Alameda
County
Biographies
FARLEY BENJAMIN GRANGER
The biographies illustrating the growth and
progress of California are largely those of the early settlers, the founders of
great enterprises, or the leaders in public life or in professional avocations.
Such men, through the circumstances of their coming into a community, or the
period of their connection with its affairs, possess a certain advantage apart
from their individual characters. Those following them, while they may possess
equal or greater endowments, are in a measure overshadowed by the veneration in
which men hold their elders. The life of a town cannot be adequately
illustrated without taking into account those who have taken up the work of
their fathers, and carried it on with the success equal to and often exceeding
their elders.
Farley Benjamin Granger belongs to
the second generation of Alvarado’s promoters and business men. The first
generation viewed a barren town site, the second wield
a powerful influence in the busy mart of activity erected thereon. A native of
Alvarado, Mr. Granger was born June 26, 1855, a son of Farley Benjamin and
Annie (Robbins) Granger, the latter a native of Shropshire, England, who came to America as a child.
Farley Benjamin Granger, Sr., was
born in Ontario county, N. Y., November 17, 1829, and
from the monotony of his father’s farm transferred his activities to a shingle
camp in Michigan, where he gained his first business experience. Later he
removed to Chicago, and still later to the Mormon settlement at Nauvoo, Ill.,
from which place he started across the plains in 1844 with a band of Mormon
emigrants. After a few months in Salt Lake City he operated a pack train to
Idaho and return, but his train being confiscated by the Indians, he came to
Irvington, Washington township, Alameda county, Cal.,
in 1851, and later freighted between Los Angeles, Sacramento, through the mines
to Salt Lake City and into Idaho. Packing in those days was at its best a
hazardous undertaking, and called for unparalleled courage on the art of those
thus employed. On several occasions he lost his entire outfit, and frequently
the men accompanying the trains were killed by the Indians. In 1861 he locate
in Alvarado with his family, took his train to be loaded at Los Angeles and left
his family at what is now Alvarado, then proceeded to Salt Lake with his train,
the same year purchasing forty-five acres of land where the Southern Pacific
depot now stands. About this time the railroad came through and his freighting
days were over, and he devoted himself thereafter to farming and stock-raising.
His land proving too small for his operations, he bought one hundred acres
across Alameda Creek and engaged in the chicory business. In 1878, when the narrow-gauge
railroad came through the town, he took advantage of the influx of residents
and built the Riverside Hotel, to the management of which he applied himself
until his death, December 4, 1899. He was seventy years old, very active, a
strong type of a men and a pioneer, one of the last of the men whose names are
connected with the old freighting days in the west. He had sold his one hundred
acre tract to the sugar mill, and bought the old Union City Landing, which he
later disposed of to the Oakland Water Company, of which he was one of the original
promoters. Later he bought a fruit farm of thirty-five acres near Decoto,
Washington township. He was one of the solid,
conservative, and substantial men of the county, and won all honor and respect
for the courage, dignity and success of his life. For years he was a member of
Crusade Lodge No. 93, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He was a strong
Republican, though never accepting official recognition. Mr. Granger married in
Salt Lake City, bringing his wife at once to Alameda county
where she lived until her death, July 2, 1898, in her sixty-third year. She had
three children: Farley B., Jr.; Clarence A., an expert beet sugar manufacturer,
residing in Greeley, Colo., and a daughter, Edith Anna, the wife of Elmer E.
Chase, of San Jose.
The subject of this review, F. B.
Granger, Jr., is a native of Alvarado and received his preliminary education in
its public schools, and owes his business training to its surrounding
opportunities. At the age of twenty he completed the course at the California
Military Academy at Oakland, and forthwith returned to his father’s ranch and
assisted him with that and the hotel. As the oldest son, responsibilities fell
thick and fast around him, and in their discharge he evidenced the rare
discretion and sagacity which characterized his father’s operations. After the
death of the latter he fulfilled the terms of the will, and assumed control of
the estate. Since then he has leased the hotel, and devoted his time to the
improvement of the farm, which is one of the finest dairy enterprises in the
state of California. He owns the land on which the depot is built, besides
several large warehouses. His dairy is a model which should furnish
encouragement to those to contemplate following that industry, being complete
in every detail, and equipped regardless of expense. A company was organized
under the name of the Jackson-Granger Dairy Company, having three hundred cows,
and operating on a scale attempted by but few in the west. Following his
father’s example, Mr. Granger is public spirited, interesting himself in
educational and general advancement, and promoting with brain and money
whatever tends to the upbuilding of his community. He is a stanch
Republican, having served twelve years in an official capacity and several
years as school trustee. In September, 1902, he was one of the organizers and
was elected vice-president of the Bank of Alvarado, which has a paid-up capital
of $25,000. He is a member of the Alameda Lodge No. 167, F. & A. M., of
Centerville, the Alameda Chapter No. 70, R. A. M., of Alameda, and the Oakland
Consistory No. 2, of Oakland, and Islam Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. of San
Francisco. He is also identified with Crusade Lodge No. 93, I. O. O. F., the
Alameda Encampment at Haywards, (sic) Cal., and the
Wisteria Parlor No. 127, N. S. G. W. Mr. Granger married December 20, 1894, Sue
Harvey, a native of Alvarado, and of the union two children, Helen Sarah and
Farley Benjamin, Jr., have been born. Mr. Granger owes much to a genial,
tactful and considerate manner, to a high appreciation of business integrity,
and to an unfailing perseverance.
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 842-843.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Cecelia M. Setty.
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