San Francisco County
Biographies
E. B. JEROME
E. B. Jerome, although comparatively
a young man, is one of the oldest officials connected with the Federal service
in this city and State.
He
was born in Carrollton, Greene county,
Illinois, in 1844, and his father became a pioneer of California
in 1849. His father, Theodere F. Jerome, traced his
ancestry back to the French Huguenots who came to this country in 1666. His
mother, formerly a Miss Baker, is of English descent and a sister of the
lamented General E. B. Baker, the hero of Ball’s Bluff.
Young
Jerome was reared and educated in Illinois.
He entered Berean College,
Jacksonville, where he intended to pursue a course in
civil engineering; but, upon the breaking out of the civil war, he tendered his
services to the Union, enlisting as a drummer boy in the
Fourteenth Illinois Volunteers. When his distinguished uncle, Colonel Baker,
raised his regiment in New York,
he sent for his nephew and commissioned him Lieutenant of Company E in the
regiment. He afterward served on the staff of his uncle as Captain and
Aid-de-camp until the battle of Ball’s Bluff, where the latter was killed, his
remains being brought from the field by the subject of our sketch, who resigned
his commission the following December to accept a position in the regular army,
tendered by President Lincoln and confirmed by the Senate. At this time his
father, having returned to Illinois in 1857, had gone again to the Idaho mines,
and his mother, fearing he had been killed by the Indians, wanted her son to go
to Idaho and learn the facts concerning him. Upon consulting President Lincoln,
the latter advised him to decline the commission tendered him and follow his
mother’s request, which he did and learned of his father’s safety. He urged his
mother to come to California and
they are now honored residents of this State.
Mr.
Jerome came here in 1863, bringing with him a personal letter from President
Lincoln to Governor Stanford. He secured a situation in the post office and
remained in that position several years. In 1867 he entered the office of
Collector of the Port, under General John F. Miller, and for the past
twenty-five years has served in substantially the same position, under the
administration of nine successive collectors, his position being that of Chief
Deputy Collector; and during all these years he has been in the same building,
the old post office, corner of Washington and Battery streets, San Francisco.
Mr.
Jerome is a member and director of the Veteran Home Association, and is a
charter member of the first Grand Army of the Republic post organized, the old
Starr King Post. He is also a member of the Loyal Legion, and the Board of
Directors of the Pioneer Association.
Transcribed
by David and Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: “The Bay of
San Francisco,” Vol. 2, Pages 346-347, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2006 David Rugeroni.
California Biography Project
San Francisco County
California Statewide
Golden Nugget Library