Santa Clara County
Biographies
DANIEL B. AUSTIN
Daniel B. Austin, son of Alvin B. and Sallie D. (Rumsey) Austin, was born in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, February 12, 1834. His father was of Scotch and German descent, and his mother of Scotch and French, and both were reared near Lake Champlain. His father was born in 1800, and was a drummer boy in the War of 1812. He died on the home place, in 1882, and his wife, born 1801, died in 1884. He was a lumberman, and at one time owned large timber tracts in Tioga County. They reared a family of seven children, six sons and one daughter, of whom all are living except the fifth son. Daniel B. Austin remained on the home place until he was eighteen years of age, and in 1853 came to California, by Nicaragua route, from New York, through Central America, and arrived at San Francisco April 12, 1853. His first employment was on the steam ferry-boat Clinton, plying between San Francisco and San Antonio (now East Oakland), where he remained nine months, at a salary of $16 per day. He then engaged in the butchering business in San Francisco, and subsequently became a farmer at San Pablo, Contra Costa County, in partnership with Dr. J. M. Tewksbury, who owned a large tract of land there. He farmed until 1863, when he went to Austin, Nevada, where his brother, A. B. Austin, resided, and after whom the town was named. Mr. Austin at once engaged in engineering and mining, and followed this business, principally, for nineteen years. He put up a number of quartz mills for reducing ores, etc. He returned to California in 1882, and, after looking around over the State, selected Santa Clara for a home and purchased sixty acres, situated about a mile and a quarter from Los Gatos, on the Los Gatos and Saratoga road. In May, 1888, he sold all his land, except two and a quarter acres, where his residence is situated. He was married at Austin, Nevada, in 1867, to Felicitas Falez, a Mexican lady by birth, whose father was a prospector and miner in the State of Nevada. She died in 1869, leaving one daughter, Delphena C., born December 24, 1869. Mr. Austin again married, November 8, 1871, taking this time Sarah C. Rumsey, a native of Pennsylvania. They have six children: George B., born March 5, 1873; Birdie E., May 31, 1874; Floyd L., October 27, 1875; Luther R., January 5, 1877; Ruby S., February 27, 1879; Jesse S., May 27, 1882.
Mr. Austin is one of the original stockholders of the Los Gatos and Saratoga Wine and Fruit Company, and one of the directors of the corporation. He has also an interest in some silver mines in Nye County, Nevada. He was mainly instrumental in having the Austin School District, in which he resides, established, and the district was named after him. He was a member of the celebrated First California Guard, under Captain Bluxon. Each member of this company was six feet high. Their armory was located on Pine Street, San Francisco, and they encamped three months each year on the Alameda, in San Jose.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 306-307
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
Proofread by Betty Vickroy
JOHN CILKER
John Cilker, son of John and Elizabeth (Barloga) Cilker, was born in Hanover, Germany, March 15, 1833. His parents came to the United States when he was an infant, and located in Detroit, Michigan. They afterwards removed to Joliet, Illinois, where his mother died about 1840, and then his father moved back to Detroit, where he died in 1841. Upon his father’s death he was bound out to a lawyer in Detroit named Alexander Buell, and lived with him about two years, when Mr. Buell’s wife died and he was again bound out to a man named Peter Fisher, living with him two years, and when fourteen years old started out for himself. He lived in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri. In 1857 he came to California and went into the gold mines near Placerville. In June, 1858, he went to the Fraser River mines in British Columbia, where he mined for a while and then went to Washington Territory and engaged in the lumber business, which he followed for ten years. Mr. Cilker was married in Victoria, British Columbia, December 9, 1867, to Jane Lipsett, a native of County Donegal, Ireland, and then came to Santa Clara County and settled on his present place, on which all the improvements were made by him. He has eight children living,--three girls and five boys. Mr. Cilker is a stockholder and president of the Cooperative Wine Company of Los Gatos. He has 174 acres planted as follows: Twelve acres to almonds, now six years old and in good bearing; seventeen acres in French prunes, of which ten acres are five years old and seven acres three years old. He has had one good crop from the older trees, and the trees are full this year. He has 212 cherry trees six years old, bearing well; eight acres in white egg plums about two years old, and a family orchard of three acres of different varieties, consisting of 250 trees, which are doing well, and five acres of peaches, two years old. He has also a large vineyard, of which 10,000 vines are three years old, 10,000 two years old, and 8,000 one year old.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 307
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
Proofread by Betty Vickroy