JOTHAN BIXBY

Los Angeles County

Biographies

JOTHAN BIXBY

BIXBY, JOTHAM, Pioneer Stock Raiser and Capitalist, Long Beach, California, was born at Norridgewock, Maine, January 20, 1831. He comes from the old stock of New Englanders who settled in Maine in the early days and who previously had come from Massachusetts. His father was Amasa Bixby and his mother Fanny (Weston) Bixby.

Mr. Bixby’s maternal great-grandfather was Joseph Weston, a pioneer of Maine, who, in the first year of the Revolutionary War, gave his life to the Republic. He volunteered his services as a woodsman guide to lead the ill-fated expedition of Benedict Arnold against Quebec through the pathless forests of Maine and was killed in the discharge of his duty.

On December 4, 1862, at San Juan Bautista, California, Mr. Bixby married Margaret Winslow Hathaway, second daughter of the Rev. George W. Hathaway, of Skowhegan, Maine. By this union there have been born seven children—George Hathaway, Mary Hathaway (deceased), Henry Llewellyn (deceased), Margaret Hathaway (deceased), Rosamond Read (deceased), Fanny Weston and Jotham Winslow Bixby.

Mr. Bixby received his education in the common schools of his native State. Being one of ten children, and realizing that there were few opportunities for him in Maine, he determined to go to California, which at that time was attracting the eyes of the civilized world. The gold rush was on, and in 1852, Jotham Bixby found himself aboard the ship Samuel Appleton, California-bound. The ship went around the horn and Mr. Bixby was landed in San Francisco, the Mecca City for adventurers and gold seekers from all parts of the globe.

In July, of the same year, Mr. Bixby, in company with his elder brother and several others who went out with him from his home village, entered the mining region near Volcano, in Amador County, California. He continued in placer mining for about five years and acquired a small amount of capital.

In 1856, he went into sheep raising and the wool business and the following year moved south to San Luis Obispo County, California, near San Miguel. He remained there in close attention to his growing flocks for about nine years.

The name and fame of Southern California had commenced to impress itself on a few of the far-sighted and, in 1866, Mr. Bixby sold his interests in San Luis Obispo County, intent on settling near Los Angeles. A short time previous to this he and his equal partner in the well known pioneer firm of Flint, Bixby & Company, of which his elder brother, Llewellyn Bixby, was also a member, had purchased from John Temple the fertile and well-watered Rancho Los Cerritos, containing over 27,000 acres.

This vast tract of land, which lies east of the San Gabriel River and fronts the Pacific Ocean, includes the present townsites of Long Beach and Clearwater, and the Llewellyn or New River district. Mr. Bixby was half owner and in full management of the property and soon became known as one of the largest and wealthiest stock raisers in Southern California. With his indomitable force of character, he gradually worked his way to the front. He made additional land purchases, financed numerous worthy development projects and became known as one of the most progressive citizens of Southern California.

As their flocks enlarged and their profits increased, Mr. Bixby and his associates purchased 17,000 acres of the Palos Verdes Rancho, and a one-third interest in Los Alamitos Rancho, of 26,000 acres. Later he purchased individually, 6000 acres in the Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, as well as business properties in and around Los Angeles.

With this expansion of holdings his stock was correspondingly increased and at times he had 30,000 head of sheep on his ranges. From this herd 200,000 pounds of wool were obtained yearly. In later years he raised horses and cattle as well as sheep. Now his principal live stock interest is in Holstein-Friesian cattle and in scientific dairying.

Mr. Bixby has been one of the most important factors in the upbuilding of the city of Long Beach, which has been reared on a part of the land formerly owned by him, and stands today one of the most progressive municipalities of the Pacific Coast. He was one of the original incorporators of the town, aided in laying out its streets and avenues, organized various business enterprises, including the first bank, and was instrumental in furthering the city’s interests in so many ways that he was given the honorary title of “The Father of Long Beach.” The city has a population of approximately 25,000 persons and won distinction among the cities of the Union by showing a growth in population of nearly seven hundred per cent during the decade from 1900 to 1910, the greatest increase of any city in the United States. To Mr. Bixby, who witnessed and aided the transformation of the place, this record was a source of great satisfaction, for in his latter years he is working as eagerly for its growth as he did at the beginning of the task of making a city.

Aside from the practical work of adding to the commercial importance of Long Beach, Mr. Bixby and his family have, by their force of character, had a strong influence on governmental and civic affairs in general, with the result that Long Beach, a city of beautiful homes, is one of the cleanest, physically and otherwise, in the country, and noted as one of the most refined resorts in the West.

Despite his prominence in public affairs, Mr. Bixby has never had any political ambitions and consequently has never appeared as a seeker or candidate for any public office, although, as a recognition of his great work for his adopted State he could probably have had any office within the gift of the people of his section. He has always taken an interest in politics to the extent of assuring clean, progressive government, but in the main his work has been that of a developer of resources and his appearances in public affairs have been limited to service on special bodies engaged in the promotion of movements for the benefit of the city.

Mr. Bixby has now turned over the management of some of his interests to his sons. At the same time he takes a keen interest in looking after business details, particularly of his farming interests, his confidence in his own judgment therein being fully justified by the fact that farming formed the foundation of his fortune.

He is President of the Bixby Land Company, the Palos Verdes Company, the Jotham Bixby Company, and many smaller corporations; Vice President of the Alamitos Land Company, the Alamitos Water Company, first Vice President of the National Bank of Long Beach, and Vice President of the Long Beach Savings & Trust Company, being associated in some of these enterprises with other members of his family connection and in others with that eminent Pacific Coast financier, Isaias W. Hellman.

In addition to the interests mentioned, Mr. Bixby has been interested in various other enterprises, including orange growing, manufacturing, irrigation and cattle. He was President of the Chino Valley Cattle Company of Arizona for several years, this company being engaged in the sheep raising business at Ash Fork, Arizona, on an extensive scale. The direct management he turned over to his son Harry L. Bixby, who conducted the business until his death in 1902, and since that time it has been in the hands of others. Another important concern which Mr. Bixby helped to organize and push to success was the Pacific Creamery Company, of Buena Park, Orange County, California, engaged in the manufacture of condensed milk and cream, with a monthly output of nine thousand cases of evaporated milk and cream.

Several years ago Mr. Bixby resigned from the office of President of the National Bank of Long Beach to take the less confining, though active office of First Vice President of the bank, in which capacity he serves.

On December 4, 1912, Mr. and Mrs. Bixby celebrated the golden anniversary of their wedding in their magnificent home at Long Beach, facing Bixby Park, a beauty spot he presented to the city. They welcomed more than eighty guests, many of whom were their children and grand-children, and following the wedding luncheon, a great family reunion was held.

On that occasion, Mr. Bixby, strong and alert at the age of eighty-one, received congratulations from scores of friends in all parts of the country who admire him as a man, and appreciate his work in upbuilding the substantial City of Long Beach, built on the land where formerly his sheep and cattle grazed. The couple received numerous gifts commemorating their fiftieth anniversary of wedded life, one of these being a handsome silver vase three feet in height, sent by the officers and directors of the National Bank of Long Beach, of which he was one of the organizers and the first President, and the Long Beach Savings & Trust Company.

Mr. Bixby long occupied a comfortable, but by no means ostentatious residence overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Long Beach, but in September, 1911, he purchased the magnificent residence built there two years before by A. D. Meyers, a mining man, which is one of the most palatial residences in Southern California, and occupies a commanding position on the bluff above the ocean.

There he is rounding out the evening of a most active life in close and happy companionship with his wife and his surviving children and grand-children, who, best of all, know and appreciate the simple, unaffected and generous, but entirely vigorous traits of character which make this stalwart scion of a hardy and conscientious race a true historic representative of the best and most characteristic in the transformation of early California.

Transcribed 5-16-08 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Pages 7-8, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.

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