Santa
Clara County
Biographies
CAPT.
ALBERT B. CASH
In Capt. Albert B. Cash Santa Clara
county recognizes one of its sanest enthusiasts and most substantial promoters.
Lessons to be drawn from his life are many, and are all of a practical and
helpful nature, emanating from a conservative and well-balanced brain, keen
insight and more than average regard for the virtues of persistency, common
sense and loyalty to personal and community interests. In his younger days Mr.
Cash was just as good a farmer, soldier, lumber merchant and boat owner as he
is horticulturist and fraternalist and enterprising
business man to-day, for one of his abiding and strongest convictions has been
that whatever was worth doing at all was worth doing well. His father, Reuben
Cash, was much the same kind of man, and to back him he had the sterling worth
of a Massachusetts ancestry, established at an early stage of New World
history. He was born in Massachusetts, as was also his father, Nathan Cash, who
eventually became a pioneer of Rochester, N. Y., at one time owning the site of
the now prosperous city. Nathan Cash was a farmer and millwright, and some of
the first milling enterprises in and around Rochester were due to his skill and
promotion. He erected the Smith mills, still in operation in Rochester, and
some twenty-five or thirty mills throughout the Genesee valley. He became a
large farmer near Leroy, Genesee county, and died
there at an advanced age. He attained the rank of captain in the war of 1812.
Reuben Cash followed his father’s example and devoted his youth to farming, owning
a large farm near Leroy. He married Louise Drury, who was born in New Haven,
Conn., and who died in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1896. Mr. Cash removed to Detroit,
Mich., about 1855, and in the then small hamlet engaged in a general
merchandising business, eventually returning to Leroy, N.Y., where his death
occurred in 1871. He was the father of three sons and three daughters, Capt
Albert B. being the youngest in the family, and his natal day May 20, 1844.
Captain Cash spent eleven years of
his life on the Genesee county farm, accompanying his parents to Michigan in
1855, and eventually rounding out his education in the schools of Detroit. He
became of use to his father in his general store, and was thus employed when
the Civil war inaugurated ites era of stagnation and
death. In the spring of 1862 he became a member of General Custer’s Brigade,
Army of the Potomac, having enlisted in Company L, Sixth Michigan Cavalry, and
after General Sheridan was transferred from the west to the east, followed the
martial fortunes of this able commander until the close of hostilities.
Participating in man important engagements, he witnessed the carnage at second
Bull Run, Wilderness, Cedar Creek, Winchester, Shenandoah and Appomattox,
besides many minor battles and skirmishes, and, except when suffering from
wounds or temporary illness, was invariably in the thick of the fight. He was
wounded at South Mountain and Gettysburg and Trevillian
Station, and was in the hospital for two months. His valor secured recognition
from superior officers, and while with General Custer he was made duty
sergeant. After his discharge from the service at Leavenworth, Kans., in the
fall of 1865, he made a campaign with his regiment in northwestern Dakota, on
Powder river, Little Big Horn and other well-known
sections of that country, again receiving his honorable discharge December 20,
1865.
After the war Captain Cash returned
to Detroit, soon afterward becoming identified with the Pere
Marquette Railroad Company, and in time embarked upon a lumber and freighting
trade on the lakes. In the latter capacity he was most successful, succeeding
to part ownership in the business, and continuing in it for fifteen years. His
wife’s health interfering with his prospects in Michigan, he came to California
in 1881, and the following year became interested with friends in a
horticultural project in Santa Clara county. Having
investigated the prospects in other parts of the state, preference was given
the region he now calls home, and resulted in a selection of one hundred and
twenty-five acres in his present neighborhood. This land was purchased for $200
an acre, the original owners being Captain Cash, C. F. Wyman, H. C. Neff, S. H.
Wagener, L. P Smith A. S. Pierson and William M. Kincaid. Of this company, banded
together for mutual strength and encouragement, Captain Cash alone survives.
The land was divided evenly, and as soon as practicable tree planting was
inaugurated, Mr. Cash having charge of all the land, each tract being planted
two-thirds to prunes and one-third to apricots, reserving on each place ground
enough for a small family orchard of assorted fruits. In 1887 the apricots were
bearing at the rate of sixty pounds to the tree, and at present all are in a
flourishing condition. None of the other original owners took possession of
their tracts for residence purposes, and for nearly the entire time Mr. Cash
has had charge of the property. At present he owns fifteen acres of ranch land
on Moorpark avenue, three miles southwest of San Jose,
and besides this property he manages about twenty-five acres for other owners.
He has a drier on his ranch, as well as many fine general improvements
suggested by the skill and forethought of one of the foremost horticulturists
of this part of the state. Few men interested in fruit have given it so
profound a study as had Captain Cash, and his advice is readily sought by those
desiring to profit by his practical and experienced knowledge. He is a born
horticulturist, finding in the occupation the relaxation for mind and body
which tends to long life and great contentment, as well as the profit which
permits of the luxuries and amenities of life.
At Utica, N. Y., October 1, 1873,
Captain Cash was united in marriage with Mary Kincaid, daughter of George and
Elizabeth Kincaid, who was born in Utica October 27, 1848. Mr. Kincaid was one
of the Argonauts of ’49, but returned to Utica after a few years of successful
mining, and is still living there. His wife died in 1871. Politically Captain
Cash is a Republican. He stands high in fraternal circles, being a member of
Friendship Lodge, F. & A. M., of San Jose; Blanchard Chapter of Bay City,
Mich.; the Commandery of San Jose, of which he is
captain general; and the Detroit (Mich.) Commandery
and Golden Gate Commandery, of which he is honorary
member. He has had conferred upon him the thirty-second degree of Scottish Rite
Masonry. In personal appearance Captain Cash bears out his strong mental
endowments, being six feet and a quarter inch in height and weighing two
hundred and five pounds. He is popular with his old-time and later associates,
enjoys the fullest confidence of the community in which he has been an
important factor, and represents the worthiest of the men who have stamped
their originality and substantiality upon the horticultural growth of Santa
Clara county.
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., Pages
344-345. The Chapman Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Cecelia M. Setty.