Santa
Clara County
Biographies
JOHN WELLINGTON BEACH
A well known resident of Cupertino
who dates his arrival in the state 1860, is John Wellington Beach, doubtless
one of the most experienced mining men of which this enterprising town can
boast. He was born on a farm skirting Lake Erie, in Erie county,
N. Y., February 6, 1839, his parents, Harvey and Hannah (Wolvin)
Beach, having settled there at an early day. The maternal family, which lived
in Canada, was of German descent, while on the paternal side the ancestry is
supposedly English. On the fertile farm which sloped towards the lake five sons
and three daughters were born, John Wellington being the second oldest, and
here the parents lived lives of unceasing devotion, and died, the mother at the
age of sixty, and the father when ten years older.
The educational advantages in the
lake country, though not far from Buffalo, were crude in the extreme, and at
best the children of the Beach household attended but a few months each year.
John Wellington removed to Elgin, Ill., in the spring of 1859, and while there
made arrangements to cross the plains via the Platte route during the summer of 1860. He was five days less than five months on the way,
and at the end of his journey located at Dutch Flat, Placer county, then a
flourishing mining region. These mines were operated by hydraulic machinery,
and from the position of humble miner Mr. Beach made rapid advancement in the
art of reaching buried treasure, in time becoming superintendent of the Bradley
& Beal mines, a position maintained for eight years. In the fall of 1876 he
became superintendent of a mine in the American river mining district, and upon
returning to Dutch Flat operated principally at Gold Run, in which vicinity he
owned mining properties for nearly twenty years.
In 1887 Mr. Beach came to Santa
Clara County and located on his present place, which he had purchased in 1884,
and which then consisted of twenty acres. At a later period he sold half of his
land to his brother, E. F., whose death occurred eight years ago. His own
property, which has just been sold, is being devoted to prunes and apricots,
six acres of the former, and three of the latter. In Dutch Flat he married Lucilla Weston, born near Augusta, Me., and who died in the
crude mining district, as did also her two children, Anna May and Harry, the
latter at the age of six months. While still in Dutch Flat Mr. Beach married of
his second wife, Mrs. Flora Helton Kidder, also a native of Maine, and who is
the mother of three children, Mary Frances, Edith, and J. W. Jr., all living at
home with their parents. Mr. Beach cast his first presidential vote for Abraham
Lincoln, and has since given stanch support to the party of which the great
emancipator was the noblest representative. Few men in the state have stronger
fraternal associations than Mr. Beach. Since 1868 he has been a member of the
Odd Fellows, coming to the Santa Clara Lodge No. 52, from the Dutch Flat Lodge
No. 81. His membership in the Ancient Order of United Workmen covers a period
of twenty-two years, and he is identified with the Mount Hamilton Lodge No. 42.
His family are members of the Methodist Episcopal
Church.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast
Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 1185. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.