Santa Clara County
Biographies
JOHN
P. BUBB
JOHN P. BUBB. Few of
the pioneers of Santa Clara county are so firmly enshrined in the hearts and
the appreciation of their fellow men as John P. Bubb.
The incidental strayer into the region around
Cupertino is not long left in ignorance of the causes for the popularity of
this genial and venerable land owner. In him is found that touch of nature
which makes the whole world kin, and which inspires to gentle judgment of
others, unselfishness in sharing the good things which well directed toil has
brought his way, and hope and high ideals which beautify even the most
commonplace of surroundings. Not that Mr. Bubb’s
environment approaches the ordinary in any sense of the word, for he has one of
the finest and best equipped properties in the neighborhood, consisting of
forty acres of land in the heart of an ideal agricultural and fruit-raising
district. He has been an interested and helpful spectator of the up-building of
this community, and has witnessed its innumerable changes with enthusiasm and
delight, since his arrival in 1850.
A California settler
of 1849, Mr. Bubb inherits the pioneering instinct as
well as the fortitude and practical common sense which lift it above adventure
into the field of usefulness and success. One thinks of Washington county, Mo.,
as a dreary wilderness at the time of his birth there August 8, 1828,
yet his father, William Bubb, was already well
established in the neighborhood, having settled there in 1814, after his
arrival from his native city of London, England. He married
Mary Ann Gibson, a daughter of the Old Dominion, and reared a family
of five sons and four daughters, of whom John P. is the eldest and the
only one now living. The latter having come to California in September, 1849,
the father decided to follow with the family the following year, and in the
spring of 1850 set out with ox teams, finally arriving at Fremont Junction, on
the Sacramento river. Here he spent the winter, and the following spring
removed to Downieville, Cal., where he mined, and
from there came to Santa Clara county in 1851, where he bought the farm of
three hundred and sixty acres near Mountainview,
where he and his wife died at advanced ages.
In Missouri the Bubb children attended a subscription school held in a log
schoolhouse, and in California found their opportunities equally crude.
John P., with the forceful vigor of nineteen years, recognizing the
disparity between his mental training and the opportunities which he found in
California, applied himself to acquiring knowledge in the night schools, even
though overcome with weariness after a clay of hard toil in the fields. He at
once engaged with his father in the stock business, but at the age of twenty
had started in for himself, and was very successful. He moved to Fresno county
in 1857 and in 1866 came to his present home. At present he has his forty acres
all under fruit. For twenty-five years he has been an extensive stock-raiser,
and some of the finest cattle reaching local markets have grown to maturity
under his personal care.
Mr. Bubb’s wife represents a type of energy no less forceful
than his own. She was formerly Mrs. Jeannette (Gray) Croall,
and was born in Scotland, where she received a fair education, but became
dissatisfied with the prospects in her native land. Ambitious beyond the
majority of her countrywomen, she came to America in 1866, accompanied by her
daughter, Margaret Croall, now Mrs. Regnart. Mr. and Mrs. Bubb were
married on the old Bubb homestead November 10, 1870.
They have been the parents of one son and one daughter. Like her husband, she
is growing old gracefully, retaining the innate goodness and sweetness of her
nature. Mrs. Bubb is an active member and worker
in the Union Church of Cupertino, which she assisted in organizing and toward
the building of which she was a contributor. Mr. Bubb
is noted for his large-heartedness, and for his generous response to just
appeals for assistance. While the majority of his benefactions have been
performed quietly and unostentatiously, there are many who are glad to recall
the ready help given them in time of need, when there appeared no other way out
of some temporary difficulty. He has taken an active interest in politics, and
in casting his vote invariably votes the Democratic ticket and chooses the man
who nearest approaches his standard of political honesty and public
spiritedness. In stature Mr. Bubb reflects his
fine and noble character, being over six feet tall, and of ideal physical
proportions. He has a gentle wit and inexhaustible fund of good nature, and
with his wife makes one of the most popular and well loved couples in the
county.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
04 May 2015.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 558-559. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Marie
Hassard.