San Francisco
County
Biographies
CHARLES APPLETON HOOPER
HOOPER,
CHARLES APPLETON, President of the C. A. Hooper Co., Shipping and Lumber, San Francisco, was born in Bangor, Me., March 14, 1843, the son of
John and Martha Stanwood (Perry) Hooper.
His first ancestor to come from England to America was Wm. Hooper, age 18, who
arrived in the good ship "James."
Others came later and settled in various parts of New England, chiefly
in the country about Redding, Mass., and Portsmouth, N. H., where some of their
descendants still live. Members of the
family fought in the American Revolutionary War. John Perry, Jr., Mr. Hooper's maternal
grandfather, had the distinction of establishing the first Sunday school in the
United States in 1811, in Brunswick, Me., where a memorial window in the church
attests the fact and the date thereof; and on the Stanwood side a
great-grandfather gave to Bowdoin College some of the
ground on which that institution now stands. Charles A. Hooper came to California in 1863, where he is today
one of the leading merchants of the state. He was married on June 7th, 1880, in
Brownsville, Me., to Miss Ida Geneva Snow,
and by this marriage is the father of Isabel Martha (Creed) and Idoline Snow (Crosby)--the former married to Wigginton E. Creed and the latter to Sumner Crosby.
Mr. Hooper attended the Hawes grammar
school in South Boston, and took his certificate therefrom
in 1858, when he entered the English High school, but left after one year to
enter the employ of his uncle, Wm. S. Perry, lumber merchant.
Beginning as clerk he rose in the short
space of two years through the positions of bookkeeper and salesman to the
active superintendency of the yard, and then, at the
age of eighteen enlisted in the 43rd
Massachusetts Volunteers, a “nine months” regiment, for service in the Civil
War. After serving for one year he was
discharged, and came to the State of California in 1863. His first occupation in this State was in the
Plymouth mine in Amador county, where for about a year he assisted his father, who had
reached California in 1851 and become interested in mining. Returning to San Francisco in 1865, he established the
firm of C.A. Hooper & Co., at Fourth and Townsend streets, on the ground
now occupied by the San Jose depot. Here for a few years he did a thriving
business, buying and selling lumber, supplying not only the city but also the
country districts, especially around San Jose and up the rivers tributary
to the bay of San Francisco. He remained in this location until forced out
by “Steam” Paddy Hughes, a well-known contractor and character of the times,
who had the contract to fill in Mission Bay.
About the year 1867 Mr. Hooper took in
William Lockerman as a partner, the firm becoming
Hooper & Lockerman, but at the end of two years
bought him out and resumed the title of C.A. Hooper & Co. When his brother George William Hooper, came
of age in 1869, he became a member of the firm which had gradually enlarged its
business to a wholesale trade. In the
early eighties the firm began to manufacture lumber, establishing their mills
in Humboldt County.
Mr. C. A. Hooper has organized many lumber
companies. In the early ‘70s he, with
others, formed the Sacramento Lumber Co., and became its president. About 1881 he organized the L.W. Blinn Co. for Arizona business. He then bought out the Russ Lumber &
Milling Co., of San Diego, which he reorganized. The other companies he successively formed
are the So. Cal. Lumber Co., Oregon &
California Lumber Co., Redwood Manufacturers Co., and in 1907 the Big Lagoon
Lumber Co. Another noteworthy achievement of Mr. Hooper
was the foundation of the now flourishing town of Pittsburg at Los Medanos,
Contra Costa County.
His clubs are the Union League and Pacific
Union of San Francisco.
Transcribed by Suzanne Wood.
Source:
Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 506,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2007 Suzanne Wood.
California Biography Project
San Francisco County
California Statewide
Golden Nugget Library