HENRY SANFORD AUSTIN

 

 

Henry Sanford Austin was a California forty-niner whose fine character and superior ability enabled him to play a large and worthy part in the civic and business affairs of Stockton and San Francisco during the period of many years, and in his tragic death, in a railway accident, on the 30th of May, 1890, California lost one of her noble and honored citizens and influential men of affairs.

 

     Henry S. Austin was born in the City of Baltimore, Maryland, on the 28th of February, 1826, and thus was aged sixty-four years, three months and twelve days at the time of his death.  He was a son of Rev. Charles C. Austin, who gave years of distinguished service as a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church and as a successful educator.  The early education of the subject of this memoir was received largely in the school conducted by his father, and in Maryland he gained also his initial experience in business affairs. He was a youth of twenty-three years when, in 1849, he came to California, and after having been for a time associated with a cousin in mercantile enterprise in San Francisco he removed to Stockton, where he engaged in the hardware business.  He was, however, a resident of San Francisco for a number of years prior to his death.  At Stockton he became a member of the old pioneer hardware firm of Thomas H. Selby & Company, the headquarters of which concern were in San Francisco.  After the death of Mr. Selby the Stockton house passed into the control of the firm of Austin Brothers, Henry S. being senior member and his brother, William B., the junior member of the firm, which built up a large and prosperous business.  Within a short time after the death of his honored pioneer associates, Mr. Selby, Henry S. Austin found it expedient to remove to San Francisco, where he became the executive head of the wholesale hardware and iron business of the old firm of Thomas H. Selby & Company, William B. Austin having continued in charge of the business at Stockton until his death, when fifty-five years of age and several years after the death of his brother.

 

     Henry S. Austin was a power in industrial and commercial affairs in San Francisco at the time of his death, and was a man whose gracious personality and sterling character gained to him friends in all walks of life.  When one of the most terrible railway disasters in the history of California caused the death of Mr. Austin, together with that of his daughter, Florence Marian Austin, and about thirty other persons, a Stockton newspaper gave the following appreciative estimate:  "Henry S. Austin was a pure, noble-minded man, and was highly respected wherever known.  His life was full of kind deeds, and many of the old residents of Stockton will bear witness that while he was an active business man he never missed an opportunity to do good toward his fellow men."

 

     It is unnecessary to enter here into details concerning the harrowing disaster in which Mr. Austin and the younger of his two daughters sacrificed their lives, but it may be stated that the following quotation from a newspaper dispatch at the time measurably tells the story. The special San Francisco  report was issued under date of May 30, 1890, and read as follows:  "Our beautiful sister City of Oakland, just across the bay, was, at 1:45 this afternoon, the scene of the most terrible disaster that has ever visited the inhabitants of the Pacific Coast.  At that time, and while going at the rate of probably twenty miles an hour, the engine, tender and first passenger coach of a crowded local train on the narrow-gauge road, running from Alameda into Oakland, were dashed headlong into an arm of San Francisco Bay, known as Oakland Creek, through an open drawbridge at Webster Street, a distance of 15 feet from bridge to bay."  Many perished in this disaster by drowning, and among the number were Mr. Austin and his daughter Florence, the elder daughter, Mary H., having been with them and having been saved as by miracle.

 

     Mr. Austin ever manifested a fine personal stewardship in community affairs and was a loyal and public-spirited citizen of marked liberality, though he never manifested any ambition for public office.  He lived and wrought worthily and his memory is revered by those who came within the sphere of his kindly and benignant influence.  Reared in the faith of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Mr. Austin ever continued one of its devout and zealous communicants, and was an active and loyal churchman whose example ever offered lesson and inspiration.  A certain rector who had left his charge on account of parish dissension and who had been requested to return to the charge, stated that "If Henry Austin, the peacemaker, is there, I will return."

 

     In the year 1866 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Austin and Miss Kate Freese, who was born in the State of Michigan and who since his death has continued to reside in San Francisco, she, like her husband, being a zealous communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church.  Of the three children the first born was Mary H., who remained with her widowed mother until she passed away in March, 1921; Florence Marian met with her father a tragic death, as already noted in this context; and Henry Hepburn was one of the substantial business men and representative citizens of San Francisco, but died in Stockton at the age of twenty-seven years. Mr. Austin was a California pioneer well worthy of this special tribute in the history of a district in which he did well his part in furthering progress and prosperity.

 

 

Transcribed 6-15-04  Marilyn R. Pankey