Santa
Clara County
Biographies
JUDGE SAMUEL FRANKLIN LEIB
In presenting to the citizens of the
community a biographical work of their representative men the name of Judge
S.F. Leib must necessarily occupy a prominent place. When he came to this state in 1869 he was a
young man of twenty-one years, just having completed the study of law, and it
was in San Jose that he first began practice.
A close student, and possessed of an energetic and ambitious
temperament, he rose from the obscure ranks of young attorneys and is to-day
[sic.] numbered among the men whose success has brought prestige to the city of
his adoption. A native of Fairfield county, Ohio, he was born in 1848, the youngest son of
Joseph and Clarissa (Allen) Leib.
Joseph Leib was a native of Pennsylvania
but removed with his parents to Ohio about 1806, when only seven years of age,
early experiencing the hardships and dangers of a pioneer life, for at that
date in the history of the Buckeye state the Indians had but shortly been
subdued and driven away from the land.
An old Indian trail ran through the Leib farm and recalled to the family
the events of but a few years earlier in that section of the country. In manhood Mr. Leib married Clarissa Allen, a
native of Ohio, whose father had emigrated from Massachusetts in a very early
day. The home of the Leibs
remained in Fairfield county throughout their entire
lives, the mother dying in 1863, while the father lived until 1880.
Judge Leib was the youngest of nine
children. His boyhood was passed upon
the paternal farm, receiving his rudimentary education in the common schools in
the vicinity of his home. He became a
volunteer in the Company E, One Hundred Fifty-ninth Ohio Regiment of Infantry,
in the spring of 1864, at the youthful age of sixteen years, and served in that
regiment and in the Seventy-third Ohio Battalion till the close of the
war. Having early chosen his life work
he entered the law department of Ann Arbor Mich., from which institution he was
graduated in the class of 1869. He came
at once to California, locating in Santa Clara county,
and has since made San Jose his home and has been identified with its
interests. He successfully established a
lucrative practice and as a popular attorney won his way into the confidence
and esteem of his fellow citizens. He
was appointed to the bench in 1903 by Governor Pardee, but resigned after eight
months’ service. His official duties
were discharged with the same promptness and faithfulness which have
distinguished his entire career.
Judge Leib has not only attained a legal success,
but is numbered among the men of commercial supremacy in San Jose, having met
with gratifying returns for his business ventures since locating here. Besides the beautiful home located on the
Alameda he owns one hundred and sixty acres in the Cupertino district, eight
miles from San Jose, on the Stevens Creek road, all of which he has planted in orchards. He is also a half-owner of the Imperial Prune
Orchard of two hundred and ten acres near Berryessa. The Judge has always taken the keenest interest
in Horticultural pursuits and the success which he has achieved in this line
has given him an enviable place among the horticulturists
of the county. He handles his own
prunes, drying them in the sun, and has already established for them a wide
reputation on account of the thorough manner in which the drying and packing
process is accomplished.
Judge Leib has given much of his time and
energy to Leland Stanford University. He
was a personal friend of Governor and Mrs. Stanford and was by them appointed a
trustee and later appointed president of the trustees. For many years he served in that capacity and
rendered valuable services to the institution and in fact is still actively
engaged in the management of this memorable institution.
Transcribed by Louise
E. Shoemaker September 7, 2015.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 764. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Louise E. Shoemaker.