San Francisco County
Biographies
GEORGE LEWIS FISH
GEORGE
LEWIS FISH, of the firm of the firm of Phelan & Fish, wholesale and retail
importing grocers at 466 to 472 Eleventh street, Oakland, was born in Brighton,
Livingston county, Michigan, died May 28, 1854, a son of Thurman Day and
Charlotte (Pless) Fish. The father, born in Aurelius,
Cuyahoga county, New York, December 23, 1820, moved to
Michigan in young manhood, and in 1842 started a country store at Brighton, and
was there married in 1844. He filled several offices of trust in that
community, being a Justice of the Peace eight years, Town Clerk four terms and
Supervisor one term, being then as now a Democrat. In 1860 he moved to Jackson,
Michigan, where he carried on a grocery business for seventeen years, also
operating a flour mill for a part of the time. In 1877 he came to California
and has been virtually retired from active business, but is still of active
habits and well preserved for a man of three-score years and ten. His father,
David, a native of Berkshire, Massachusetts, reached the age of eighty-six, and
his mother (nee Susannah Drinkwater), a native of
Bennington, Vermont, lived to be eighty-two. His grandfather, Isaac Fish, also
a native of Massachusetts, and in mature life a sea-captain in the West India
trade, was ninety-six at death, and his wife reached an advanced age.
Mrs. T.
D. Fish (nee Charlotte Pless), was born in Moscow, in
1827, a daughter of Dr. Andrew Pless, a distinguished
physician of Berlin, who settled in Moscow and was there married to a Russian
lady. They emigrated to America in middle life and
settled in Livingston county, Michigan, where they died at an advanced age,
Mrs. Pless being over eighty and Dr. Pless being nearly ninety. Their daughter, Mrs. Fish, died
in Oakland, February 5, 1878, in her fifty-first year. Four children of Mr. and
Mrs. T. D. Fish, besides the subject of this sketch, are living (1891): Robert
Frederick, born in Jackson, Michigan, May 29, 1860, now an engineer on the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, now residing in Galesburg, Illinois;
Mary, now the wife of Edwin Yates, chief clerk of that railroad, residing in
Aurora, Illinois; Virginia, the wife of O. W. Jasper, a civil engineer of Seattle,
Washington, now in the employ of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. Mrs.
Jasper is an artist of more than local reputation, her painting of General Bidwell’s old adobe residence near Chico having won much
attention and favorable notice; Amelia, the wife of Henry Blachley,
chief designer, with Dickman & Jones,
lithographers of San Francisco.
George
L. Fish, the subject of this sketch, was educated in the public schools and
high schools of Jackson, Michigan, helping in his father’s store from boyhood,
as much as he was permitted to do, being more interested in business than in
books. After quitting school he was engaged regularly in the store until he
reached his maturity. In 1875, being somewhat in delicate health, he came to
this coast, whither he was followed two years later by his parents and other
members of the family. Engaged in San Francisco, from 1875 to 1879, chiefly as
a bank broker, he returned in the latter year to the business in which he had
been brought up, by the purchase of a grocery store in East Oakland. In 1880 he
formed a partnership with William S. Phelan, which still continues, and the
firm of Phelan & Fish, with headquarters embracing the area of four
ordinary stores on Eleventh street and two branches on San Pablo avenue and Seventh
street, is universally regarded in this community as among the largest and most
prosperous of the wholesale and importing grocery houses of the Pacific coast.
George
L. Fish was married April 5, 1881, to Miss Emma Turner, born in San Francisco,
the only child of Andrew Jackson and Annie (Starboard) Turner, who were married
in that city in 1850 and are still residents thereof. Mr. Turner has been
chiefly engaged in the lumber business. Mrs. Starboard, the grandmother of Mrs.
Fish, is still living, but her grandfather died of an accident in middle life,
while his mother reached the age of eighty-four.
Mr.
Fish is a prominent and active member of the "sterling young
Democrats" of this section and was a delegate to the State Convention at
San Jose in 1890. At the approach of the county campaign his name was
frequently mentioned as the probable candidate of his party for the office of
Sheriff, but his large and constantly increasing business require his undivided
attention and forbid the indulgence of political aspirations at the present
time. While yielding to none in interest for the success of the party of his
choice, the active advocacy of its principles would be too heavy an additional
tax on his time and energy, needing relaxation from rather than an increase of
work. Mr. Fish is a member of the Athenian Club of this city and several other
similar similar organizations. He is also a member of
the political clubs known as the Iroquis and
Manhattan, and of Enterprise Lodge, No. 128, I. O. O. F. He was Vice-President
of the Oakland Board of Trade in 1889.
Transcribed
by Elaine Sturdevant.
Source: "The Bay of San
Francisco," Vol. 2, Pages 567-569, Lewis Publishing
Co, 1892.
© 2006 Elaine Sturdevant.