Santa Clara County
Biographies
EDWARD
BARBER CONKLIN
EDWARD BARBER CONKLIN.
Probably the highest type of human usefulness, from the standpoint of the
greatest good to the greatest number of people, is found in Edward Barber Conklin,
whose pronounced spheres of action have been education and legislation, and
whose strength of character, erudition, practical grasp of everyday affairs,
and remarkable command of oratorical art, having conspired to make him a potent
factor of development in Santa Clara county.
For many of his
substantial tendencies Mr. Conklin is indebted to good old Knickerbocker
stock, established in this country by his paternal great-grandfather, who, with
two of his brothers, came from Holland and settled in Rensselaer county,
N. Y. One of the brothers contributed to the lineage of
Roscoe Conklin, the American politician and senator from New York, while
the remaining brother wrought out his fortunes farther west. Mr. Conklin’s
immediate progenitors were of a mechanical turn of mind, his grandfather, and
his father, Abraham, both being carpenters and builders, as well as farmers.
The grandfather was a prominent man of Rensselaer county, and a strong
Abolitionist, giving vent to his enthusiasm in a quiet, peaceful way, and
winning many friendships by his amiable and serene nature. Abraham Conklin
was born on his father’s farm in Rensselaer county, and possibly the ships
passing by on the Hudson river inspired him with the desire to have a hand in
their construction. At any rate he learned the trade of ship carpenter, and
spent his life in contracting and building, and in managing the farm upon which
he died at the age of eighty-seven. He also was a fervent Abolitionist. In his
youth he married Huldah Carmichael, of Scotch-Irish
extraction, whose life was spent in Rensselaer and Washington counties; she
died in Sandy Hill, Washington county, at the age of seventy-five, and was the
mother of ten children, four sons and six daughters, all of whom attained
maturity.
Edward Barber Conklin,
the third son and sixth child in his father’s family, laid the foundation for
his educational work in the public schools of New York state, and at Union
Village Academy, which he entered in 1839, and attended for three years. At the
same time he was making financial ends meet by assisting his father on the home
farm, principally in flailing wheat, for which his reward was one out of every
ten bushels. He began teaching school in Washington county, N. Y., at the
age of twenty-one, later going to Schaghticoke and
still later to Sandy Hill, on the Hudson, in the meantime studying law, with a
view to devoting his life to that profession. In 1848 he began teaching in
Belvidere, Ill., as principal of the Union School, in time starting a select school
in Marengo, which subsequently became Marengo Academy, a collegiate institute,
but which has since been burned to the ground. Also he taught in
Lawrence, Ill., and in 1857 removed to Topeka, Kans., and had charge of a
school for three years.
With his family Mr.
Conklin crossed the plains from Belvidere, Ill., in a spring wagon, during
the summer of 1861, via Salt Lake City, and Carson City, to Placerville, Cal.,
where he started an educational institution afterward known as the Placerville
Academy, and which cost him about $30,000. Disposing of this school in 1881, he
came to Santa Clara county and located in Los Gatos, where, with
Mr. Kirkland, he started the private bank of Conklin & Kirkland, later
incorporated into the Los Gatos Bank. For two years he was superintendent of
schools of Eldorado county, and during that time did much to elevate the
standard of instruction in the county. In 1882 he purchased his present fruit
farm and home one mile east of Campbell, and on the San Jose and Los Gatos road,
and which consists of nine acres. The residence on the place at the time proved
insufficient for the needs of the family, and it has been rebuilt in accordance
with modern ideas of comfort and convenience. Mr. Conklin married, in Moreau,
N. Y., Annie Early Moss, a native of York state, and a member of
a prominent old family. Having no children of their own, Mr. and
Mrs. Conklin have given five or six children the benefit of their home and
training, and have either launched them upon successful careers, or watched
over them until they entered homes of their own.
The political career
of Mr. Conklin is a distinct reproach to the term politician as usually
understood. His sincerity and strength cause his service to stand out clearly
defined against the background of Republican achievement in this county. Owing
to his advanced ideas in regard to certain measures, his election to the state
senate in 1887 was strongly contested, and his defeat of the political ring
arrayed against him, through the timely and vigorous speech which secured his
nomination, was a signal victory both for his perseverance and his ability.
During his service of two sessions of four years, he served on the committee on
education, and succeeded in securing the passage of the bill authorizing public
school teachers to demonstrate to their pupils the effect of alcohol on the
human system. His bills for the elimination of gambling from state fairs and
other enterprises of the kind, for Sunday closing, and for non-taxation of
educational and church property, were defeated. As will be seen, his advocacy
was invariably directed toward higher and more enlightened conditions, and were
in some instances far ahead of present public sentiment. Prejudice and corrupt
political factions have prevented this enlightened solon from realizing many of
his noblest aspirations for the people. Mr. and Mrs. Conklin are prominent
and active members of the Presbyterian Church, and he has five times been
elected as commissioner to the general assembly.
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 560-563.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Marie
Hassard.