Los Angeles County
Biographies
EDWARD BIRDSALL CONDON
Condon, Edward Birdsall, Mining, Los Angeles, California, was born in Chappaqua, Westchester County, New York, March 14, 1861, the son of Edward M Condon and Anna Elizabeth Birdsall. He married Ida Gillette Mercer at San Rafael, California, and to them there was born a son, Edward Birdsall Condon, Jr. Mrs. Condon died February 19, 1911.
Mr. Condon, who is of Quaker descent, spent his boyhood in Brooklyn, N. Y., and received his preliminary education in private and public schools of that city. He first attended a private juvenile school, then went through high school and the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He afterwards attended Wabash College and was graduated from Dartmouth College in the class of 1882. Mr. Condon was gifted with a remarkable faculty for the acquirement and retention of knowledge, and when he was twelve years of age passed examinations for Harvard University. Because of his extreme youth, however, he was not permitted to enter and instead was sent away by his father for five years in order that his physical development might equal his mental.
Following his graduation from Dartmouth, Mr. Condon took up teaching as a profession and for approximately ten years was engaged in the private schools of New York, principally the old Columbia Grammar School, at that time the largest in the metropolis, studied law and was admitted to practice in the courts of New York in 1904. In 1892 Mr. Condon established the Condon School on Fifth Avenue in New York and conducted it for three years, as one of the most exclusive and high-priced educational institutions in the United States. He disposed of it, however, and in 1894 engaged in an entirely different line of business, that of a railroad contractor for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company. He remained in this field for about two years and in 1896 became associated with the Postal Telegraph Company in a similar capacity for about a year.
Mr. Condon, in 1897, took up the mining business and has been active in it, with brief interruptions, since that time. He was early in the Klondike country and was one of the first to locate at Dawson, Yukon Territory. He began his career there as a practical miner and prospector and within a very short time came to be regarded as one of the strong men of the camp. Because of his diversified knowledge of law and other subjects, he was chosen Chairman of the Committee on Mines of the Yukon Board of Trade and served in this position for four years. Under the Canadian laws the Boards of Trade of that country perform judicial functions corresponding to those of the Superior Courts in the United States, their decisions in all matters coming before them, when recorded, have the same force and dignity of those emanating from courts of record, and can be reversed only through appellate action. As practically all of the business of the Yukon Territory was connected with mining, ninety per cent of all judicial matters came before the committee of which Mr. Condon was Chairman and which was clothed with judicial authority to settle all disputes.
After serving four years as Chairman of this committee, Mr. Condon declined to serve a fifth because the Canadian authorities of the county notified him that he would have to swear allegiance to the British Crown if he accepted a re-election. This was at a time when political affairs in the Yukon country were in a turmoil. The Canadians, about 1903, had organized the Territory under their own laws, and most of the Americans had sold their claims and left the country. About a year prior to this Mr. Condon, as Chairman of the Committee on Mines, had averted serious international difficulty because of the antagonism between the Canadians and Americans and he handled the situation with such delicacy and diplomacy that the anniversary of the birth of the Queen of England was celebrated along with the Fourth of July by British and American settlers alike.
It was not long after this that Mr. Condon sold his holdings in the Yukon country and returned to the United States. Since that time he has been steadily engaged in mining enterprises. He is principally occupied by the General Securities Co. of Los Angeles, of which he is President, and he has been active also in the operation of the Arizona Empire Copper Company, with mines near Parker, Arizona. This property is only partially developed, but has been declared to be one of the richest copper mines in the United States.
Since embarking in the development of Southwestern resources, Mr. Condon has established his home in Los Angeles, intending to remain there.
Mr. Condon has at all times been a supporter of the Democratic party and in 1892 was offered the nomination for Congress from one of the New York districts by Richard Croker, and the late William C. Whitney, then the dominant factors of the Democratic party in the Empire State. Mr. Condon declined the offer, however, and George B. McClellan, afterwards Mayor of New York City, was given the nomination. Mr. Condon declined political honor at that time because of unwillingness to engage in public life and, with the exception of the time he served the Yukon Board of Trade as Chairman of its Committee on Mines, has never held public office.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 418, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.
1913.
© 2010 Joyce
Rugeroni.
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