WILLIAM H. T. HUIE
The family represented by William H. T. Huie, secretary and treasurer of the
Eldorado Oil Works of San Francisco, comprises some notable characters in early
and later California history, including Americans who came out to the coast at
the beginning of the Mexican war.
Mr. Huie is a descendant of James Huie, who came to America from Dumfrees,
Scotland, prior to 1798. He was made a master in the United State navy in 1803.
His son, James Blackman Huie, became identified with the City of Louisville,
Kentucky. George William Huie, pioneer of the family in California, was born at
Louisville, Kentucky, son of James Blackman Huie, graduated in medicine in
1848, University of Pennsylvania, crossed the plains to California and arrived
during September, 1849. He practiced medicine in San Francisco, and in Sonoma
County from 1852 until 1868, when, returning to San Francisco, he resumed his
medical practice there until his death, August 6, 1877. He also owned and
operated a drug store at the corner of Eleventh and Mission streets. While in
Sonoma County, he served as assessor in 1864-65.
On October 12, 1848, George William Huie married Miss Sarah Elizabeth Thompson.
She was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, October 13, 1827, and died at San
Rafael, California, October 18, 1905. Soon after her marriage she crossed the
plains with her husband and his father under the leadership of her uncle,
William Henry Thompson of the United States Navy. Her uncle had first visited
California in 1846, with Commodore Stockton. William Henry Thompson had married
a sister of G. W. Huie and she accompanied the party on the trip of 1849. Mrs.
Sarah Elizabeth Thompson was a member of the distinguished Slaughter family of
Culpeper County, Virginia, and a daughter of Judge Robert Augustine Thompson,
member of Congress from Virginia and judge of courts of California for many
years, and Mary Ann Smith Slaughter, a daughter of Capt. Philip Slaughter and a
granddaughter of James Slaughter, whose father, Robert Slaughter, was one of
two brothers who were the first wardens of the famous St. Mark’s Parish in
Virginia, being chosen by the first vestry in 1731. Col. James Slaughter
commanded a regiment at the first engagement of the Revolutionary war in
Virginia. Capt. Philip Slaughter, his oldest son, went into the War of
Independence in 1775. In 1778 at the age of twenty was promoted to captain and
saw service until the close of the war. He was made first lieutenant of the
Eleventh Virginia Regiment, December 20, 1776; regimental paymaster, March 14,
1777; regimental paymaster of the Seventh Virginia, September 14, 1778;
captain-lieutenant in November, 1778; captain in May, 1779, and retired
February 12, 1781. He was a man of letters and wrote several books.
William H. T. Huie, son of George William and Sarah Elizabeth (Thompson) Huie,
was born in Sonoma County, March 24, 1855. His brother, George B. Huie, a
resident of Palo Alto, was early prominent in the National Guard of California,
and was a first lieutenant of a battery during the Spanish-American war.
Another brother, E. M. Huie, was a veteran of the National Guard of California.
A third brother, R. B. Huie, who died in 1921, was for a number of years San
Francisco manager for Grace & Company.
Educated in the schools of San Francisco, William H. T. Huie had his first
employment in the Wells Fargo & Company Bank. After leaving there he took
up surveying, acting as transit man on railroad surveys in Washington from 1880
to 1884, for the Southern Pacific in California during 1885, and carried the
transit on the Soledad and Venture divisions with O. H. Barren. During the
Cleveland administration he was assistant weigh clerk for the United State Mint
in San Francisco. Resuming his profession as civil engineer he did transit work
for the first of Scurry & Owens in Seattle, and in California helped on the
survey from Stockton to Bakersfield for the California Midland Railway under
Oliver Emory. In 1892 he became cashier and bookkeeper for E. L. G. Steele
& Co., later know as George A. Moore & Co.
Mr. Huie has been secretary and treasurer of the Eldorado Oil Works since 1896,
nearly thirty years. This industry was established in 1892, with factories in
Berkeley. The company manufactures cocoanut oil, and is the largest concern of
its kind in the state. It crushes about 40,000 tons of copra yearly, the
product being marketed as “Snow Flake Cocoanut Oil.”
Mr. Huie has been active in patriotic organizations, a member of the Sons of
the American Revolution, Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars,
the National Society of Americans of Royal Descent and the Baronial Order of
Runnymeade, made up of the descendants of the sixteen signers of the sureties
of the Magna Carta. Mr. Huie is a member of Oriental Lodge of Masons,
California Chapter Royal Arch Masons, the Masonic Club, is a democrat and
vestryman in St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco.
He married November 19, 1905, Miss Lillie McMillen Reis, a native of San
Francisco. Her, Julius C. Reis, has been a well known banker of San Francisco,
and his brothers, Gus and Julian Reis, were pioneers of California. The wife of
Julius C. Reis, Ellen Renshaw Dent, was a daughter of George Renshaw Dent, who
was a brother of Mrs. Gen. U. S. Grant. Mr. and Mrs. Huie have one daughter,
Lillian, a student in Miss Burke’s school.
Transcribed by Donna L. Becker