Los Angeles County
Biographies
ERASTUS JAMES STANTON
STANTON, ERASTUS JAMES
(deceased), Lumber, Los Angeles, Cal., was born in Angelica, N. Y., in
1856. His father was Erastus H. Stanton, born in New York State in
1816, the son of a pioneer New Yorker who served in the War of 1812. Mr. Stanton’s father moved to Rockton, Ill., early in his business
career and there invested in large land interests. Later he became a
banker and merchant in the Illinois-Wisconsin country and in 1868 moved to
Ionia, Mich., engaging in the mercantile business and at the same time made
extensive investments, for that period, in the lumber business at Stanton and
Sheridan, Mich., the former being named for him. He was for several terms a
Senator from Ionia and Montcalm Counties in the State Legislature.
Mr. Stanton’s mother was born in Greene County in 1820. One of her
brothers, Lyman Sanford, was a Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, and
another brother, Truman S., was Attorney General. Mr. Stanton married
Fannie Boynton in October, 1880, at Albion, Mich. They had five children: Dede, Helen, Lillian, Leroy and Adelaide, Dede and Helen being deceased.
Mr. Stanton received a common school education in Ionia,
Mich.
At the age of sixteen he was assisting his father in his
lumber business, and later in its management until closed out in 1880. He moved
to Saginaw, Michigan, in 1884, then the largest lumber manufacturing district
in the world. Up to this time lumber was practically sold on the docks and transported
to market via water. That year he took charge of the Sales department of the
Saginaw Lumber & Salt Company, one of Michigan’s largest concerns, sorted
the lumber into all the grades for commercial use and marketed it by rail. In
1893 his health failed and he moved to Arizona to assist in the development of
the properties of the Saginaw Lumber Company at Williams. At this time there
was only one saw-mill in Arizona. Mr. Stanton obtained competitive rates
from the Santa Fe Railroad Company, and shipped the first lumber to the West
and California. He organized the sales for this company and made and shipped
the first fruit box to Southern California and developed the first box business
in Arizona, shipping into California and Mexico. This pioneer effort has since
grown to an immense business at Williams and Flagstaff, Arizona.
In 1894 Mr. Stanton moved to Los Angeles, where he
resided until he died, January 24, 1913. His first effort there was
the box and lumber business, confined to California products. This grew into an
immense industry and was the beginning of the use of the native California
woods, sugar and white pine.
In 1897 he assisted in the organization of the California
Pine Box Company, which was an association of mills formed for the purpose of
the development of the box business to absorb the lower grades of sugar and
white pine, for the manufacture of fruit boxes on a uniform basis and to
develop market results. This he built up to one of the
largest industries of the State. The output runs into the hundreds of millions
of feet and the employment of thousands of men.
In 1900 the California Sugar & White Pine Agency was
formed for grading the lumber for Eastern and foreign trade. Most large mills
were included, and millions of feet of California sugar and white pine are
exported and sold in Eastern States. Mr. Stanton was a member of the
company and agent for all the Southwestern territory. The yards were started in
1896. Los Angeles then had a population of 65,000, but no hardwoods were sold to
speak of. This pioneer yard is the largest and most complete in the West and
its imports and exports of large volume.
The business established by Mr. Stanton grew steadily
with the years and up to 1912 he handled it exclusively. At that time, however,
he took into partnership his son, Leroy H. Stanton, the firm becoming
E J. Stanton & Son. They made a specialty of high-grade lumber,
their stock of maple, birch, beech, mahogany and other woods being one of the
largest on the Pacific Coast. In addition, the firm is an importer of foreign
cabinet woods on a large scale, these including rosewood, African walnut and
mahogany. Their imports come largely from Santo Domingo, Peru, Mexico, Africa
and the Philippine Islands. Mr. Stanton, during his long experience,
brought the import branch of his business up to the same plane as the domestic
end, in which he was one of the best informed men in the country.
In politics Mr. Stanton was a Republican. He was a
self-made man, his first capital being his knowledge of the lumber business. He
always took an interest in the conservation and development of the lumber
interests of his State and the West.
Mr. Stanton was devoted to the work of upbuilding Los Angeles and was an active force in civic
affairs.
Among the many important buildings in whose erection he
and his company played a part were the Potter Hotel, at Santa Barbara, Cal.; Lankershim Hotel, Los Angeles; Hotel Wentworth, Pasadena,
Cal.; Spreckels Theater, San Diego, Cal., and
numerous large office buildings.
Among
the interests of which he was an officer are:
E. J. Stanton & Son, Wholesale and Retail Lumber; the Klamath River
Lumber Company, Director; the California Sugar & White Pine Agency, Agent,
Southwestern territory.
Mr.
Stanton was a member of the Jonathan, Union League, Los Angeles Athletic and
Los Angeles Country Clubs; the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Chamber of
Mines, Los Angeles Commandery No. 9, Knights
Templar, Los Angeles Consistory No. 3, thirty-second degree Mason, Al Malaikah Shrine and B. P. O. E.,
No. 99.
Transcribed
by Marie Hassard 13 May 2011.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 661,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston,
Atlanta. 1913.
© 2011 Marie Hassard.
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