San Francisco County
Biographies
EDWARD J. BLANDING
EDWARD J. BLANDING, a well known reliable business man of Alameda
was born in Providence, Rhode Island,
December 21, 1834. His paternal ancestries were English and Scotch residents of
Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
He still owns a tract of land in Massachusetts
which has been in the family ever since the era of the Indians, from whom it
was first purchased. It is now in the township
of Rehoboth, which was many years
ago a part of the Blanding neighborhood. Wheeler M. Blanding, father of the
subject this sketch, was born in Rehoboth, Massachusetts,
on the old homestead, and after he became a young man he moved into Providence,
Rhode Island. He was a contractor and a
builder by occupation. He married Eliza Norton, daughter of William Norton, a
Baptist clergyman, and she was born in Tiverton,
Rhode Island. Mr. Blanding’s family was two
daughters and three sons.
Mr.
E. J. Blanding, one of the sons and our present subject, was reared in the city
of Providence. As a boy he spent a
year in New York City and New Jersey.
Coming to California in 1853, he sailed from New
York on the Vanderbilt opposition line to Nicaragua,
and arrived in San Francisco, being
thirty-three days on the voyage. The first year in this State he spent upon a ranch
near the mouth of the Calaveras river in San Joaquin county; next he was a
years engaged in mining at Columbia, Tuolumne county; then until 1859 he was in
the employ of Bowen & Bros., grocers at Stockton, in who’s branch house in
San Francisco he was afterwards employed the greater part of four years. Next,
opening an office on the first floor of the Mercants’
Exchange in San Francisco, he engaged in real estate business, and about the
same time purchased a tract in Alameda, in company with others, and surveyed it
into town lots. Although he has resided in that city only since 1883 he has
been a property owner there for twenty years and identified with the business
interests of the place. In his business relations, of whom he had many, he has
been fairly successful. Coming to the country in the early days without means,
his success in accumulating property by industry and good management
demonstrates his capacity.
In
politics Mr. Blanding was a Democrat until the great Rebellion was inaugurated,
and since then he has been a Republican.
He
was married in 1858, in Stockton California,
to Mary S. Bowen, a native of Massachusetts,
and they have a son named Herbert Bowen.
Transcribed by Kim Buck.
Source: "The Bay of San
Francisco," Vol. 2, Page 590, Lewis
Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2006 Kim Buck.
California
Biography Project
San
Francisco County
California
Statewide
Golden
Nugget Library