San Francisco County
Biographies
CHARLES A. LATON
CHARLES A. LATON The Palestine Insurance Company, Limited,
Manchester, England, has established a branch office at San Francisco at 439
California street; Charles A. Laton, manager. This
department embraces all the territory west of and including Colorado.
The Palestine was formerly a
re-insuring company, and in 1890 it was re organized and amalgamated with the
Mutual of Manchester, acquiring thereby one and a half million of additional
business, and three months there after its stock had increased in value fifty
percent. The company is writing large lines of desirable business and affording
solid security. It has $200,000 United States
bonds deposited with the Treasurer of the State of Oregon
for the benefit of all policy-holders in the United States,
and $50,000 also deposited in Oregon
as required by the laws of said state. From The Review, of London,
E.C., August 26, 1891 we quote the following: The latest development in
connection with the fire offices managed by Mr. J.
N. Lane is a circular issued stating that the
Palestine and United will in the
future become jointly responsible on policies. The combined funds of the Palestine
and the United will show something like a half million sterling in hand, with
an uncalled capital of ₤680,000. The Palestine
and United have now been admitted members of the Fire Offices Committee. The
legal and financial difficulties which have been overcome by Mr. Lane in
connection with these transformations are not to be despised, and the
brilliancy of the results fully justifies the unlimited confidence which has
been placed in Mr. Lane by all who have had anything to do with him since he
left Bristol and took up his residence in Manchester. It is difficult to
prophesy what the future of the associated institutions will be. We go so far
to say that, however successful they have been in the past, this success will
be eclipsed in the future.
Charles
A. Laton, manager of the Pacific coast branch, was
born in New York City, in 1838, and is the son of Benjamin
Burlock and Mary (Johnson) Laton;
the parents are both living in Oakland California,
-- the mother at the age of seventy-eight years, and the father at eighty. They
had two sons, George Albert, a resident of Oakland,
and Charles A., the subject of this notice. He was educated in the public
schools of New York City and at the Academy
of New York. After leaving school
he entered the services of Messrs. Spring, Broadly and Buffum,
dry goods commission merchants, New York City.
He was with them two years, and in 1856 came to California.
He first located in San Francisco, and in the following
spring went to Nevada County
to engage in mining. Shortly afterward, however, he accepted the position as
chief clerk in the private banking house of A. Delano, and continued there
until the spring of 1862, when he came to San Francisco
and entered the insurance business with which he has been since connected. He
was for a time general agent in Chicago of the Pacific
Insurance Company of San Francisco, having twelve States
in charge at the time of the Chicago
fire of 1871. Not long after this he returned to the Pacific coast for
permanent residence. Then he was secretary of the Commercial Insurance Company
of California, and general agent of the fire Association of Philadelphia, the
Reading Fire Insurance Company, of Reading Pennsylvania, and the Granite State
Fire Insurance Company of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and lastly, his present
company, the Palestine , which has become one of the strongest and best
insurance corporations in existence.
Mr.
Laton was married in 1862 to Miss Henrietta Elton
Davis, a native of New York City
and a school mate of his boyhood. This union was blessed by one son, Frederick Burlock, who grew to be a young man of the highest promise;
his parents were greatly bereaved by his death, which occurred April 15, 1885,
in the twenty second year of his age. Mr. Laton has
taken a deep interest in the moral and religious movements in the city, and has
been for many years a trustee and elder of the Calvary Presbyterian Church.
Politically he is a consistent Republican. For the past thirty-two years he has
given the closest attention to business interests, and has met with eminent
success. He has a wide acquaintance throughout the United
States in insurance circles, where he is
regarded as a man of fine business abilities.
Transcribed by Kim Buck.
Source: "The Bay of San
Francisco," Vol. 2, Page 511-513,
Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2006 Kim Buck.
California
Biography Project
San
Francisco County
California
Statewide
Golden
Nugget Library