Santa Clara County
Biographies
THEODORE
FRANKLIN GRANT
THEODORE FRANKLIN
GRANT has the honor of having spent more than half a century in one locality,
mostly in the pursuit of one occupation, as an agriculturist. It was in the
year 1851 that he first took up his residence in Santa Clara county and the
first seven years of his residence there he was deputy postmaster at Santa
Clara. He afterward served two years as deputy county recorder, prior to
locating on the place still occupied by him as a home. At the time of his
locating here he took up two quarters of a section of government land and at the
same time he purchased part of a Spanish grant, making his farm over four
hundred acres in all, and located mostly among the foothills. Mr. Grant
has spent the intervening years raising hay and grain, also carrying on dairy
farming to some extent. He keeps only high grade stock, having at the present
time twelve fine Jersey cows for dairy purposes, and everything on his place
indicates the prosperity of its owner.
Born in Boston, Mass.,
January 22, 1827, Mr. Grant is well connected on both sides of the family,
his ancestors in the far eastern part of our country being prominently
identified with the growth, progress and history of that section. He is a son
of Charles and Sarah (Richards) Grant. His paternal grandfather, a native of
Scotland, after coming to this country, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war,
being also a distant relative of Ulysses S. Grant. The father of
Mr. Grant was also a native of Boston and participated in the war of 1812,
as a cavalry officer. He was a merchant and for years conducted a crockery and
wall-paper store on Union street, in Boston, finally retiring from business and
spending his last days in Cohasset. He married Miss Sarah Richards, a
lady born in Roxbury, a suburb of Boston, whose death also took place in that
city. Her father was one of the famous Boston Tea Party and assisted in
throwing the tea overboard, although he was a native of England and traced his
ancestry directly back to Richard III.
Theodore Franklin
Grant was the youngest in a family of five children, four of whom were sons,
and he was educated in the common schools of Boston, with a finishing course in
the high schools of that city. After leaving school he became connected for a
time with the wholesale dry goods and commission house of George H. Lemist & Co. In 1845 he went to Portland, Me., and
engaged in business there on his own behalf for several years, taking passage
for California in October, 1849. The trip to the Pacific slope was made on
board the Ortolan, a sixty-five ton vessel, which
sailed through the Straits of Magellan and the Smith Channel, and after a
delightful voyage, which Mr. Grant will never forget, San Francisco was
reached in April, 1850. Here he secured employment as hotel clerk in the
Montgomery House for a short time, prior to which he was engaged in hunting
game for the market, and for a time had charge of a store ship. In this way his
time was fully occupied up to 1851, the date of his locating in Santa Clara
county, and his interests have been identical with that section ever since. By
his marriage, in San Francisco, he was united with Miss Margarite Shaw, formerly of Ireland, and three
children were born to them. They are as follows: Sarah, who is still at the
home place; Theodore Franklin, Jr., a real estate and insurance
dealer at Mountainview, Cal.; and Isabelle, who is
deceased. Mr. Grant’s ranch is well located four and a half miles south of Mountainview, on the Grant road. Politically a Republican,
in his younger years he was quite an active politician. As a citizen he is highly
esteemed in his locality.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard 21 April 2015.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 468-469. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Marie
Hassard.