JOHN C. LYNCH

 

 

 

John C. Lynch.  Few Californians have had such a wide and diversified range of experience in public and business positions as John C. Lynch of San Francisco.  He was educated for the law, but official positions and responsibilities of executive and administrative work have absorbed most of his time.  He came to California forty years ago, and his interests have made him one of the best known citizens of the state.

 

     Mr. Lynch, who is a present receiver for the Pacific Coast Casualty Company, with offices in the Mills Building, was born at Ashland, Ohio, November 23, 1851.  He inherits many of his gifts for public affairs from his father, the late John Lynch.  Born in Ireland, coming to this country when a boy, John Lynch at the time of the Civil war was made major of the One Hundred and Fourteenth Ohio Infantry, and became brigadier-general under Governor Brough.  He was in service with the Ohio militia in repelling the Morgan raid through Southern Ohio.  Later he became a prominent factor in Louisiana, serving as state senator and as United States surveyor-general of that state. An attorney by education and profession, he came to California in 1876, and practiced for years in the San Francisco Bay District.  His home was at Benecia.  In 1876 he served as chairman of the executive committee of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.  John Lynch married Mary A. Conant, who died in 1865.  She was a native of Massachusetts, and a descendant of George Conant, who came from England in 1635, and down the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

 

     During his boyhood in Ohio, John C. Lynch attended the common schools and Oberlin College, and subsequently was educated in the University of Louisiana and the University at Chicago, where he took his law degree.  He was admitted to practice in Chicago in 1875, and remained there about two years.  Prior to his admission to the bar he became assistant state engineer of Louisiana, and during 1871-72 was resident engineer for the Texas & Pacific Railroad.  At the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876 he served as secretary to the Bureau of Awards.  Mr. Lynch from 1878 to 1883 was manager of the Twin City Gas Company at La Salle, Illinois, and in 1883 came to California, becoming associated with his father in the practice of law at Benecia.

 

     Mr. Lynch had a prominent part in one of the most noted fruit land development projects in Southern California.  He helped organize in 1886 the Cucamonga Fruit Land Company of San Bernardino County.  He became vice president and general manager of the company, while I. W. Hellman of Los Angeles was president.  The project included an acreage of sixty-five hundred acres, which was sub-divided and sold.  The company developed forty miles of road, and laid eighty miles of pipe line and a mile and a half of tunnels for water for irrigation purposes, the volume of water made available being between 400 and 500 inches.

     Mr. Lynch served as collector of internal revenue for the First District of California from 1897 to 1907.  During 1907-08 he was state bank examiner, but most of his time from 1907 to 1915 was spent in Alaska, where he was treasurer of the Alaska Treasure Mining Company, whose properties are on Douglas Island. Mr. Lynch has acted as receiver for the Pacific Coast Casualty Company since 1916.

 

     Mr. Lynch is a former member of the California Legislature, having been elected in 1890 and serving during the terms 1891-93-95.  In his last term he was speaker of the house.  A republican, he was quite active in politics until he moved to Alaska, and represented his party at many state and county conventions. He served as ex-officio member of the Board of Regents of the University of California for two years.  During his early manhood in Illinois he served as sergeant in the Illinois National Guard. Mr. Lynch is a member of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, is a charter member of the Clairmont Country Club, is a member of the Bohemian Club, and the Sons of the Mayflower.

 

     On December 2, 1884, Mr. Lynch married Miss Mary Fowler. Mrs. Lynch is remembered as a woman of unusual culture and prominent in social affairs.  At one time she was state regent for California of the Daughters of the American Revolution.  Her people were among the old American stock of English descent, and with a record of service in the Revolutionary war.  She was also very active in the Presbyterian Church.  Mrs. Lynch was born in Wisconsin and passed away October 14, 1922.

 

Transcribed by Marilyn Pankey.