Santa
Clara County
Biographies
JOHN F. BYXBEE
For many years John F. Byxbee has been recognized as one of the successful and enterprising real estate men of Palto(sic) Alto, and as one of the town's most honored and popular citizens. Now well advanced in life, yet retaining youthful vigor and enthusiasm, he has behind him many years of practical experience as an extensive lumberman, and has known the bitterness of making and losing a fortune, and of having to start over again from the bottom round of the ladder, nevertheless, he has retained a noble serenity of demeanor, a fortitude and dignity which should be an inspiration to those similarly unfortunate, and which more than aught else denotes the old New England ancestry from which he springs, and from which he has derived his ideals of life and work. Born in the old town of Norwalk, Fairfield county, Conn., December 27, 1839, he comes of a family which traces its American occupation back to John Byxbee, an English officer, who became one of the early governors of Massachusetts. On the maternal side also he comes of New England ancestry, his mother, Halmina (Raymond) Byxbee, having been a daughter of a well known family of Massachusetts. His father, James Byxbee, was born in Connecticut, and during active life was a sea captain, his death occurring at the age of seventy-three. The Byxbee fore-fathers were simple in their habits, industrious in their calling, and pious in their lives, and in such men as the real estate merchant of Palo Alto, their traits have been transmitted to the western coast, there to serve as foundation for great commonwealths.
After completing his education in the public schools, Mr. Byxbee became a bookkeeper in a bank at Norwalk, and in 1861 came to San Francisco, where he was bookkeeper for a large lumbering concern. His nine years with the same prosperous company gave him extended insight into the lumber resources and possibilities of California, and he embarked on an independent lumber business of his own, manufacturing redwood timber, and selling it in consignments in both the west and east. Fortune and business prominence came his way, and the future seemed to hold continued success until the panic of 1893, when he lost $150,000 under the Democratic administration, and had little left to show for his years of arduous labor. Disposing of his business in 1896, he came to Palo Alto and engaged in the lumber commission business for three years, and then turned his attention to real estate exclusively, although he had already acquired a footing in that direction. He is a careful and painstaking business man, upright in all his dealings, and thoroughly in sympathy with the spirit of the great western country. More than ever since his great loss is he devoted to Republicanism, although he has always been averse to office holding, preferring the quiet of his own fireside and the remuneration which comes from stable lines of business. In his youth he married Maggie A. Norgrove, a native of New York state, and they have three children, all of whom are graduates of the Leland Stanford University of Palo Alto, and are now engaged in educational work. Ella F. is a teacher in the State Normal, Blanche is a teacher in the Monterey high school, and John Fletcher is an instructor in civil engineering in the Stanford University. Mr. Byxbee is a charter member and junior warden of the Palo Alto Lodge No. 346, F.& A.M. He is active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is a trustee, and with which he united when a young man. He has the sterling qualities and religious faith of the Pilgrim Fathers, and their zeal and enthusiasm in well doing.
Transcribed
6-12-15 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 653-654. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2015 Marilyn R. Pankey.