Santa
Clara County
Biographies
SETH WARREN
CHURCHILL
The agent of the Home Fire & Marine Insurance Company of San Jose, at the age of eighty-three is one of the honored pioneers of this town, to which he came in 1864, and where he has lived continuously ever since. With the vigorous step and active mind of a man of fifty, he still attends to the details of his business and keeps himself in sympathy with the new generation like a monarch of the forest surrounded by younger growths. Born in East Swanton, Vt., May 17, 1821, his youth was invested with much early sorrow, for his father, Elisha died when he was ten years old, and his mother, Susan (Lackey) Churchill, died when he was six. Thrown thus alone upon an unsympathetic world, he found a home with his brother for three years, and then went to live with a younger brother at St. Albans, where he clerked in a grocery store for three years. In 1837 this association was in danger of being disrupted owing to the ambition of his brother, who had planned to move to Wisconsin and grow up with the young country. Seth Warren had a position offered him by a rich merchant named A. G. Tarlton, which promised advancement and honor, yet so devoted was he to his brother that he accompanied him to Wisconsin, taking the chance of hundreds of other youths who started out with nothing to depend upon but their own energy and resource. In Milwaukee, Wis., he became a clerk for his brother until the latter’s death in 1842, after which he found a similar position with another firm until 1844. He then clerked in the United States hotel until 1850, and was clerk in the Tremont House from 1850 to 1852, in which year he planned to carry into execution his desire to join the fortune seekers on the coast.
Shipping from New York via the Strait of Magellan on the steamer City of Pittsburg, Mr. Churchill had a trying experience off Valparaiso, South America, when his ship was burned, October 23, all of the passengers, however, being saved. Being thus disappointed in his original plan, he shipped on an English steamer to Panama, arriving at San Francisco December 14, 1852. A fellow passenger in his unfortunate trip to the coast was Sophia J. May, who was born in Connecticut, and was on the way to meet her father, Rev. George May, who had preceded her two years to Marysville, Yuba county, Cal. He was a Methodist Episcopal clergyman of Connecticut, retired from the ministry in California, and had devoted his energies to farming in Yuba county. At a later period he located in San Jose and studied law, becoming justice of the peace, and otherwise identifying himself with the growth of the city. December 31, 1854, the friendship between Mr. Churchill and Miss May, begun on the fated City of Pittsburg, and strengthened by the later trials to which both were subjected during the burning of the ship, culminated in marriage, Mr. Churchill living at that time in Marysville, where he operated the Merchants’ Hotel for three years. He later ran the White Sulphur Spring (sic) Hotel for three years, in Napa county, returning then to Merchants’, where he was installed as manager for another three years, or until the great flood destroyed the hotel. A still later charge was the American Exchange and the Lick House, in all of which his remuneration consisted of $250 a month.
Coming to San Jose in 1864, Mr. Churchill has since been identified with the Home Fire & Marine Insurance Company, and at the same time has taken an active part in many lines of activity in the city. Always public spirited and generous he has supported a high standard of education and was school trustee for four years. He was anxious to increase knowledge as embodied in high class reading, and was a director in a private circulating library, having been particularly active in his connection with it, contributing money at the time of its establishment. He has been a pillar of the Methodist Church wherever he has elected to reside, serving for twenty-two years as trustee of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, and contributing both time and money toward its upbuilding. He has been a trustee of the Centella Methodist Episcopal Church for ten years. Nine children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, of whom Isabelle is a teacher in the school at Paso Robles; Harry Howard and George May are deceased; Lucy is an educator; Jennie is the wife of Milo S. Baker, of San Francisco; Seth Warren, Jr., is a bill clerk for H. S. Crocker Company of San Francisco; Ada is the wife of Romana S. Hunkins, of San Jose; and twin daughters, May and Mary, who died in infancy. Mr. Churchill is popular with all classes, a genial, sympathetic and generous gentleman, retaining the enthusiasm of youth and the heart of his childhood.
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 706-709. The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Cecelia M. Setty.