Alameda
County
Biographies
DANIEL BEST
The Best Manufacturing Company of San Leandro
is one of the largest agricultural implement manufactories in the state of
California. The reputation of its products is based on their utility and
practicability, and they represent the inventive genius of Daniel Best, a
California pioneer of 1869, who has probably done as much to promote
agricultural advancement as any other man on the coast. He was born in Crawford
county, Ohio, March 28, 1838, a son of John Best, who was born in Ohio, and
grandson of John Best, a native of Pennsylvania, and a soldier in the
Revolutionary, French, and Indian wars. His paternal grandfather was a very old
settler in Crawford county, Ohio, locating there in
1790, and thereafter following the occupation of farming until his death at an
advanced age. His son John followed his patriotic example and enlisted in the
war of 1812, and in 1839 removed to Iron Mountain, Mo., where he farmed and ran
a mill until 1847. He then settled in Lee county, Iowa, ten miles from Keokuk,
where he bought the claim of a half-breed, and farmed on a large scale until
his death in 1860. His wife, formerly Rebecca Fleck, a native of Ohio, died in
Iowa leaving six sons and four daughters, the oldest of whom is the subject of
this sketch.
Daniel Best showed marked mechanical
ingenuity while yet a youth, although he had small opportunity of exercising it
on the home farm, as the work was arduous, and there were many to profit by the
crops which could not always be depended upon. Good fortune, as exemplified by
his own energy and pluck, came to him in 1859, when he crossed the plains to
Oregon, and started to work in a sawmill in Portland. Later on he became a
logger, for which he displayed great skill, and at the end of six weeks had
realized an increase of pay from a dollar to five dollars a day, and was
appointed head sawyer. From 1860 until 1862 he engaged in farming, and then
went to the Powder River mines, remaining until 1865. At Auburn, Ore., the
situation called for his mechanical ingenuity, for he desired a mill, and the
state contained little in the way of machinery or general equipment. However,
he succeeded in building and outfitting the mill without sending out of the
state for anything but a whip saw, and with a partner succeeded in turning out
about two thousand feet of lumber per day. His mill was located on a stream of
sufficient size to provide excellent water power; but the winter coming on,
there remained nothing to do at the mill and the owner started out on a
prospecting tour, the first day securing about $60 in gold. In all he took out
about $500 from his claim, and thus reinforced against immediate want, he sold
his mill to the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company. Mr. Best followed
mining and prospecting along the Snake and other rivers,
and in the fall of 1866 went to the Puget Sound country and worked in mills,
subsequently managing a mill on the Chehalis river for three years. In 1868 he
ran the Turnwater Mill near Olympia, but while there
had an accident which resulted in the loss of all the fingers on his left hand.
In 1869 Mr. Best came to California
to visit his brother in Sutter county, the latter
having crossed the plains in 1862, and located on a farm. Mr. Best leased this
farm and put in a crop, which proved a veritable mine to the somewhat
discouraged miller, and he conceived the idea of a portable outfit with which
he could travel around the country and separate oats and barley from wheat. The
wish proved father to the thought and in 1870 he evolved the first machine, the
fall witnessing the completion of three more. The same year he secured patents
for his machine, and in the fall of 1871 sold a half-interest to L. D. Brown,
who erected a shop in Marysville for manufacturing them. Mr. Best then went to
Oregon to sell his claims in that state, but not finding a purchaser returned
to California to assist the agricultural company in Marysville. In 1874 the company
purchased the Auburn canal ditch, thirty-six miles long, and put in a bed rock
flume and then sold out. Mr. Best then opened a big mine in McCord Gulch, put
in hydraulic power, but finally was obliged to go out of business much the
worse financially, not only losing all that he had in the world, but owing the
men who had worked for him. Thereupon he renewed his interest in the ditch
company, paid off his men and bought a team and wagon and came through the
Indian country to Albany, Ore. This proved not only interesting but exciting,
and he has many stories to tell of hairbreadth escapes, and of good treatment
on the part of the Indians.
At Albany Mr. Best found a position
in a mill by offering to run it three days for nothing, and his methods so
amazed the management that he was allowed to run it throughout the winter. The
board of trade of Portland issuing a circular to the effect that grain had to
be cleaned, Mr. Best took up the manufacture of his separating machine, took
orders for forty machines, and bought an interest in a planning mill,
purchasing also the right of manufacture from the manufacturing company in
California. From 1879 until 1885 he had a branch in Oakland, an in the fall of
1885 moved to San Leandro and bought a small shop, shipping all machinery to
this point. He built the combined harvester in 1885, a horse power machine; in
1887 built the traction engine, and in 1888 a crude
oil engine. On these machines he has over thirty-five patents, besides those on
the side-hill harvester, invented in 1901. He is doing a business of $300,000 a
year, and has a plant covering three hundred square feet in the main building,
and two hundred by one hundred and fifty feet in the annex. In all he owns
three blocks of land in San Leandro, and his market covers the Pacific coast,
while his traction engine may be found all over the world wherever agricultural
implements are known.
In Marysville Mr. Best married Meta Steincamp, who was born in San Francisco, and died in San
Leandro in 1898. Five daughters and one son have been born of this union, of
whom Lottie is deceased; Leo is superintendent of his father’s manufacturing
company, and a member of the Best manufacturing company; and Meta, Viola,
Bessie and Lettie are at home. Mr. Best has never
taken an active interest in politics, but nevertheless is a stanch supporter of
Republican principles and issues. He is fraternally identified with the Ancient
Order of United Workmen.
Transcribed by: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast
Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 843-844.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Cecelia M. Setty.
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