Los Angeles County
Biographies
CAPTAIN JESSE D. HUNTER FAMILY
There is no American family more representative of the progress and development of southern California than that of Hunter, of which Captain Jesse D. Hunter was the progenitor in California, and of which he was an outstanding representative during his lifetime, and his descendants have maintained the same high standard of citizenship ever since. He was born January 6, 1806, and was the representative of an old Kentucky family. He had a very good education for that period, and taught school in the log cabin days in Kentucky, and was a lawyer of good repute. In 1824 or 1825 he married Keziah Brown, who was born in Illinois January 1, 1808, and together they crossed the state line into Kentucky erected a log cabin and established their home and reared their family. When not teaching school or practicing law Mr. Hunter farmed.
It was in 1846 that the society known as Latter-day Saints offered to supply some men to aid the government during its war with Mexico and by an act of congress this offer was accepted and five hundred men enrolled in a regiment known as the Iowa Volunteers. These men were ordered to proceed to California by way of the old Santa Fe Trail and take possession of California for the United States government. Among the officers was Jesse D. Hunter, whose name heads this article, and who was the captain of Company B. and his son, William, a drummer boy. After severe hardships and many losses these hardy men reached San Diego March 23, 1847. The war was near its close and the company disbanded and went to their various ways, but Captain Hunter reenlisted and did garrison duty for six months, and was made Indian agent.
The year following the departure of Jesse D. Hunter and his son for the west, Keziah Hunter and the rest of her family joined an ox-team train of two hundred wagons bound for California. All their worldly goods were loaded into the prairie schooner and they began the long and tiresome trek west. On account of the size of the train progress was slow, and because it was guarded by a number of scouts, the Indians did not molest the train. The scouts kept the emigrants supplied with buffalo and antelope meat en route. The first winter was passed in Council Bluffs, Iowa, but as soon as spring opened up the caravan took up its journey and reached Salt Lake that fall and there spent their second winter. As their provisions were getting low they took time to plant and harvest a crop of corn to supply their need for man and beast the balance of the trip. Their growing crop was threatened by grasshoppers and in their desperation they prayed for help from on high and in answer to their supplications a flock of sea gulls alighted and devoured the grasshoppers and saved their crop. The Mormons were trying to build up their colony and made every inducement to emigrants to remain with them. Among the number from this train was Mrs. Keziah Hunter and her family, principally on account of a beautiful daughter, Mary Hunter. After many heated arguments Keziah convinced the Mormons that she wanted her daughter to accompany her west and they finally acceded to her demand. Perhaps it was this incident, as well as the realization of the dangers ahead for the train, that caused Mrs. Hunter to want to turn back to Kentucky. However she was persuaded by her son Asa, better known as “Dick,” to continue with the train. Their journey was not out of the ordinary routine of the many trains that took the overland route. While dangers beset them many times in crossing swollen streams, where they had to swim their oxen and use the wagon body as a ferryboat, the numbers in the train protected it from any Indian attack. The young folks enjoyed music and dancing when stops were made for the night, while the older folks prepared for their next day’s travel. They arrived at Sacramento in July, 1849, and the Hunters then proceeded by boat to San Francisco and thence to San Diego, where Mrs. Hunter and family were joined by husband and son. In 1852 we find this Hunter family in San Bernardino, and here in that year a daughter, Elizabeth Denicia, was born. Mr. Hunter taught school occasionally but gave that up a few years later moved to Los Angeles and established a brick yard and burned brick. The first jail erected here was built from brick from his kilns. He met with good financial results, but an accident in handling a dump car forced him to use a crutch the rest of his life. He soon gave up the brick business and took up ranching and the stock business. His ranch covered the sites of Tropico and Glendale and his herds grazed on the hills thereabouts, and his grazing lands even extended to the Tehachapi Mountains around Elizabeth Lake, where two of his sons settled to be near the herds and here the family would journey at the time of branding and rodeos.
Captain Jesse D. Hunter died in August 1877, aged seventy-one years, and for the next eleven years his widow lived on the home ranch with her granddaughter, Emily Snyder, for a companion. It is of interest to record that Mrs. Hunter never used anything for lighting purposes except candles, which in the earlier days she made in her own molds, but in later years bought in large quantities for her use; she also had her own carding combs and carded wool before it was pun into yarn from which she knitted stocking and made clothes. She died January 12, 1889, at the age of seventy-four years, and she and her husband rest in Rosedale Cemetery, whither their bodies were removed when that cemetery was started. They both contributed much to social, moral, agricultural and financial standing of the community where they settled as real pioneers.
Jesse D. and Keziah Hunter reared a family of four sons and three daughters, viz: William who came with his father to California, married and reared a family of three sons and on daughter, of whom two sons, Joseph and George, are living, the other son was Jesse D Hunter, named for his grandfather became a prominent citizen here. He was born in Los Angeles August 23, 1867, and attended the public school and later married Mrs. Ida R. Biscailuz, mother of the present sheriff, Eugene Biscailuz. For a time he was a guard at San Quentin prison and helped quell an uprising there. Later he became head of the detective force for Thomas Lee Woolwine, the district attorney, and remained as an investigator under Asa Keyes and Buron D. Fitts, until his death on January 1, 1930. Asa, better known as “Dick” Hunter, who drove the ox team across the plains for his mother, and who lived on the home ranch died leaving the following living children, William, Alec, Dick, Mrs. Emily Schneider, Mrs. Josephine Hare, and Keziah Gage; Jesse Hunter, who also lived on the home ranch and died there leaving no issue; Samuel, who is the only survivor of the old family and is now ninety-four years of age, lives in Hollywood and has four living children, John, Samuel, Charles, and Isabella. The daughters were: Mary, who married Joseph Burke, of Missouri, and settled at Rivera, Los Angeles County, where she died leaving Frank, Osborn and Eulalia Burke; Martha, who married Eli Taylor, of Maryland, and settled near Downey and reared seven sons, of whom six are living, Eli, George, Albert, William, Ed and Jesse; and Elizabeth Denicia, who was born in San Bernardino March 31, 1852, married John Aerick, born in Sweden, in January, 1870, and had eight children, six of whom are alive, Minnie Behm, John, Calvin, Mrs. Lilla Ford, Mrs. May Kees and Mrs. Ellen Bear. Mrs. Aerick died at her home at Eleventh and Slauson Avenues on January 11, 1914, and Mr. Aerick died April 5, 1898, aged fifty-three. Minnie Aerick was born October 24, 1870, married William Behm in 1888 and they settled near Thirty-Fifth Street and Normandie Avenue and lived there until July, 1912, when they settled in Hollywood. They had two children, Florence Mathilda and Arthur Aerick Behm, born January 7, 1901, and is unmarried. Mrs. Behm takes a deep interest in things concerning California.
Florence Mathilda Behm was born March 27, 1889, and received good educational advantages and studied piano under one of the instructors of Los Angeles. She early evinced an aptitude for public work such as is found in organizing activities for the benefit and well-being of the people, and is quite well qualified to carry on the spirit exhibited by her forebears. On November 27, 1912, she was married to Leiland Atherton Irish, a native son of California, and who is musically inclined and while attending high school played the violin in the school orchestra. Mrs. Irish is known to her friends as “Florence” and is very active in civic, club and cultural circles in southern California. Among some of her more important and interesting activities we mention: The Hollywood Bowl Summer Concert Committee, of which she a general chairman; she was chairman of the Hollywood Bowl Association from 1926 to 1929; general chairman of the Southern California Symphony Association and a member of its executive committee; the Oxford Group; a past president of the Pro Musica Chapter of Los Angeles; a member of Californiana Parlor, No. 247, N. D. G. W.; former regional chairman of the southern district California State Chamber of Commerce; past president of the Euterpe Opera Reading Club; committeewoman of the Los Angeles Opera Association; active in the organization of the La Fiesta de Los Angeles; and for years has served on executive committees of several organization for the uplift of humanity. During the World war she was assistant chief of the Soldiers and Sailors Replacement Bureau. She has managed the campaigns for several of the prominent city, county and state officials and can always be relied up on to give her cooperation and support to any worthy cause that has for its object the upbuilding of her native state. She is a patron of music and art, is of friendly disposition and unostentatious in manner. With all her activities she never neglects the duties of citizenship and supports men and measures she believes best for the majority of people, and that make Los Angeles a bigger and better city.
Transcribed
By: Michele Y. Larsen on November 22, 2012.
Source:
California of the South Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty,
Pages 513-517, Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis.
1933.
© 2012 Michele
Y. Larsen.
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BIOGRAPHIES