Santa Clara County
Biographies
HENRY WILLARD COE
HENRY WILLARD COE. In the beautiful little
village of Northwood, N. H., almost within the shadow of
Mt. Washington, and in the stern and rugged, if delightful, scenery so
long immortalized as, proverbially, the cradle of stalwart men, was born
February 6, 1820, Henry Willard Coe. His boyhood was passed in the
midst of moral, as well as physical, surroundings eminently calculated to make
him a leader of men. This he eventually proved on more than one memorable
occasion. He descended, on both sides, from families prominent in Colonial and
Revolutionary history. At the age of twelve he incurred that perhaps greatest
of all misfortunes to an opening life: he lost his mother. Such a loss is
hardly ever adequately replaced; and therefore, at the age of sixteen, Henry
Willard Coe was induced to accept the offer of the well-known
Zach. Chandler and accompany him to the West. With a stock of $4,000 worth
of goods, which they carried with them, they were towed in a canal boat up the
Hudson river, through the Erie canal, and across the Great Lakes, a journey
occupying over a month. Columbus’ voyage was one of discovery. Chandler’s one
of commercial conquest. The offer of Mr. Chandler shows what was already
thought of Willard Coe. How far he justified the expectations thus early formed
is evidenced by the fact that, after three years, a partnership in
Mr. Chandler’s already great business was offered him. Mr. Coe declined
it. He returned to his native town; purchased the business of his father; and
conducted it successfully.
And now came one of
those turns of the tide in the affairs of men which it is always delightful and
helpful to recall because of the lesson they impress and the insight into
character they furnish. One evening there came into the village a way-worn and
seemingly heart-broken traveler from the West. He told a pitiful story. His
wife and all his children had died of fever, far from the spot where he was now
standing. He asked for shelter and hospitality from the village inn. The
proprietor refused it – there were too many applications of the kind, etc.
Mr. Coe chanced to be by. Struck by the man’s evident distress and
apparent sincerity he at once declared the waif his guest, and fed, clothed and
entertained him with the hospitality for which he afterwards became famous. He
was well repaid. Indeed, in a pecuniary sense, he may be said to have been
entertaining an angel unawares. The stranger told him of a cotton manufactory
in Cooperstown, N. Y., with offices on Wall street: told him that he knew
its undeveloped capacity; and that its purchase would make the fortune of
whoever secured it. It was impossible to doubt either the man’s honesty or his
knowledge. After careful inquiry Mr. Coe purchased the property, and
afterwards sold the same at a profit of ten thousand per cent! A noble reward
for the tenderness and charity that had pitied and helped the poor stranger.
Such was, practically, the successful starting point of the well-known Phoenix
Cotton Manufacturing plant at Cooperstown, N. Y. There Mr. Coe
employed a large number of operatives, constructed machinery, and not only
manufactured cotton, but turned out calicoes of entirely new designs that were
unrivaled. The manufactory holds its own to-day. Two years after entering upon
this enterprise Mr. Coe stood with his buildings, his new machinery, his
contractors and operatives paid, and a balance of $60,000 at his banker’s.
Then came the usual
period, in those days, of uncertainty and unstable prices consequent upon the
presidential election. Values of every kind fluctuated almost hourly. With that
dogged determination which characterized him at all times, Mr. Coe
decided, come what would, that he would not sell without a profit. For over six
months, he held on to all his mill produced. Then came the crash! Henry Clay
was defeated. The election of Polk was secured. The repeal of the tariff
followed. Then followed a panic, and, like almost every one, in the same line
of business, Mr. Coe found himself financially ruined. He was too strong a
man to grieve or brood. He faced the situation, as he ever faced everything,
frankly and nobly. He assigned the whole of his property to his creditors. But
his health, never one thousandth part as strong as his spirit, had been giving
way for some time. He was told he could probably prolong his life, by some six
months, if he were willing to live out of doors and to travel. He went to
Detroit. His always devoted friend, – and he had no friends that were not
devoted – the Hon. Zachariah Chandler, received him warmly. But hard times had
reached Detroit, as they had reached himself. And so he journeyed on to St.
Louis.
Now, be it known,
that, of a naturally ardent temperament, Henry Willard Coe’s mind and heart
had, from his infancy, been fired by visions of the great northwest. He was
naturally of an enterprising and generous disposition, as all ardent
temperaments are; but he had the cool head that is so often lacking to the warm
heart, and this was what made him a natural leader of his fellows. It is no
wonder that he was so recognized. When the spring came Mr. Coe set out
with a large company for Oregon. The length, the hardships, the perils of that
journey, the dangers greater still that followed it, all these have been told,
and graphically portrayed, in that vivid narrative of his son Charles, “The
Winners of the Great Northwest.” But, as Kipling says, “That’s another story.”
We are principally concerned with Mr. Coe’s arrival, residence and death,
in the Golden State and with what he did to permanently develop and further its
interests. But before we introduce Mr. Coe more at large to the rising
generations of California, who have succeeded and will follow him, this seems
the proper place in which to say a passing
word of those immediate relatives whose services to their country
illustrate the spirit and the patriotism of the race from which he sprang.
Henry Willard Coe’s
elder brother, Eben, was a distinguished civil
engineer in the days when America wanted nothing more urgently than the skill
which this implies. He made all the preliminary surveys of the Harlem and
Hudson River Railroads, shoreland and inland, till
lack of capital suspended for a time what is now the famous New York Central
Railroad system. Having removed to Maine, his name was for years associated
with all extensive operations in that State and New Hampshire. He originated
and built the dams at the foot of the lakes, the sources of the Androscoggin.
And for a consideration of $350,000, the cities of Lewiston and Auburn became,
directly and indirectly, indebted to Eben Coe for
their prosperity, both then and now. He became one of the most extensive and
successful lumber men in the United States. When he died all mourned him. And
it was declared that, while of naturally retiring disposition, “his sagacious
judgment, unswerving integrity, high ideals of life, and fine intellectual
powers made him a man amongst men.” It was added that “his benevolence was as
unceasing as it was unostentatious,” and that no need of whatever kind ever
appealed to him in vain.
George Coe, of the
same family, was a banker. He was still young. And it was the darkest hour of
the Civil war. When the minds and hearts of all men were depressed: when Bull
Run made Federal success seem, for the moment, impossible: when the commerce of
the nation was paralyzed: a loan was absolutely imperatively needed. Secretary
Chase was chosen to rescue the government from its financial straits. It was a
task few men, even of his standing, would have cared to have undertaken.
Secretary Chase undertook it. He called a meeting of the prominent bankers of
New York. With the dignity that naturally invested his noble presence, he told
them, when they assembled, lucidly, frankly, eloquently, and in a most masterly
fashion, how matters stood. A pall fell upon his hearers! even his eloquence failed
to lift the cloud that hung upon their spirits. Then the unexpected happened.
The youthful and animated figure of one, if not the very youngest, among them
sprang to its feet and transfixed them all. “I move,” cried out George Coe,
“that we take this loan. This is not merely the dictate of patriotism, of
wisdom, of prudence, of caution. It is more than them all. We are face to face
with a commanding necessity. It is the instinct of self-preservation that
appeals to us. It exacts our compliance with this request. Our very existence
is involved in that of the government. Without it, banks can have no being and
property no value. Nay, life itself is undesirable.” Mr. Coe went on briefly,
in the same forceful manner, till taking
a few cents from his pocket he exclaimed: “I would not give these coppers for
all your banks, your bank buildings and bank capital: I would not give a
five-cent piece for your American Exchange Bank, with its $5,000,000 of
capital, unless this appeal to us were heard. Gentlemen, you must take this
loan, or you must take barbarism.” A contemporary declares that all heads were
raised in sympathetic admiration; that all eyes fairly glowed at the burning
words of the inspired orator, that the loan was unanimously voted and the
government enabled to continue the war, in the scene of indescribable
enthusiasm that followed Mr. Coe’s ringing and magnetic address. His people and
his country may well be proud of him. He represented the one by assisting the
other in the hour of its direst need. It was well said of him, when he died,
that the name of the man whose promptness and courage had done so much to
restore confidence when men’s hearts were failing them and to save his country,
should never be allowed to die. And now,
briefly stating that G. S. Coe was for thirty years the president of
the American Exchange Bank, and that his historical services in connection with
the clearing house have been, and are, recognized throughout the whole of the
United States, as, for all time, invaluable, we respectfully bid farewell to
two noble branches of a noble tree, and return to one, of which both were
proud, and which more immediately concerns us.
After the various
vicissitudes in Oregon, including the terrible Indian war that followed the
Whitman massacre, and the other incidents recounted in “The Winners of the
Great Northwest,” Mr. Coe came to California, in the end of 1848. On the
journey he was one of the first, if not the very first, to discover the value
of the mineral water of the Shasta Springs. He spent some time in mining, and
was fortunate enough to discover a very valuable mine in Amador county, which
he named the Phoenix, in memory of his old mill at Cooperstown, N. Y. He
was fairly successful; enough so to induce him (and he had never been
accustomed to severe manual labor) to accept an associate. And, gentle reader,
thereby hangs a tale. The associate in question was of a burly build, and of a
character, or disposition, that harmonized with it. One evening, in the hills,
and in the associate’s absence, there came along a lot of poor fellows, barely
clothed, and still, to all appearances, more sparely fed. They proved to be
veterans of the Mexican war, and the heart of Willard Coe was moved to its very
depth. He did for them, what he had done for the poor stranger in New
Hampshire, he clothed and fed, and saw them on their way. His associate
returned, flew into a towering rage, and declared Coe’s foolish generosity had
ruined them, etc. Willard Coe smiled and walked away, and then occurred a
strange, a very strange thing. If fact were not stranger than fiction we could
hardly bring ourselves to believe this one. But the evidence is absolutely
undeniable. Away in the hills a considerable distance from their camp, and walking
with his eyes to the ground, as a prospector does, Mr. Coe noticed, almost
at his feet, a string. He stooped and pulled it, and, lo and behold, at the end
thereof, was a sack! and the sack enclosed this: a beautiful meerschaum pipe
(kept for twenty-five years afterwards), sundry gold coins, and at the bottom a
number of ounces of gold dust, more than sufficient to repay, twice over, the
amount of that generosity and patriotism which a warm and strong and tender
heart had compelled its owner to disburse for the sake of those who had served
their native land and whose needs appealed to him. It was evident that the
deposit was a relic of the past. The pipe alone could identify its owner, and
it was kept for twenty-five years that it might do so. Meanwhile Mr. Coe
returned, called his partner, or associate, paid him all he could claim, showed
him the door, and bade him a very good day. That was Henry Willard Coe to the
life, in the one act as in the other.
In those early days of
mining in California, scientific mining was an unknown art. Machinery had to be
ordered in London and shipped round Cape Horn. This required nearly two years.
In the meantime, Mr. Coe, who had determined to engage in the business of
providing this, settled in San Francisco as a purchasing agent for miner’s
supplies. He was eminently successful. Not until 1858 did he re-visit New York.
He did so then on a mission of no small importance to himself. He married the
lady of his choice, Miss Hannah Huntington,
of the distinguished New York family of that name, who had waited for him
nineteen years. She had had many advantageous and flattering offers, for she
had something to bring men to her feet. But through all those years she
remained true to her first love. A finer testimony to his worth and her own it
would be difficult to imagine.
When Mr. Coe returned
to California with his bride, he found that Alvinza
Hayward, profiting by the crude state of the then existing mining law, had
taken possession of his mine and was taking from it
monthly a fortune. Happily Mr. Coe possessed an ample fortune of his own,
as did his bride in her own right. They were both soon weary of contention; and
weary of the sand hills and hurly-burly
of the town by the Golden Gate. The country had more attractions to
offer, and so they came to San Jose, where Mr. Coe purchased the beautiful
section then and still known as “The Willows.” Here he built a beautiful
country seat, the hospitality of which was nowhere surpassed. At large expense,
he cleared an extensive tract, planting it to orchards and hop fields. The size
of the fruit and the phenomenal yield attracted world-wide attention, and
caused San Jose to be known as the Garden City of the Golden State. Mr. Coe was
the first extensive shipper of fruit and hops to New York, Liverpool and
Australia. The Central Pacific received from Mr. Coe its first consignment
of freight from San Jose.
Nor did fruit culture
alone absorb this man of seemingly tireless energy and enterprise. The first
tobacco grown in California, and the first silk grown and manufactured from the
native product of the United States were grown and manufactured at “The
Willows,” the silk being made up into a beautiful flag presented to Congress in
1872. This flag was afterwards exhibited at the Centennial Exposition, in
Philadelphia; at the World’s Fair, in Chicago; and is on exhibition to-day in
the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. The experiment demonstrates the
possibility of silk culture in Santa Clara valley, both soil and climate being
admirably adapted to the mulberry and cocoon. But cheap labor is essential, and
cheap labor is not easily secured in California.
Nor was Mr. Coe’s
industry to be restricted to fruit growing or silk producing. As a grower of
hops he was extraordinarily successful. He was the first to use sulphur in bleaching hops and fruit. This process, which
renders both bright and attractive, in appearance, is universally employed
to-day. Men traveled expressly from Europe to purchase hops from Mr. Coe
at “The Willows,” his being declared superior to any grown elsewhere in any
land.
But “The Willows” were to see a change. With
all the success that attended his efforts here, Mr. Coe suffered heavy
losses by fire and by the failure of a large mining enterprise in which he was
heavily interested. This induced him to part with all his property in “The
Willows,” after holding it for fifteen years. The estate brought (it was 1873)
$750 per acre. Its rental value paid the interest, at ten per cent per annum,
which was the then legal rate on the entire amount. Thereafter Mr. Coe led
a retired life in the lovely San Felipe valley, a fit haven of rest, among the
beauties of nature, where he had often expressed the wish that the evening of
his life might be spent until its close. Surrounded by all who were dearest to
him, the end came fittingly at sunset on Wednesday, the 7th of June, 1896, and
Henry Willard Coe passed away without the slightest semblance of a struggle.
Thus ended a varied
and a worthy life. Whether considered as the young captain of industry, with
Chandler in Detroit, when Chicago was yet but a village; the merchant of his
native Northwood; the enterprising cotton manufacturer of Cooperstown,
N. Y.; the pioneer crossing the plains and braving their dangers of every
kind in 1847; the voluntary schoolmaster of Oregon City in the days of its
foundation; exploring the Columbia; fighting, where all were heroes in the
battle of the terrible Indian war; migrating, a leader ever, from Oregon to
California overland; whether considered as a miner or a merchant of the Golden
State; in the hills, or in the city; or whether remembered finally, as a
pioneer orchardist of Santa Clara valley, bringing to San Jose its title of
“The Garden City;” the first of its hop-growers and silk producers; in whichever
way, and at whatever time of life recalled, Henry Willard Coe will ever stand
to all who knew him, or who learned his story, as one of the highest types of
the American gentleman, the enterprising, fearless, generous, high-minded and
public-spirited citizen. It is to such men as he that the country really owes
what is best in its character and achievements.
One word more before
bringing this monograph, or memoir, to a close. In presence, Mr. Coe was slightly
over six feet. He was a man of striking dignity, but of most kindly manner. He
was exceptionally well read. His memory was remarkable; and he retained his
faculties up to within an hour of his death. He was charitable to a degree, as
his story has evidenced. His reminiscences, had they been collected, would have
made a most interesting volume. He remembered perfectly General La Fayette’s
visit to this country. He and his brother Eben had
stood watching on the banks of the Hudson when Fulton first ran his steamer on
its waters. He knew San Francisco when it contained only a population of five
hundred. He was fond of dwelling upon the marvelous development of science that
he had seen take place within his own lifetime. He was broad minded in all things,
and rejoiced in progress of every kind. Mr. Coe was survived by his widow,
a native of New York, for four years. She died beloved by all, as she had
lived. Her womanly graces and her great kindness of heart had endeared her to
all kinds and conditions of people from the moment she made her home among
them. Two sons of her union with Mr. Coe survive them both. The habitual
residence of one, H. W., Jr., is a magnificent ranch owned by both
brothers in the San Felipe valley. Charles W. Coe is a resident of San Jose,
having purchased the home of the late Gen. Henry M. Naglee,
one of the most beautiful places to be found anywhere, trees of almost every
clime in the world heightening the loveliness of lawns and grounds laid out
with great artistic skill. This lovely home has a mistress worthy of it,
Mr. Coe having married in 1901 Miss Leontine Carteri, a native of Santa Barbara, and a grand-daughter of
the first English settler in southern California, William D. Foxen, who, in 1836, built the first ship in California.
Mr. Foxen it was, also, who saved General Fremont’s
small body of troops from annihilation, by guiding them over the mountains,
instead of journeying through the Goleta Pass, where destruction awaited them
at the hands of General Castro.
Two beautiful boys, Eben and Willard, have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Charles W.
Coe, and they bid well to perpetuate physically and otherwise, the best traits
of the stock from which they spring.
IN MEMORIAM.
H. W. C.
Sleep in peace, thy days are ended,
Where tower the everlasting hills.
Sleep in peace, who aye ascended.
Thy requiem chant the mountain rills.
Sleep in peace!
Sleep in peace, the world was better
For what thy life to that world gave.
Sleep in peace, mankind thy debtor.
Thy crown – the light above thy grave.
Sleep in peace.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard 01 August 2014.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 259-265. The Chapman Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1904.
© 2014 Marie Hassard.