San Francisco County

Biographies

JOHN HOOPER

JOHN HOOPER, whose personal history is inseparably connected with the history of the State of California, began his residence here in 1851. He engaged in business and at once became an important factor in the building of the great commonwealth. His ancestors were from England and were early settlers in New Hampshire. William Hooper, grandfather of John Hooper, was born in New Hampshire and was a Baptist minister of ability. His brother James was also a Baptist minister and settled in Paris, Maine. John Hooper, his father, was born in the same State and married Miss Susan Meserve, also a native of New Hampshire. They became the parents of five sons and five daughters. Our subject is their third child, and is the only surviving member of the family. He was born in new Hampshire, December 14, 1805, and attended the common schools until he was twelve years of age; he then went to Rochester, New York, which consisted, at that time, of a grist-mill, a blacksmith shop and two or three stores; there he saw the first stone laid in the building of the bridge on which the Erie Canal crosses the Genessee river. In 1821 he went to Boston and accepted a clerkship in a boot and shoe store, which he held for seven years. He next went to Bangor, Maine, and opened a boot and shoe and hat and fur store on his own account; later he turned his attention to the lumber business and built a sawmill at Mount Hope, near Bangor, Maine. At the end of six years he returned to Boston, and at the end of one year he determined to go to California. He accordingly sailed on the steamer Pacific on her first trip, and landed in San Francisco in July, 1851. The first year he was engaged in the lumber business at the corner of Stockton and Jackson streets, his stock being brought from New York and Boston; the enterprise was a success from the start. In 1854 his sons, William F. P. and J. A., having followed their father to California, assumed the management of the lumber business, and he went to the mines in Amador county (five months of the year 1853 he had spent in the East), where he engaged in quartz-mining, but worked to a great disadvantage as he knew nothing of the best processes; he opened the mine, however, built a mill and founded and named the village of Plymouth; he operated the mine for sixteen years and was frequently in San Francisco during this time. He took from his Plymouth mine many thousands of dollars of gold. After he sold it an eighty-stamp mill was built and millions of dollars were produced. Upon his permanent return to San Francisco he embarked in the grain trade, in which he has since continued. In 1889 he lost his warehouse by fire.

Mr. Hooper was married in 1834, to Miss Martha S. Perry of Brunswick, Maine, born in that town in 1811, the daughter of John Perry, a merchant of that place. Their union has been blessed by the birth of nine children, six sons and three daughters: William, the oldest son, was a successful miner, who died at Oakland in 1879; Frank P. came to the State in 1853; John A. came with his father in 1854; they form the firm of Frank P. and John A. Hooper, lumber dealers of San Francisco. Charles A. came to California in October, 1863 (he had served his country in the Union army), and engaged in the lumber business with his brother George W., who arrived in California in July, 1863. They have built up a large end extended trade. Arthur A. is in the wholesale grocery business in San Francisco, the firm being Hooper & Jennings.

Isabel, a daughter, married William E. Norwood, for some years and at the time of his death, president of the San Francisco Stock Exchange. He died in 1890. She resides with her parents in San Francisco. Mary, his oldest daughter, died at the age of seventeen, and Martha, the fifth child, died in infancy. The faithful wife and loving, indulgent mother is still spared. Mr. and Mrs. Hooper have just passed the fifty-sixth year of their wedded life; their fiftieth anniversary was celebrated by a family reunion. Mr. Hooper is in his eighty-sixth year, and is in the enjoyment of good health and an unclouded intellect. His first vote was cast for the Whig party, and upon the organization of the Republican party he gave it his allegiance, and has not missed a presidential vote since his majority. During the trying times of excitement in the early history of the State, Mr. Hooper was one of the first to join the Vigilance Committee, and when the great civil war broke out he stood like a rock in favor of the Union, and in every honorable way used his influence and money to perpetuate the Government of the United States. The story of such a life is its own best eulogy.

Transcribed by Donna L. Becker

Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, pages 670-671, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.

California Biography Project

San Francisco County

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Golden Nugget Library