Santa
Clara County
Biographies
GEORGE W. LAVERTY
Few men in the livery business branch out
sufficiently to derive pleasure and benefit from its many sided possibilities.
This charge cannot be brought against George W. Laverty, whose devotion to
man’s great friend, the horse is unquestioned, and who appreciates to a nicety
the many fine points of this noble animal. According to the associates of this
successful liveryman there are few on the coast who are better judges of the
horse, or who have more successfully dealt in those representing all shades of
excellence and all degrees of usefulness. The owner of Pinkie, the fastest
single-footer in the San Jose valley, is naturally proud of his success, for he
began life at a point where to own a horse was practically an impossibility,
yet during the last fifteen years he has handled over $100,000 in his business,
that of owner and proprietor of the Kentucky stables at San Jose.
Mr. Laverty was born in Tennessee in
1848, but was reared on a large stock farm near Indianapolis, owned and
operated by his father, A. F. Laverty. In 1864, when the rebel general Morgan
made his famous raid through Indiana, A. F. Laverty, as a member of the Home
Guards, pursued him, and at Lexington, in company with thirty others, rode into
and opened fire upon the general’s camp. The elder Laverty was born in North
Carolina and came of stock possessing an innate fondness for the horse, and
after his removal to Indiana he devote the balance of his life to raising
high-grade stock and horses. His son George started out on his own
responsibility at the age of twenty-one, engaging in farming near Tipton, Ind.
In 1883 he located in San Jose, hoping for an improvement over his rather
indifferent success as a farmer. He was practically out of money, yet the fact
did not dampen his spirits or diminish his enthusiasm for the west. He landed
in San Jose with $3.50 and was glad to get work in a livery stable. After awhile
he secured the position of foreman on the Pohemus
ranch in San Mateo county for a couple of years.
In 1888 Mr. Laverty started the
Kentucky stables on North Market street, and during
the fifteen years which have intervened he has conducted a general livery
business, and also bought and sold hundreds of blooded horses. He has the
finest of saddle horses in his barns, and the most modern of double and single
equipages. At present he has twenty-five horses in all, including Pinkie, known
throughout the valley as its fastest singlefooter,
(sic) and for whose grace of motion her owner is responsible, having spent many
days and hours in her training. For sixteen years Mr. Laverty owned and ran the
stage to Mount Hamilton. He has found time to interest himself
in public enterprises, and in many ways has proved himself the public spirited
and broad minded gentleman, generous in his response to charitable appeal, and
encouraging all that tends to promote the general welfare of his adopted town.
Because of his liking for horses he has studied faithfully their organization
and physical needs, and is amply qualified to sit in judgment upon the various
disorders known to the noble animal. He is a true-blue advocate of
Republicanism, and is fraternally connected with the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows.
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., Page 1355. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.