Santa Clara County
Biographies
GEORGE H. BENTLEY
GEORGE H. BENTLEY. As an earnest and high-minded workman
in his special department of building activity, George H. Bentley
commands the respect and support of the business world of Palo Alto. He has
made a special study of contract plastering, and stands easily at the head in
his line in the town to which he came in 1883, and where he has since pursued
an industrious and highly successful life. Mr. Bentley brings to bear upon
his work the reasoning and intuitive powers of a man of culture, for his
educational opportunities have been above those of the average artisan, and he
is correspondingly more proficient and provident.
Mr. Bentley comes of eastern ancestry, and was born
in LaPorte, Ind., August 24, 1854. His
family was established in the Hoosier state by his father, Dr. George
Judson Bentley, who was born at Youngstown, Ohio, September 15, 1822,
and who located in Indiana in 1833, near the city of LaPorte,
LaPorte county. In 1859 he
removed to Michigan City, on Lake Michigan, and not only conducted a large
general practice, but became identified with the most ambitious projects for
improving the city. He was especially active in securing the construction of
the harbor of Michigan City, and otherwise aided, with his counsel and
financial support, the rising fortunes of the progressive little municipality.
He was resident physician of the North Indiana State Prison for five years, and
became an influential factor in professional circles of his time and place.
That his abilities were varied was demonstrated after his removal to San Jose,
Cal., in 1875, when he bought out the Saunders Wind Mill, perfected it and
changed its name, and made of it a paying business. In 1889 he patented the
Cyclone Wind Mill, manufactured it for many years, and reaped the financial
reward due its popularity and utility. He was a great traveler in those days,
and made trips to the east in 1877, 1881, 1882, and 1886, and in 1892 sold out
his windmill enterprise to the Pacific Manufacturing Company. Thereafter he
both bought and sold windmills for the new owners, and in 1898 settled down to
a general practice of medicine in San Jose, where his death occurred
February 18, 1901. He was a Republican in politics, and a wide-awake,
practical, and resourceful man. While still in Indiana he married
Julia Ann Parker, who was born near LaPorte
October 31, 1830, and who died in San Jose July 1, 1899.
Besides George H., the eldest of the four sons in the family, there was
Frank, who died in infancy; Webster S., who died in 1882, at the age of
twenty-one; and M. G., who died in San Jose September 25, 1901.
The education begun in the common and high schools of
Michigan City George H. Bentley supplemented by attendance at the
University of the Pacific during 1875-6, and by further study at the normal
school during 1876-7. He then put his knowledge to practical account by
engaging in educational work in Stanislaus, Merced, and San Luis Obispo
counties, holding a state diploma. In 1883 he engaged in contract plastering in
San Jose, and in 1901 went to San Francisco to engage
in the same business. Not satisfied with business conditions in the latter city
he came to Palo Alto in 1903. Mr. Bentley established a home of his own in
San Jose in 1890, when he married Emma Johnston, a native of Pennsylvania,
and who is the mother of three children, Georgia, Bessie and Ruth.
Mrs. Bentley is a member of the Christian Science Church, and is a firm
believer in the beautiful and comforting doctrines of the mother church.
Fraternally Mr. Bentley is identified with the Knights of the Maccabees, the Fraternal Aid, and the Independent Order of
Foresters. Politically he is allied to the Republican party.
He is an extremely well posted and intelligent man, a great observer and
student of human nature, and has always made it his habit to do well whatever
was worth doing at all.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard 03 July 2016.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages
1255-1256. The Chapman Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2016 Marie Hassard.