San Francisco County

Biographies

ARTHUR S. BARBER

ARTHUR S. BARBER, one of the oldest and most prominent citizens of Alameda, was born in Yorkshire, England, May 24, 1817. His father was a teacher of private schools by profession, and Arthur in his youth assisted him. About the age of sixteen years he began to learn the printer’s trade, and followed that and teaching up to the time he came to America in 1840. Landing at New York, in May, he visited western Virginia, taught school in Ohio, and then, in the vicinity of Racine, Wisconsin, he purchased a tract of land, in company with an old friend from England. Next he worked at his trade awhile in Chicago, and then filled up the remainder of four years (in obtaining a title for land) in employment at the northern Illinois lead mines. Soon the California gold excitement reached him, and he decided to come to the source of the same. Before starting, however, he married, April 17, 1849, Miss Elmira Burton, a native of the New England States. He and his wife and two young gentlemen acquaintances left for California, the former going by steamer to St. Joseph, Missouri, and the latter driving ox teams for that point. They arrived on the upper Sacramento river after the rainy season had set in. After camping two weeks at Lassen’s, where Redding is now situated, and where their cattle, through starvation, was eating the mountain laurel and being poisoned to death by it. Mr. Barber and others in the company built a boat and floated down to Sacramento. Before arriving there, however, they camped on the South Fork, on what was supposed to be high ground; but in the morning they were routed out by a flood. During the sojourn through the winter in Sacramento they were also circumscribed in their operations by the floods.

In the early part of 1850 Mr. Barber went up to Marysville, with the hope of finding dry land. Locating in a tent, he bought a lot upon which to build, and for some time he kept a house of entertainment, and also worked for a time on the Marysville Herald. While living there he had the misfortune, December 28, 1851, to lose his wife by death, who left one son, James B., the present tax-collector of Alameda. In December, 1853, he came down to Alameda, arriving the day before Christmas, and since that time he has made his home at this point. Buying a store at the corner of High and Jackson streets, formerly kept by James J. Tay, he conducted it until the advent of the railroad, now the Southern Pacific Railroad, when he moved his store and business to Park street, and conducted it there until 1882. Thus he is one of the oldest merchants of Alameda. In March, 1855, he was appointed Postmaster, under President Fillmore’s administration, and held the office for thirty-four years. What a testimonial to his efficiency as a public officer! His present place of residence on High street he purchased in 1855.

For his present wife Mr. Barber married, October 7, 1854, Miss Sarah Stevens, a native of Maine, and they now have three daughters and two sons, viz.: Arthur F., Alfred Stevens, Emma T., Florence Elizabeth and Mabel Helen. The eldest daughter, Emma T., is now the wife of Alfred Banister, the son of Rev. Dr. Edward Banister, formerly of Alameda.

In political matters Mr. Barber has been a Republican ever since the organization of the party; has also long been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, filling some important positions in the same; and he belongs to Oak Grove Lodge, No. 164, F. & A. M., of Alameda, and the San Francisco Society of California Pioneers.

Transcribed by Donna L. Becker.

Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Pages 487-488, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.

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