Los Angeles County
Biographies
WILLIAM
HAYES PERRY
PERRY, WILLIAM HAYES, Los Angeles, Cal. (deceased),
was born at Newark, O., Oct. 78, 1832. He was the son of John and Ann
Perry. He married Elizabeth Dalton in 1858 at Los Angeles. The children,
of which there are three are: Mrs. Charles M. Wood,
Mrs. E. P. Johnson, Jr., and Charles Frederick Perry.
After receiving his education in the public schools
of Newark, Ohio, Mr. Perry, as yet a boy, was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker and
turner, whose trade he learned and started to follow in Newark.
He gave it up, however, in 1853, and joined a party
of men and women, headed by Captain Hollister, (who finally settled at Santa
Barbara, Cal.), who were on their way to California. The little band of
pioneers crossed the Missouri River at Bennett’s Ferry, near Council Bluffs,
Iowa, and after a perilous journey beset with the usual hardships, including
several attacks by Indians, they arrived in Los Angeles in February of 1854.
Mr. Perry arrived there with little or no capital,
but it was only a short time until, through working at his trade, he was able
to open the first furniture store in Los Angeles. His stock consisted
first of goods of his own manufacture, but there were added to it gradually
goods which he had sent down from San Francisco. His business prospered,
and in 1856 he took in a partner, one Brady, whom Wallace Woodworth bought out
in 1858. This partnership continued for the next twenty-five years, or
until Mr. Woodworth’s death in 1883, under the firm name of Perry &
Woodworth.
In 1865 Mr. Perry obtained a franchise from the
city of Los Angeles to light the city with gas, and organized the first gas
company, the Los Angeles Gas Company, in which he filled the office of General
Manager for five years, when he sold the company to the present corporation.
In 1873 he went into the lumber and building supply
business in a very large way, the first organization being incorporated as the
W. H. Perry Lumber and Mills Company. This was followed by the
organization of the Los Angeles & Humboldt Lumber Company at San Pedro, the
Pioneer Lumber and Mill Company at Colton, and the Los Angeles Storage
Commission and Lumber Company. He set up the first steam engine in Los
Angeles.
In 1879 Mr. Perry was elected President and Manager
of the Los Angeles City Water Company, which at the time was heavily involved,
but under his management it was soon put on a sound basis. He held this
office for a period of twenty-five years.
The principal offices held by him in his latter
days were: President, W. H. Perry Lumber and Mill Company; President, Pioneer
Lumber and Mill Company; President, Los Angeles City Water Company; President,
Crystal Springs Water Company.
He was a stockholder in and closely identified with
many other substantial interests throughout the Coast section, including the
Southern California Pipe & Clay Company, of which he was president and
director; Cosmopolis Mill & Trading Company, of
Gray’s Harbor, Wash., president; Vallejo & Napa Electric Railroad; Charles
Nelson Shipping Company, San Francisco; Bard Oil & Asphalt Company, Olinda Crude Oil Company, Gas Consumers’ Association and
National Electric Company, both of San Francisco; Western Union Oil Company, of
Santa Barbara, Cal.; Reed Oil Company, of Kern county, Cal., and the Home
Telephone Co., of Los Angeles.
He was also interested in banking and was a firm
believer in the promise which the real estate business of Los Angeles held
forth, with the result that he was one of the most active operators in that
field in the city. He served as a director of the Farmers’ and Merchants’
Bank of Los Angeles, having been one of the impelling factors in the success of
that institution from its earliest days. He was also a stockholder of the
American National Bank of Los Angeles, and likewise identified with the Nevada
Bank and the Union Trust Company, of San Francisco.
Mr. Perry, despite his manifold business interests
and social obligations, had found time to ally himself with the Masonic
organization, being a member of the blue lodge, chapter and commandery,
and was a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. Mr. Perry was
public-spirited, charitable and generous. He died October 29, 1906.
Transcribed 2-20-09
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 206,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2009 Marilyn R. Pankey.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPIES