Santa Clara County
Biographies
JOHN WEBB
In his youth in England John Webb learned the trade of dial maker, a painstaking and intricate calling, requiring exactness of perception, and accuracy of detail. Years of devotion to the enameling and placing of the figures of time upon the faces of watches has made of him what his occupation has required of him, and the traits thus ingrained by long training have been apparent in his management of the country properties which he has owned since coming to Santa Clara county in 1875. His present ranch, upon which he located in 1903, has already taken on the stamp of his method and order, and is a pleasant and paying property of fifty-six acres on Lucretia avenue, two and a half miles south of San Jose. The grounds surrounding this modern and commodious residence are laid out with true regard for the demands of eye and heart, and prunes and apricot abound in such numbers as to give assurance of a comfortable yearly income. Mr. Webb takes infinite pleasure in his beautiful surroundings, as well he might, for they are typically western, and radiant with sunshine and inspiring color. Four score years have rolled over his head, leaving his sympathies keen and his interests by no means dimmed. The wife who shared his rising and later fortunes was formerly Mary A. Waterson, of English birth and Scotch extraction. She died in October, 1903, and Mr. Webb is tenderly cared for by an adopted daughter, Ida, who has long been the recipient of his generosity and interest.
Born in the manufacturing city of Coventry, Warwickshire, England, seventeen miles southwest of Birmingham, September 24, 1825, Mr. Webb is a son of John and Sarah (Smith) Webb, natives of the same part of the country, and is the fourth child in a family of four sons and nine daughters, eight of whom attained maturity. He was educated in the Christ Hospital School, and at the age of fourteen became apprenticed to his father, a dial maker of Coventry, at the age of sixteen assuming the management of his father’s factory. His greater ambition and progressiveness wrought a great change in the business, and it was enlarged and modernized, and netted almost double its former income. In the meantime he married and established a home of his own, and in 1848 sold out his business and came to the United States, his father having died in the meantime at the age of eighty. Locating on a ranch near Peoria, in Tazewell county, Ill., he remained there until 1852, in which year he returned to England, and upon again coming to America, in 1855, settled on a farm on Grand prairie, Woodford county, Ill.
In 1858, Mr. Webb took up his former occupation with the American Watch Company of Waltham, Mass., and there used the enameling process of which he is the discoverer, and which has proved its superiority over other methods. Owing to the illness of his wife he was obliged to resign his position with the company in 1866, and upon removing to Elgin, Ill., became identified with the Elgin National Watch Company as dial maker. In time he had charge of the dial department, and while thus employed took an active interest in the town, purchased property therein, and laid out the Webb addition of twenty-two and a half acres. In 1873 he took a trip to the mines of Nevada, returned to Illinois the next year, and in 1875 came with his wife to California, locating on a ranch of ten acres near San Jose, Santa Clara county. In 1887 he built and moved into a residence at No. 942 Second street, San Jose, and in 1903 rented his home and moved onto this present ranch. Mr. Webb is a Republican in politics, and for many years has been identified with the Masonic fraternity. He is not only honored and esteemed by a large circle of acquaintances, but his many fine personal characteristics have gained the affection of many, brightening his life and investing it with peace and satisfaction.
Transcribed
Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 690-691. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Joyce Rugeroni.