Los
Angeles County
Biographies
CHARLES SWEETING MILES
Charles Sweeting Miles is a
prominent retired citizen of Los Angeles who came to Southern California more
than six decades ago. He was born in
Yonkers, New York, July 22, 1855, a son of Francis S. and Katherine (Knowles)
Miles. The father, a native of Stroud,
Gloucestershire, England, immigrated to New York in the ‘40s and died in 1874.
There were three sons in the family:
George F., David Edwin and Charles Sweeting.
Charles S. Miles acquired his
elementary education principally under the preceptorship of private
tutors. He was a student at Vevey, on the shores of Lake Geneva, in Switzerland and
took tuition from a professor in languages for two years. He was a youth of sixteen years when in
November, 1871, he came to California with his parents and his brothers, the
family spending the succeeding winter in San Bernardino, whence they removed to
San Diego. Charles S. Miles later went
to Anaheim and finally took up his abode in Los Angeles, having in the interim
made a number of trips to various countries and also a world tour. His travels abroad were interspersed with
numerous eastern trips. In association
with his brother, David Edwin Miles, he engaged in the farm implements and
produce business in Los Angeles, shipping grain in car-load lots to
Arizona. Several years later Charles S.
Miles turned his attention to walnut growing in Orange County, near Fullerton,
and subsequently became actively interested in orange growing. He is a member of the original Southern
California Fruit Growers Exchange. The
C. S. Miles addition, which is included in Huntington Park and environs, was
developed by him.
On the 2nd of August,
1882, Mr. Miles was united in marriage to Miss Annie Rowland and they are the
parents of two sons, Charles Kenneth and Francis Sweeting Miles, both residents
of Los Angeles. Mr. Miles has membership
in the Los Angeles City Club and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. He belongs to the Emanuel Presbyterian Church
and for more than fifty years has been a member in good standing of the
Southern California Lodge of Masons.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. III, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 477-478, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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