Santa
Clara County
Biographies
ANDREW McLACHLAN
That a useful trade is the surest guarantee
of a comfortable livelihood finds additional confirmation in the career of
Andrew McLachlan, than whom no other citizen is better known in the pioneer and
later annals of trade endeavor in Palo Alto. No one has more interestedly and
faithfully watched the upbuilding of this collegiate town than this same expert
stone mason, who built the first residence on the Palo Alto, and who laid the
first stone for the great Stanford University, with which he is at present
connected. Mr. McLachlan inherits sterling straits of a Scotch ancestry long
identified with Lanarkshire, in which inland county
he was born December 18, 1848. His parents, James and Jane (Wilson) McLachlan,
were in moderate circumstances, and besides himself
had eleven other children, seven sons, and four daughters. He was educated in
the public schools of Glasgow, and after his graduation from the high school,
apprenticed to a stone cutter and builder in Glasgow city.
In his native land Mr. McLachlan
married Margaret Moore, a native also of the land of simple living and strong
constitutions, and in 1886 brought his family to America, locating in San
Francisco for about eighteen months. Following his trade with fair success, he
thought to improve his prospects by coming to Palo Alto, where the great
university was about to assume tangible proportions and upon arriving here in
1887 laid the first stone of what is now one of the finest educational
institutions in the world. During 1896 he was engaged in work on the Sanon Salmo (sic) of Marin county, and the Presbyterian Seminary, of which he was
foreman of construction. His mastery of stone construction secured him the
contract on the Presbyterian Church of San Rafael, and many other ambitious
structures have profited by his knowledge of an artistic and satisfying
occupation. In 1899 he returned to the Stanford University, and has since added
his labor to that of others interested in the completion of the ambitious
buildings. He is interested in the building and loan association, and in all other
ways has contributed to the establishment of a high grade of stone
construction.
As evidencing his faith in the
future of Palo Alto, Mr. McLachlan has invested in business and residence
property in the city, owning besides his own home at No. 643 High street, the
adjoining lots on either side. His son, Andrew, the youngest of his six
children, was the first child born within the limits of the town of Palo Alto,
his other children being Elizabeth, James, John, Sadie, and Jennie. Mr.
McLachlan has aided in more than one department of town activity, and has
gained a reputation for keen interest in the community’s upbuilding. He is a
genial and socially inclined Scotchman, bluff and hearty and true as steel to
his friends and obligations. He is identified with the Independent Order of
Foresters, and in this connection has an interest in Fraternity Hall. In
politics he is a Republican, and in religion a Presbyterian. He is a
substantial and industrious man, matter-of-fact and practical, and has based
his claims to recognition upon masterly workmanship, high character and
persistent application.
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., Pages 1055-1056. The
Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.