San Francisco County
Charles Mathias
Charles Mathias, dealer in wood, coal and salt, at Nos. 516 and 518 Third street, Oakland, was born in Grimstad, Norway, December 11, 1830, a son of Marcus and Anna (Sorensen) Mathias. His mother died about the age of fifty-five; his father, who was a farmer and tanner, lived to the age of eight-eight years. They had five sons and three daughters, and all are living except one son, a seaman, lost at sea.
Mr. Mathias, our subject, received some formal schooling to the age of eleven, afterward helping his father in work suitable to his years to the age of fourteen, when he shipped as a cabin boy, being next an ordinary seaman and then an able seaman, spending seven years in European waters. In his twenty-first year he shipped on an American vessel at Cardiff, Wales, and arrived in August, 1851, at San Francisco. He went to mining in Sonora, but not finding it profitable or agreeable, and knowing that work of various kinds was abundant in San Francisco and commanding liberal remuneration, he returned in a few days. He then shipped on a Panama steamer as quartermaster, making one voyage. In 1852 he served as acting sailing master of a small sloop engaged chiefly in conveying various farming supplies to the region of what is now Redwood City, with return cargoes of fire-wood to San Francisco. His next employment was with the Mountain Spring and Sausalito Water companies, successively, occupied mostly in supplying vessels in the harbor with fresh water.
June 20, 1856,he once more began to try mining, going to Poverty Bar, on the Mokelumne river, and remaining about a year, only to find it was appropriately named as far as his test of its resources went. Again, in San Francisco, in 1857, he engaged in a watering cart on his own account, and continued about eighteen months. In 1859, with a partner, he embarked in the dairy business in Marin county, conveying the product in butter, together with eggs and other commodities, and also some passengers, between Sausalito and San Francisco. Selling out his dairy he began, on May 15, 1861, his present business as wood and coal dealer, with a partner, under the firm name of Mathias & Nelson. Sometimes alone and at other times with different partners, he remained so engaged in San Francisco until November 5, 1877, when he moved to his present place of business in Oakland, where he had no partner at any time. His yard and residence occupy 100 x125 feet, and his business is fairly good and squarely conducted.
Mr. Mathias, became a citizen in 1861, and has since been a Republican in national politics, while in State and municipal contests he has found it necessary, in his view of the best interests of the people, to vote according to his judgment irrespective of party. He is one of the original twenty-eight organizers of the Scandinavian Benevolent Society of San Francisco, retaining his membership four years, until, dissatisfied with the dissensions and contentions arising mainly from national prejudices between Swedes, Norwegians and Danes, with which he had no sympathy, he preferred to withdraw, although fully in accord with the benevolent purposes of such institutions.
He was married in San Francisco August 24, 1862, to Miss Theresa Hasselman, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, April 10, 1840, and came to San Francisco by way of Cape Horn, in 1856. They had seven children, four of whom died in infancy, and one, the oldest, Adelia, died at the age of fourteen, of typhoid fever, the survivors being Dora, born in 1864, and Charlotte, born January 17, 1877.
Transcribed
by David Rugeroni.
Source: "The
Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Page 212, Lewis
Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2005 David Rugeroni.