Joseph Fairfield ATWILL

 

Joseph Fairfield ATWILL was a California pioneer of 1849, and became prominently identified with early business enterprise in the City of San Francisco, where he was a leader in public affairs.  Later, for a number of years, he was engaged in the practice of law in the State of Nevada, where also was elected to judicial office, and he passed the closing period of his long and useful life as an honored pioneer citizen in Oakland, California, where he died at the age of eighty years.

 

Of sterling Colonial American ancestry on both the paternal and maternal sides, Judge ATWILL was born in the City of  Boston, Massachusetts, and was a son of Eben and Sarah (DODGE) ATWILL, both likewise natives of the old Bay State.  The father became a successful contractor and builder, and was still a young man at the time of his death, which occurred prior to the year 1820.  His widow, the mother of Joseph F.  ATWILL, passed away in 1856, on the day of the inauguration of President Franklin PIERCE.  She was a woman of most gracious personality, and had been acquainted with every president of the United States from General George WASHINGTON to President PIERCE. 

 

Joseph F. ATWILL was reared in a home of culture and received his early education in his native city of Boston.  He was the youngest in a large family of which four sons became prominent; the eldest Rev.  William ATWILL, a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church; Winthrop, one of the editors of the New York Observer; and Eben, a business man, who died in New Orleans, a victim in one of the early cholera epidemics in that city.

 

As a young man, Joseph went to New York City, where he became prominently identified with the music-publishing business and the sale of musical instruments, and where he numbered among his personal friends many men of national renown, including James Gordon BENNETT, the founder of the New York Herald.  Prominent in musical affairs in the national metropolis, Mr. ATWILL formed the acquaintance of Jennie LIND, the great “Swedish nightingale”, Madam Anna BISHOP, the English singer, and many others of international fame.

 

While a young business man in New York, Joseph F.  ATWILL married Miss Eliza Ann DUGLISS, the daughter of Hosea DUGLISS of New York.  Miss DUGLISS, born and reared in the State of New York, was of Dutch and English ancestry.  Of this union there were born five children, of whom all but one are dead.  The eldest, Sarah Ann, was the widow of William Henry KEITH, druggist and importer of San Francisco, and of their two children the elder is Miss Eliza D. KEITH, principal of the Sherman School in San Francisco well known as a writer and public speaker, and a former grand president of the Native Daughters of the Golden West.  The other child is William Henry KEITH, a talented baritone soloist and a leading vocal teacher in San Francisco.

 

Eliza D. ATWILL, the second child of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph F.  ATWILL, was the widow of Henry D. REYNOLDS.  She had one child, Lillian, now the wife of Sheldon L. KELLOGG, of Alameda, and mother of one son.  Mary Josephine, the third daughter, the widow of Dr. T. H. Pinkerton, once a leading physician of Oakland, California is the only living child of Mr. and Mrs. ATWILL.  Emeline Augusta, the youngest, was the widow of John G. BLOOMER, of San Francisco.  Augusta Atwill BLOOMER of San Francisco is their daughter.  The son, Joseph F. ATWILL Jr., died at an early age in San Francisco.

 

The death of Judge ATWILL occurred about the year of 1893, and his widow survived him about a decade, passing away in 1903.

 

The discovery of gold in California drew to this state men of all classes and conditions, and among those of exceptional ability and high attainments who arrived here in 1849 was Joseph F. ATWILL.  He came by way of the Isthmus of Panama and arrived in San Francisco in October of that year. After passing a brief interval in mining camps he returned to San Francisco and became a pioneer in the  business activities of the city, where he was the contemporary and close associate of other leading men of the day, including Theodore PAYNE and C.K. GARRISON.  The Pacific Coast even in that period had appreciation of cultural agencies, including music, and Mr. ATWILL established a prosperous music-publishing and general music business, under the title of ATWILL & Company, with headquarters on Clay Street, where he went through three severe fires that damaged much of the business section of the city, but fortunately escaped having his establishment destroyed in the conflagrations.  In 1853 Joseph F. ATWILL was here joined by his family, who made the trip from New York to San Francisco in a clipper ship that sailed around Cape Horn and landed at the foot of Clay Street on Montgomery Street.  The family home was established in a house built for Mr. ATWILL on the corner of Clay and Powell streets.

 

As a man of exceptional ability, and as one of the progressive citizens of the period in San Francisco, Mr. ATWILL became prominent in public affairs in the community, served as a member of the Board of Aldermen and as acting mayor during the absence of C.K. GARRISON, the incumbent, and was chosen the first president of the San Francisco Board of Education.  He made investments in local real estate, and at one time owned the property on which the Palace Hotel now stands.

 

In the ‘60s Joseph F. ATWILL went to Virginia City, Nevada, where as has already been stated, he engaged in the practice of law and also became a judge of one of the early courts.  He finally retired, returned to San Francisco business life and later established his home at Oakland, California, where he passed the remainder of his life, as did also his wife. His family religious faith was that of the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which his brother, the Rev. William ATWILL and his wife were long identified with the Methodist Church.  Mr. ATWILL also became actively affiliated with the Society of California Pioneers, and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.  It was by such men as he that was laid the foundation of San Francisco’s greatness and her enduring fame.