San Francisco County
Biographies
CURTIS
HOLBROOK LINDLEY
LINDLEY, CURTIS
HOLBROOK, Attorney at Law, and president of the San Francisco Bar Association,
was born at Marysville, California, December 14, 1850, the son of Charles Lindley and Anna Eliza (Downey) Lindley. His paternal ancestors came to this
country from England about the year 1684 and settled in Connecticut, while his mother’s family,
which was of Scotch origin, chose Virginia as a place of residence. His forbears on both sides
of the house fought in the war for American Independence. Charles Lindley, a
graduate of the Yale law School, reached California in 1849, where he first engaged in the practice of the
law, and subsequently became Judge of Yuba County.
Curtis H. Lindley was
married at Santa Clara, California, June 14, 1872,
to Miss Lizzie Mendenhall, daughter of Wm. M. Mendenhall, a California Pioneer
of 1845. The children of this marriage are Josephine and Curtis M.
Lindley.
After a course in the
Grammar School of Marysville he entered Santa Clara College, Santa
Clara, California, in 1863, and remained there two years. From 1865
to 1866, inclusive, he was a student at Eagleswood
Military Academy, Perth Amboy, N. J. Returning to California he attended McClure’s Military Academy and the San Francisco High
School, during the years 1868-70. In the latter year he entered the University of California, where he remained until 1872, and then, having studied
law, in connection with the regular academic work, took his Bar
examinations for admittance to practice.
In the first half of
the interval 1866-68 he was apprenticed as a machinist to the Union Iron Works
of San Francisco, and in the following year, though under age, enlisted in the
Second United States Artillery, but was honorably discharged in 1868.
Shortly prior to his
admittance to the Bar in 1872 he was appointed Secretary of the California Code
Commission, a position which he filled until the codes were finally adopted and
published. In 1882 Mr. Lindley moved to Stockton, and in the following
year was appointed City Attorney, serving until the latter part of 1884, when
he again shifted the scene of his efforts, this time to Amador County, having
been appointed by the Governor, Superior Judge of that County. He returned
to private practice in 1885, and a year later formed a partnership, in San Francisco, with Henry Eickhoff, which
has continued.
During these years
Judge Lindley established a reputation not only as an attorney, but also as a
student of jurisprudence, and in 1900 was made
Honorary Professor in the Department of Jurisprudence of the University of California. In the same year he became a lecturer in the same
department of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.
Though his practice
has been of a general nature, chiefly devoted to mining, water and general
corporation law, the atmosphere in which he was born, and his subsequent
experience as a judge in Amador
County have inspired him with more than an ordinary interest in
the mineral industry. He is the author of “American
Law of Mines and Mineral Lands, now in
its second edition, and is Honorary Professor of the Law of Mines, University of California.
In July, 1911 he
became a Director of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition to succeed Mr.
W. B. Bourn, who resigned. He is also a director of the Natomas Consolidated of Cal., George Wm. Hooper Co., and the Geo. Wm. Hooper Estate
Co. For the year 1910 he was President of the Cal. Bar Assn., and is now
President of the Bar Assn. of San Francisco. He is also a member of the
Cal. Academy of Science, American Bar Assn. And associate member of the
American Institute of Mining
Engineers. His
clubs are the Pacific-Union, University, Commonwealth and Cosmos, all of San Francisco.
Transcribed 11-24-06 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 149,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los
Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.
1913.
2006 Marilyn R. Pankey.
California
Biography Project
San
Francisco County
California
Statewide
Golden
Nugget Library