Los
Angeles County
Biographies
STODDARD JESS
Stoddard Jess became a resident of
California in the year 1885, and here he continued his residence until his
death, which occurred February 1, 1920.
Within this period he exerted an influence that was potent in advancing
the civic and business interests of the state, and especially those of Los
Angeles County and his home city of Los Angeles. His character and his remarkable ability were
manifested in transfiguring activities of the broadest scope and importance,
and his reputation as an authority in the banking business far transcended mere
local limitations. As a financier,
banker, liberal public-spirited citizen, Mr. Jess left distinct and worthy
impress upon the history of his adopted state, and was long a leader in
movements that made for civic and material progress and prosperity.
Mr. Jess was born at Fox Lake,
Wisconsin, December 3, 1856, and was a son of George and Maria Theresa (Judd)
Jess, who gained a goodly measure of pioneer precedence in the state of
Wisconsin. In fact George Jess was a
representative of the second generation of the family in that state, his
father, John L. P. Jess, having been born in England and being quite young at
the time the family came to America and established a home in Nova Scotia,
where he was reared to manhood and whence he eventually came to the United
States and became a pioneer settler in Wisconsin, he having done his part in
the development and progress of the community in which he lived near Fox
Lake. George Jess gained a due quota of
pioneer experience after the family removal to Wisconsin, and thus he was well
fortified for the semi-frontier activities that were his when, in 1850, he made
his way across the plains to the newly discovered gold fields of California,
where he gave several months to prospecting for the precious metal. His success was not sufficiently positive to
lead him to remain here, and after his return to Wisconsin he there became a
successful exponent of banking enterprise and also prominent in public affairs,
including the councils of the Republican Party in his section of the
state. He represented his county in the
state legislature and served also in various local offices of public
trust. His wife was a daughter of
Stoddard Judd, who was for several terms a member of the state legislature of
New York, the Judd family having early been founded in the old Empire
commonwealth. Hon. Stoddard Judd later
became a pioneer of Wisconsin, upon being appointed by President Polk to the
office of receiver of the United States land office at Green Bay, that state,
where he established his home and where he resided many years. He was a member of both the first and second
constitutional conventions of Wisconsin, and likewise served in both the house
and senate of the state legislature. The
parents of the subject of this memoir accompanied him to California, and in
this state they passed the closing years of their lives, ill health having led
George Jess to close out most of his large interests in Wisconsin and seek
recuperation on the Pacific coast.
In the public schools of his native
place Stoddard Jess acquired his early education, which was supplemented by his
completion of a thorough course in the University of Wisconsin. In this great institution, at Madison,
capital of the state, he was graduated as a member of the class of 1876 and
with the degree of Bachelor of Arts.
During the ensuing year he held a clerical position in the First
National Bank of Fox Lake, and he then became associated with his father in the
banking business at Waupun, Wisconsin, where he became the cashier of the
staunch banking house of George Jess & Company. He became one of the influential and
progressive citizens of Waupun, of which city he was mayor two years, besides
having served loyally as a member of the city council. His term as mayor expired in 1885, and he
declined to become a candidate for reelection, as he had determined to
accompany his father, who was in impaired health, to southern California. The family home was here established at
Pomona, and there Stoddard Jess effected shortly afterward the organization and
incorporation of the First National Bank.
In the development of this institution he gave the full strength of his
splendid executive powers, and he continued as its cashier from its
incorporation until 1898, when he temporarily retired from all active business,
to recuperate his physical health, impaired by his years of strenuous business
and civic activity, he having thereafter passed an appreciable period in
travel. Mr. Jess was one of those most
prominently concerned in the early development and upbuilding of Pomona, there
served as the first city treasurer, became one of the organizers of the Pomona
Board of Trade, of which he was the president during the first two years of its
existence, and in the period of 1902-04 he was president of the board of
trustees of the Pomona Public Library, his service as a member of this board
having continued many years. He was
treasurer of the Pomona Cemetery Association all the time he lived in Pomona.
In the year 1904 Mr. Jess removed
with his family to the city of Los Angeles, which represented his home during
the remainder of his life. Here he
became vice president of the First National Bank, and eventually he became the
president of this great institution, one of the strongest and most influential
on the Pacific coast. He resigned his
office of president a few days prior to his death, his final illness having
been of several weeks duration and his death having occurred at Palm Springs,
to which place he had gone in the hope of receiving relief from his
illness. His service as president of the
Los Angeles Clearing House likewise continued until shortly prior to his
death. He was a director of the Los
Angeles Trust & Savings Bank, which was subsequently merged with the
Security-First National Bank. Mr. Jess
was widely known as one of the most resourceful and conservative bankers of the
west, and his stewardship did much to maintain financial stability during the
period of stress and depression in general business. From a previously published tribute to this
honored and influential citizen are taken, with minor changes in phraseology,
the following quotations: “Having spent
a large part of his life in the banking business and being one of its closest
students, Mr. Jess introduced into the First National Bank of Los Angeles the
united system of paying and receiving tellers.
With the idea of diminishing congestion before the bank’s operative
windows, he devised a plan that has proven a great success. In the first place, the old system of
separate paying and receiving tellers was abandoned, and the bank was divided
into a number of alphabetical sections, at which the tellers receive and pay
money, as the case may be. The
advantages of the system include the elimination of long waits by customers,
closer relations between the bank and its depositors, less bookkeeping, and a
general expedition of business. This
innovation in banking methods was eagerly welcomed by the banking fraternity,
and within a few years was adopted by a number of large institutions throughout
the United States, among the earliest having been the great Continental &
Commercial Bank of Chicago; the Seattle National Bank of Seattle, Washington;
the First National and the United States National Banks of Denver, Colorado;
and the Irving Park National Bank of New York City. . . . . . .As a widely
known authority in his profession, Mr. Jess made numerous addresses on banking
subjects and wrote many constructive articles dealing with financial matters.”
In the death of Stoddard Jess,
Southern California lost one of its most loyal, liberal and progressive
citizens, a man whose character was the distinct expression of a strong and
noble nature, whose heart was attuned to abiding human sympathy and tolerance,
and whose was a faithful stewardship in all of the relations of life. As a banker and financier Mr. Jess held high
rank. With him a bank’s obligation to
the public was paramount to its obligation to the stockholders. He believed that the mission of a bank
extended beyond the field of purely commercial operations, and it was his
common practice to insist that applications for funds to be used for the
development of organizations of religious, educational or charitable order
should receive generous consideration by his bank, both in the amounts of money
given and the low rates of interest offered.
He was more than a great banker.
He was a man of liberal views, of broad vision, of deep sympathies, and
of voluntary and appreciative helpfulness to those in need or distress. He was instant in his private charities and
benevolences, and in his benefactions was insistently unostentatious. Of him it may consistently be said that he
would “do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.” He remembered those who were forgotten, and
esteemed it a privilege to aid his fellowmen.
Mr. Jess was known and valued as one
of the most liberal and progressive citizens of Los Angeles during the entire
period of his residence here, and his influence was given to the furtherance of
measures and enterprises that tended to advance civic and material
progress. He was chairman of the
consolidated committee that brought about the consolidation of Los Angeles and
San Pedro, by which the “Greater Los Angeles” gained its own harbor. He was made president of the harbor
commission that had direct charge of building the city’s harbor, at an
expenditure of more than three million, five hundred thousand dollars. He directed the affairs of the commission in
the earlier stages of the harbor work – until his private affairs necessitated
his resignation of the office of president of the commission. He was long one of the most influential
members of the California State Bankers Association, and had served as its
president. He was prominent in the
councils and campaign activities of the Republican Party in California, but had
no ambition for office of purely political order. In the World War period he was a leader in
the local patriotic movements, and gave much time and energy to advancing the
California campaigns in support of the government war bonds, Red Cross work,
etc. Mr. Jess presided as chairman of
the great Republican mass meeting that was held at the Shrine auditorium in Los
Angeles when Hon. C harles Evans
Hughes, the Republican candidate for President of the United States, appeared
here.
Mr. Jess was a deep and appreciative
student of the history and teachings of the time-honored Masonic fraternity, and
was affiliated with both the York and Scottish Rite
bodies of the same, as well as the Mystic Shrine. He had membership also in the Benevolent and
Protective Order of Elks, the Jonathan, the California, the Los Angeles
Athletic, the Los Angeles Country, the Midwick Country, Sunset, the 200
Uplifters, and Union League Clubs in his home city and the Los Angeles Chamber
of Commerce. His religious faith was
indicated by his membership in the Unitarian Church of Los Angeles.
On January 15, 1879, at Monroe,
Wisconsin, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Jess to Miss Carrie Helen
Chenoweth, and their ideal companionship was not long to be severed by his
death, as Mrs. Jess survived him only a few months, her death having occurred
September 19, 1920, and the remains of both being placed in the beautiful
Pomona Cemetery at Pomona. Mrs. Jess was
born at Monroe, Wisconsin, November 26, 1855, and her gracious personality
gained to her the affectionate regard of all who came within the sphere of her
influence. Mr. and Mrs. Jess became the
parents of two children: Jennie C., who
died at the age of six years; and George Benjamin, who remains in Los Angeles
and has active charge of the large family estate. The subject of this memoir was the only child
of his parents, and he himself is survived by an only son, George Benjamin
Jess, who is well upholding the honors of the family name, and two
grandchildren, Stoddard Jess, Jr., and Eleanore Jess. Stoddard Jess lived and wrought to goodly
ends; he made his life count in large achievement and also in representation of
the fine ideals that offer the ultimate justification in the scheme of human
thought and motive.—California and Californians, 1926.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 171-177, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPIES