San Diego County
Biographies
HERBERT CROUCH
Coming to Southern California in
1869, Herbert Crouch remained a resident of San Diego County to the time of his
death, which occurred at Oceanside in June, 1927, when he had attained the
advanced age of eighty-seven years. He
was born in Lambourn, Berkshire, England, January 15,
1840, and received a common school education in his native shire. Upon setting out to make his own way in the
world he sailed on the Black Wall from London to Melbourne, Australia, where
the ship cast anchor after an uneventful voyage of one hundred and twelve
days. Mining engaged his attention and
he met with fair success. In 1862 he
returned to England on the Orwell after a voyage of one hundred and twelve
days. A year later he returned to
Australia on the Star of England, which landed at Brisbane after a voyage of
one hundred and twelve days. In addition
to the coincidence in the length of the three voyages, he also felt interested
in the fact that each time he sailed on Monday and landed on Monday. His next voyage brought him to San Francisco,
March 24, 1868, on the barque Camden, after
sixty-nine days on the ocean. For about
one year he remained on a ranch near Stockton.
On the 25th of February, 1869, he arrived at San Diego, and
on the 25th of March he came to San Luis Rey, San Diego County. He embarked in the sheep business in
partnership with Major Utt, now deceased, and herded
his flocks upon the ranges in this part of the country. In 1873 he entered and proved up on one
hundred sixty acres on the San Luis Rey River, where in addition to enduring
all the hardships of frontier existence, he had the further trouble of a
contest in the courts covering a period of more than four years, in which the
settlers were involved with the claimants of the Peoiche
grant of twenty-six leagues. The
settlers eventually won and Mr. Crouch was then free to take up the work of
improvement. In 1874 he moved from the
river to a location three miles from Oceanside, in the San Luis Rey Valley,
where at one time he had fifteen thousand head of sheep divided into different
flocks. He imported a number of bucks
and bred to secure the highest type of Merinos.
Not only were he and his partner the largest sheepmen of their day, but
also, when they sold out in 1887, their flock was said to embrace the finest
Merinos in the whole country. After
discontinuing the raising of sheep Mr. Crouch began to cultivate grain and
raise cattle and at one time had charge of more than eighteen hundred acres, of
which fourteen hundred eighty acres were in the home place, extending to the
corporate limits of Oceanside. At one
time he owned river land and devoted it to the raising of alfalfa, but this he
sold, and also in 1905 he sold seven hundred sixty acres of his ranch. He had a four-hundred-acre ranch at Ballena and a thousand-acre ranch in the Laguna Mountains.
In 1876 Mr. Crouch married Miss
Martha Avenell, a native of Wiltshire, England. They were the parents of three children, as
follows: Lucy Jane, who now makes her
home with her sister, Mrs. George Sawday; Emily Elizabeth, the wife of George
Sawday, whose biography appears in another part of this work; and Joseph Lloyd,
who owns and resides on a ranch at Winters, California. Joseph L. Crouch is married and has a son,
Herbert, named for his paternal grandfather.
Mr. Crouch was an Episcopalian in
religious faith and a Republican in politics, having become a naturalized
citizen of the United States. An earlier
biographer wrote of him: “Notwithstanding
all the hardships he endured and the obstacles he was obliged to overcome, he
was always loyal to his county, for it was here he reaped his greatest success,
becoming the largest landowner and orchardist in San Diego County. Through his successful work in fruit raising he stimulated others to enter this occupation.”
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. III, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 377-379, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles,
Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
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NUGGET'S SAN DIEGO BIOGRAPIES