Orange County
Biographies
PERRY
EBEN LEWIS
Perry
Eben Lewis, a well-known and successful rancher who
has resided at Main Street and Newport Boulevard in Tustin for nearly a half
century, is a worthy representative of one of the honored pioneer families of
Orange County. He was born in Kenyon,
Minnesota, December 28, 1869, a son of Harvey Boardman and Theresa (Hilton)
Lewis. Harvey Boardman Lewis was born in
New York and is a descendant of the well-known Boardman family who came from
England in 1595 and settled in Massachusetts and who has since been identified
with some of the most important interests in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New
York. He was a veteran of the Civil War. At the close of the war he followed his
chosen vocation, farming, until 1876 when he came to California with his wife
and two young sons, locating in Tustin where he purchased and resided upon a
tract of land that now embraces the home ranches of E. M. Neally,
A. L. Cotant and John D. Rinard,
and he also bought forty acres at Bolsa, Orange
County. In 1884 he purchased a
twenty-acre tract called the Lewis Addition to Tustin, at Main Street and
Newport Road, now Newport Boulevard, on which members of the family have
resided throughout the intervening period of forty-nine years. Harvey B. Lewis passed away thereon in
1898. He served as postmaster for a
number of years and long enjoyed high standing as one of the substantial and
respected citizens of his community. In
early manhood in Minnesota he married Miss Theresa Hilton, a native of
Damariscotta, Maine. Her ancestor,
Edward Hilton, was an
early pioneer of New
Hampshire, removing to Dover Neck, that state, from Plymouth, Massachusetts, in
1623. In 1639 he received a grant of
land in Exeter, New Hampshire, and in 1653 another grant comprising the site of
the village of Newfields, New Hampshire, where he
built a house which is still standing and is known as Hilton Manse, occupied by
George Hilton of Lynn, Massachusetts, as a summer home. Across the road is the little burial place
where Edward Hilton was interred at his death in 1671. The house of Hilton traces its ancestry to
Adam Hilton, Lancelot, partisan of the Conqueror, and Baron Henry de Hilton. In 1072 Baron Henry de Hilton built Hilton
Castle, which was the chief seat and baronial fortress of the Hilton family; it
stands near Sunderland in Durham County, three miles to the west of Wearmouth Bridge, on the road to Newcastle, England. Theresa Hilton went with her parents from
Maine to Minnesota in 1860 and with them was numbered among the pioneers of the
latter state. It was in Minnesota that
she formed the acquaintance of the young soldier, Harvey Boardman Lewis, a
native of New York, to whom she gave her hand in marriage. Mrs. Theresa Lewis was a woman of staunch New
England qualities and of high ideals, home-loving and well versed in choice
literature. She survived her husband for
more than a quarter of a century, passing away in 1925. They were the parents of two sons: Percy, who died in early manhood; and Perry Eben, of this review.
Perry
E. Lewis was a youth of about seven years when he came to California with his
parents in 1876 and has remained on the old homestead in Tustin to the present
time. He is a graduate of the Tustin
schools and also of the Los Angeles International Business College, where he
completed his course in 1890.
Subsequently he assisted his father in the work of the home ranch and
for a time conducted a general merchandise store at D and Main streets in
Tustin, in association with C. E. Utt, under the firm
name of Utt & Lewis. Later he opened a confectionery and ice cream
establishment at Santa Ana, and following the death of his father in 1898, he
devoted himself to the care of his mother and to the interests of the home ranch. He purchased twenty acres of land on La Colina Drive from James Irvine upon which is located their
large pumping plant which supplies water for this ranch and the one which he
purchased at a later date on Irvine Boulevard and Browning Avenue. Both of these places are planted to Valencia
oranges, while on the home ranch are grown both oranges and avocadoes. Mr. Lewis is president and a director of the
Tustin Hills Citrus Association, now the oldest member in point of service on
the board, is a director of the Orange County Fumigating Company, and also of
the Orange County Fruit Exchange at Orange.
In
1928 Mr. Lewis was united in marriage to Miss Minnie C. Childs, who enjoys a
national reputation as an artist and writer and whose career is reviewed at
length in another part of this work. The
union was the culmination of a romance that had its beginning at the Chicago
World’s Fair in 1893.
Active
in fraternal affairs, Mr. Lewis is a past grand of Santa Ana Lodge, No. 236, I.
O. O. F.; past chief patriarch of Laurel Encampment, No. 81, Santa Ana Lodge,
I. O. O. F.; member of Canton, Santa Ana Lodge, No. 18, I. O. O. F., and
Sycamore Rebekah Lodge No. 140, I. O. O. F., of Santa Ana. He is also affiliated
with the Fraternal Aid Union No. 365, of Santa Ana; Tustin Lodge, Knights of
Pythias, of which he is past chancellor commander; Dramatic Order Knights of
Khorassan, Al Bora Temple, No. 75, of Los Angeles; and Santa Ana Camp, No. 12,
Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.
He is a charter member and a life member of Santa Ana Lodge, No. 794, B.
P. O. E. Mr. Lewis is well read and
widely informed. More than this,
however, he is of a generous nature with a great love of his fellowmen and is
highly esteemed by reason of his unblemished character and fine personality.
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 725-727,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S ORANGE
COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES