning and the reasons that guided our best lawyers applying now with more force than ever. In his line of action Mr. Beatty has followed excellent example, and his four years of steady work have been productive of good results. Well read in the law in the beginning he has had the necessary practice. He is painstaking, careful, and in court his arguments are to the point and convincing. That he is well regarded in his profession is therefore natural, and in it he certainly should have a most credible and successful history.

W. A. Beatty was born in this city. His father came here in the early fifties. The Beattys are of Scott-Irish extraction, a people remarkable for their energy, and for the success that attends them, through the possession of all those traits necessary to it.

The elder Mr. Beatty resided several years in New Orleans before coming to this city. In California he had the usual experience of the Argonaut. He went to the mines and visited many sections of the coast. During the Fraser river excitement he went there and lost heavily in consequence. He was also on the Comstock in early times. He conducted important milling operations and achieved large fortune several times. In this city he engaged in real estate. For many years he has not been actively engaged in business, having indeed a sufficiency of this world's goods.

W. A. Beatty was educated in our public schools. He afterward entered the High School in Oakland, going from there to the University, where he graduated in 1884. Following this he entered the Hastings College of Law and was graduated there in 1887.

Then he began his practice here and this has been a general civil one and in it he has been as successful as he could hope for. By great care in his cases, by the use of every legitimate means to succeed for his clients, he has the confidence of all coming in contact with him, and this, we need not say, has been of great advantage. Apart from his profession Mr. Beatty has at times contributed to the press. He was indeed at the university the editor of the "Occident", a bright students’ journal. Since, his tastes in this direction have developed and he has written several papers which attracted much attention owing to their sound reasoning. He has written magazine articles for the "Overland Monthly" on the tariff question and the Morman question.

Mr. Beatty belongs to none of the clubs or societies. To his profession his whole time and energies are devoted. When we consider his ability and his industry he undoubtedly will have a successful career. He enjoys the respect and esteem of those who know him, for his record certainly merits this.

Source: "The Bay of San Francisco" Volume 1. Lewis Publishing Company 1892. Page 426-427.

It does not come into the experience of every man, worthy though he may be, to serve his fellowmen long and adequately in high office and, in passing off the scene of life, leave behind him a record of noble and far-reaching achievements. Such was the imperishable fabric of the life story of one of California’s most distinguished jurists, the late Hon. William H. Beatty, chief justice of the Supreme Court of California. For a quarter of a century he filled this exalted position, one that placed him ever in the public eye, and he bore its closest scrutiny with unruffled calm, amazing efficiency and incorruptible integrity.

Judge Beatty was born in the Village of Monclova, Lucas County, Ohio, February 18, 1838. His parents, Henry Oscar and Margaret (Boone) Beatty, were natives of Kentucky, and while he was yet an infant they returned to that state and his early boyhood was spent there. In 1853 he accompanied his parents to California, the long journey being made by way of the Isthmus of Panama. Subsequently his father became a lawyer of much prominence in California, and as the son gave early indication of mental ability and preference for the law, his father provided him with educational advantages. In 1856, although but eighteen years of age, he was deemed ready for college, went back East to his father’s alma mater, and spent the next two years in the study of law in the University of Virginia.

In September, 1858, Mr. Beatty returned to California and became his father’s law partner at Sacramento, where he continued until 1863, when he went to Nevada. In those days the legal profession had fewer representative practitioners in that state than at present, and the people were not slow to recognize the caliber of the young lawyer in their midst, and in 1864 he was elected judge of the Seventh Judicial District and continued in that office until 1874, when he was elected associate justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada, taking his seat in January, 1875. Judge Beatty continued on the Supreme bench in Nevada until 1880, during the last two years of his term being chief justice.

Shortly after retiring from the Nevada high court Judge Beatty returned to California and resumed the practice of law in a private capacity, but not for long, for his talents were too great to be obscured and in 1888 he was elected chief justice of the Supreme Court of California, which office he filled continuously until the time of his death, which occurred at his home in San Francisco on August 4, 1914. Judge Beatty had the unique distinction of having served two great commonwealths of the Union in their highest judicial office and with such efficiency that honor and renown will always crown his name. His opinions as chief justice in California are to be found in ninety volumes, Volumes 77 to 166, inclusive, covering a period of distinguished service unequaled in judicial history. His long term of faithful public service, together with qualities that characterized him, sturdy integrity, a natural conception of right and justice, unflagging industry and personal honor, made him one of the great men of his time and his death an irreparable loss to California.

Judge Beatty married in 1874 Miss Elizabeth M. Love, of Salisbury, North Carolina, who survives, together with one son, Henry Oscar Beatty. Two grandsons also survive, they being children of a beloved daughter, now deceased.

Judge Beatty was a member of the Bar Association of San Francisco. The degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by the University of California, and he belonged to the Phi Kappa Sigma Greek letter fraternity. He was a member of the noted Sutter Club of Sacramento, and of the University, Pacific Union and Southern clubs of San Francisco. Dignified, but never unapproachable in his judicial capacity, those who were permitted his confidence and friendship in social circles found him rarely companionable, kindly without condescension, and generous, tender and considerate in times of trouble or distress.

Source: "The San Francisco Bay Region," Vol. 3, page 373-375, by Bailey Millard. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc. 1924.

Harmon BELL

Harmon BELL, senior member of the law firm of BELL, BELL and SMITH in Oakland, and one of the leaders in the Alameda County bar, is a native son and has been in law practice in the Middle West and in California for over forty years. His father was one of the distinguished pioneer ministers of the Gospel in California, and altogether the associations of the family name in California are entitles to more than ordinary notice.

His father was Rev. Dr. Samuel B. BELL, a native of Orange County, New York, and son of a veteran of the War of 1812. Samuel B. BELL married Sophia WALWORTH, who was born at Cleveland, Ohio. Both were descended from Revolutionary ancestors, one of her forefathers having been an officer in the storming of Fort Ticonderoga.

Samuel B. BELL was ordained an Evangelist of the Presbyterian denomination at Onondaga, New York, in 1852, and in November of the same year was sent by the American Home Missionary Society to the Pacific Coast. He came around the Horn in the clipper ship Trade Wind, and on his arrival commenced his work on the ground on which the City of Oakland now stands, building the First Presbyterian Church there. He served as its pastor for many years, but his influence as a religious leader extended all over the San Francisco Bay district. He had unusual qualifications for a pioneer and leader, not only in religious but educational affairs, possessing great breadth of view and intellectual vision. He procured the charter for the College of California, now the University of California, being one of the founders of that institution. He also represented his district in the California State Senate and the House of Representatives for three years, during which time he was connected with important legislation, particularly aiding in the passing of the homestead law and introducing the bill creating the board of regents for the university. He was one of the original republicans when the party was formed, and attended the first republican convention in California.

The first chapter of his California activities covered just a decade. Soon after the Civil war broke out he went back East overland, and at New York in 1862 tendered his services to General HOOKER, but was not permitted to go to the front. Instead, he was appointed pastor of the Fiftieth Street Presbyterian Church in New York. He also became widely known as a lecturer and orator, served as a member of two General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, and was active in church councils. From New York City he went to Lyons in Wayne County, New York, and then to Hillsdale, Michigan. Accepting a chair in Washington College in Alameda County, he returned to California, subsequently resigning his work as a professor to become pastor of the First Congregational Church of Mansfield, Ohio. Subsequently he lived in Kansas City, Missouri, and on his second return to California made his home at Santa Barbara, where he lived retired until his death in 1897.

Mr. Harmon BELL, the Oakland attorney, was born in Oakland, March 23, 1855. He was seven years of age when the family returned East, and acquired his early education in Lyons Academy at Lyons, New York in Hillsdale College at Hillsdale, Michigan, attended college in Alameda County while his father was professor there, and when twenty-two years of age, entered the law offices of DIRLAM and LEHMAN at Mansfield, Ohio. He completed his studies in the office of Judge Turner A. GILL at Kansas City, Missouri, being admitted to the Missouri bar May 1, 1878. Mr. BELL for twenty years was engaged in a successful law practice at Kansas City, and during that period of his life was elected a member of the Missouri State Legislature, serving from 1881 to 1882.

Since 1898 Mr. BELL has practiced as a member of the San Francisco bar. He specializes in corporation law, and has handled much notable litigation. In 1904 he became chief counsel for the San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose Railroad Company, and for the Oakland Traction Company, since which he has had his offices in Oakland.

Mr. BELL married in 1880 Miss Catherine WILSON, a daughter of A.C.J. and Margaret WILSON, who were pioneers of Santa Barbara, California. Of the four children born to their marriage, two, Walworth and Marjorie died in infancy. The son, Traylor W. BELL, who is a graduate of the University of California, is now associated with his father in the law firm of BELL, BELL and SMITH, the junior partner being Stanley SMITH. Traylor W. BELL married Miss Helen CHASE of Oakland, daughter of Quincy A. CHASE and they have a son, Harmon Chase BELL. The second son of Mr. BELL is Joseph Samuel BELL, now in the dramatic profession. During the World war he was a second lieutenant, stationed in Kentucky.

During the World war Harmon BELL was food administrator of Oakland, and served as one of the dollar a year men with the Government. He is affiliated with Oakland Commandery of the Knights Templars, is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a member of Aahmes Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Oakland, is former president of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, is former trustee of the Presbyterian Church, and belongs to the Sequoia Club, Claremont Country Club, Oakland Lodge of Elks. Athenian Nile Club, and Oakland Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West.

Source: "The San Francisco Bay Region"Vol. 3 page 245-246 by Bailey Millard. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc. 1924.