Santa Clara County
Biographies
STEPHEN D. HOSMER
STEPHEN D. HOSMER. A thrifty
hay, grain and stock center is found on the seventy-acre ranch of
Stephen D. Hosmer, half a mile south of
Sunnyvale. This enterprising rancher, who has experienced many difficulties
since associating himself with the west in 1853, retains in manner, thought and
character the traits of his New England ancestry, and
a just pride in its connection with the leading early events in American history.
Born in that center of eastern culture and conservatism, Concord, Mass.,
October 8, 1828, he is a son of John and Mary Eliza (Turner) Hosmer, natives of Concord and Boston respectively. His
paternal grandfather, John, was a cabinet maker by trade, and left his bench
and tools to shoulder a musket in the Revolutionary war, under the banner of
Washington. The cabinet maker, well pleased with his life occupation, taught
his trade to his son John, who emulated him also in the matter of patriotism,
and fought with valor in the war of 1812.
An early incentive to leave the paternal roof presented
itself to the children in the Hosmer family, for
there were twelve of them and the income of the cabinet maker was insufficient
for all their needs. Stephen, the second child, acquired a fair education by
the time he was seventeen, and was then apprenticed to a carpenter, thus
representing the third generation of his family to follow that occupation. He
eventually found employment in Boston, and for a time worked on the Tremont
Temple. Possessed of ambitious tendencies, he came to California by way of the
Isthmus in 1853, and after a brief experience in mining on the Norfolk and Ann
rivers came to Santa Clara county, where he worked at
building and contracting until 1856. He then purchased a ranch near Santa
Clara, devoting it to general produce, but was dispossessed in 1862, owing to
the Spanish title. He then purchased two hundred and forty acres of the
railroad company, upon a portion of which he still lives, and before gaining a
clear title was obliged to purchase five different titles and to carry his
claim through the supreme court. Finding the
responsibility of so much land a tax upon his energy, he has disposed of
portions at different times, and now has seventy acres, upon which he erected a
modern three-story residence in 1893. Mr. Hosmer
is a genial and popular man, notwithstanding the fact that he is a bachelor and
has missed from his life the ties which are supposed to ennoble and enlarge
human nature. He is generous toward those less fortunate than himself, and
kindly in his judgment and treatment of all with whom he is associated. He is
essentially a lover of his own fireside, and rarely steps out of its glow and
peace to enter the strivings, political and otherwise, which fret the brains of
many of his neighbors. He is a peaceful Republican and has neither animosity
nor special preference for any religious creed.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard 17 April 2016.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages
1073-1074. The Chapman Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2016 Marie Hassard.