Los
Angeles County
Biographies
CHARLES CARROLL McCOMAS
A man of superior intellect and high
standards, Charles Carroll McComas was particularly successful in the field of
criminal law and was long regarded as a leader of his profession in Los
Angeles. Born on the home farm in Jasper
County, Illinois, August 10, 1846, he was a son of Charles Carroll and Clarissa
McComas, of Richmond, Virginia, and was reared in his native state. Removing to Decatur, Illinois at the age of
fifteen, he offered his aid to the Union and was accepted for service August 4,
1861, when he joined the One Hundred Fifteenth Regiment of Illinois Volunteer
Infantry. Mustered in as a corporal, he
became a first sergeant after the Battle of Resaca and later was advanced to
the rank of first lieutenant. At the
Battle of Chickamauga he was severely wounded on the right side while serving
as a color-guard and after spending six months in a hospital returned to his
regiment, with which he remained until the close of the Civil War.
On returning to Decatur, Mr. McComas
engaged in business and studied law at night, also taking a law course in the
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His
old regimental commander, Colonel Jesse H. Moore, showed much interest in his
early career and materially assisted him in gaining a start in his
profession. He finished his studies
under Hugh Crea, considered the ablest lawyer in
Illinois at that time, and began practice in 1869. He at once gave proof of his legal acumen and
in 1871 was elected state’s attorney for Lincoln County, Kansas. On completing his term he removed with his
family to Larned, Kansas, then on the frontier, and was immediately elected
probate judge. Droughts and financial
depression caused him to leave the Sunflower state and seek a home farther
west. Going on horseback over the Santa
Fe Trail, he located for practice at Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he spent
five years, and through appointment became prosecuting attorney for the second
judicial district, while election made him a member of the territorial
senate. In the proceedings of that body
he took an important part and was the author of the public school law of New
Mexico Territory. In order to give his
children better educational advantages he came to Los Angeles in 1888.
The following year Mr. McComas was
appointed assistant district attorney for Los Angeles County and was retained
in that capacity for many years. He was
regarded as the superior of any prosecuting attorney the county ever had, and
the Los Angeles Times stated that he secured the convictions of more criminals
during his tenure of office than any other public prosecutor on the Pacific
coast in a like period of time. He
earned other high honors in his profession, ever adhering to the solid virtues
and enlightened principles underlying the law.
Important responsibilities in the preliminaries to the trial of the
McNamara dynamiting case in Los Angles and the heavy work demanded of him in
that connection caused a nervous break-down and he died, deeply regretted and
mourned, December 22, 1916, at the age of seventy-three years. He was laid to rest under the auspices of
Bartlett Logan Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Mrs. McComas, who survived her
husband by only a few years, was one of California’s outstanding women. She was born in Paris, Illinois, in 1850 and
passed away November 28, 1919, when sixty-nine years of age. She was a daughter of General Jesse H. and
Rachel (Hines) Moore. Her father was
formerly a Methodist preacher and was the Colonel Moore who assisted Mr.
McComas during his early professional career.
Two sons, Rear Admiral Charles B. T. Moore, a retired naval officer, and
H. M. Moore, were residents of Decatur, Illinois. Mrs. McComas acquired her education in St.
Mary of the Woods Academy near Terre Haute, Indiana, winning special honors in
music and literary composition as well as a prize in elocution. On November 14, 1870, at Decatur, Illinois,
she became the wife of Charles C. McComas, the marriage ceremony being
performed by the bride’s father. They
had four daughters: Helen, Alice Beach,
Clare and Carroll. Helen died in 1891.
An ardent advocate of movements of
reform, progress and improvement, Mrs. McComas was the first woman in California
to conduct a magazine department in a daily newspaper, the Los Angeles Express,
for the discussion of woman suffrage, and in 1894 was the first California
woman to speak at a state Republican ratification meeting. During the first woman’s suffrage campaign
she was chairman of the press committee for Southern California. Logical, eloquent and forceful, she was one
of the most effective public speakers of her sex. At the woman’s congress which met in San
Francisco and adjourned to Oakland she was on the program of speakers with
David Starr Jordan and Edward Howard Griggs.
For a quarter of a century Mrs. McComas was active in many vital
movements in Southern California which affected both the state and nation. She was an early worker in behalf of the Free
Kindergarten Association; was one of the organizers of the Working Woman’s
Club; was a lecturer on politics, individual education in the public schools
and common-sense in child rearing.
During its construction she made a thorough investigation of the Panama
Canal, on which she lectured, while she also wrote a number of articles on that
subject and published a book on the women of the Canal Zone. She contributed a chapter for Southern
California to the history of suffrage, edited by Ida Husted Harper of
Washington, D. C., and was the author of a pamphlet entitled “An Answer to a
Timely Question,” covering the suffrage movement. She also wrote “Under the Peppers,” a book on
child life in California. During the
World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 she was correspondent for three
California newspapers, and was a special contributor of travel sketches to the
Los Angeles Times and various magazines.
For two years she was associate editor of the Household Journal, later
the Southwest of Los Angeles.
In the formation of the Southern
California Chautauqua Association at Long Beach, Mrs. McComas took a prominent
part. She was a member of the
Player-Goers of New York, the Ethical Society of Los Angeles, the Woman’s Press
Association of San Francisco, the California Club of New York, one of the
founders of the Woman’s Press Club, a charter member of the Friday Morning Club
of Los Angeles, a member of the Ebell Club of Los Angeles, a former president
of the Los Angeles Woman’s Suffrage Association, and a member of the Pacific
Coast Woman’s Press Association, the Woman’s Parliament of Southern California
and the Woman’s Parliament of San Francisco.
However, these varied activities
were never allowed to interfere with the performance of Mrs. McComas’ duties as
a wife and mother, which were always her first consideration. It was therefore very appropriate that her
pastor at the funeral service should read a poem written by Mrs. McComas and
published many years ago, as follows:
“Heaven draws near to this
Motherland;
How near those only may understand
Who have felt the touch of a baby hand;
Who have seen the smile on baby’s face
Aglow with that far, still wondering
grace;
Who feel, when the baby murmurs low,
There are those somewhere
who hear and know,
Who read the mystery of the skies
In the tender blue of the baby’s
eyes;
And restless the arms the baby
swings
Still keep the motion of tiny wings
As when from heaven it flew apart
And found its way to a Mother’s
heart.”
The oldest daughter, Alice Beach, is
a concert pianist and has played in most of the large cities of the United
States. She is the widow of Charles P.
Gray, well known as a mapmaker of New York City and resides in Los
Angeles. She has two daughters, Alice
Dorothy and Charley Carroll.
Clare McComas, the second daughter,
also received every opportunity and advantage in music and for four years made
the stage her profession. She possesses
a contralto voice of great power and sweetness and figures prominently in
musical circles of Los Angeles as a member of the Lyric Club. With her mother and sister Carroll, she
traveled extensively in America, Europe and Africa. She is now the wife of Norman C. Robinson, of
Los Angeles.
The youngest daughter, Carroll
McComas, enjoyed a rapidly widening appreciation and favor as an actress,
becoming leading lady in the productions of Frohman & Belasco. In company with her mother and sister Clare,
she traveled throughout Europe, Africa and Canada. They visited Paris, Brussels, London and
other cities and spent some time in South Africa, being in Johannesburg the day
General Kruger was buried. In her
earlier career, when abroad with her mother, Miss McComas was known was
“Carroll the Whistler.” Under the
auspices of the Over There Theater League she was head of a unit which went to
France and gave daily performances for the American soldiers, and followed the
Army of Occupation to Coblenz, Germany, where she continued her work until the
spring of 1919.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 113-117, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPIES