San Francisco County
Biographies
GEORGE
GRANVILLE MONTGOMERY
The career of George Granville Montgomery has been typical of the successful younger group of business men in San Francisco. He is a member of the highly reputed firm of A. O. Slaughter-Anderson & Fox, dealers in stocks and bonds, whose offices are situated at 317 Montgomery street.
On both the paternal and maternal sides, George G. Montgomery is descended from true pioneer stock of California. He was born in Hollister, this state, October 4, 1894, and is a son of Edward and Mary Lyman (Swan) Montgomery, both of whom are of Scotch and English extraction, and whose forbears were early settlers in Kentucky. Granville Montgomery, the paternal grandfather, came to California by the overland route in historic ’49 and first settled in Placerville, where he became extensively engaged in mining operations which proved very profitable. After a period of years, he went to San Jose, California, and was there married to Mary Buckner, whom he had first met during the long journey across the plains years before, when she was accompanying her parents to the coast. Her father and mother had settled in San Jose. Granville and Mary (Buckner) Montgomery became the parents of five children, among whom was Edward Montgomery, whose birth occurred in San Jose. He was reared and educated in that city and in Hollister, and during the greater portion of his life was engaged in journalistic work. He is now affiliated with the department of justice in San Francisco. His wife, Mary Lyman (Swan) Montgomery, was born in Oakland, California, a daughter of George Wheeler and Mary (Hamilton) Swan, the last named being a direct descendant of Alexander Hamilton, famous American statesman. George Wheeler Swan came overland to California in 1849, and settled in Placerville, where he found prosperity during the mining days. He built the first toll road in California leading into Nevada. Afterward he settled in Oakland, and during the later years of his life he resided in Hollister. He and his wife were the parents of three daughters and three sons. The Swans and the Hamiltons were originally New Englanders. To Edward Montgomery and his wife were born two children, Edward Geoffery and George Granville.
George G. Montgomery attended the grade schools of Hollister and the Lowell high school of San Francisco, having graduated from the latter in 1912. He then matriculated in the University of California in Berkeley. He started in the practice of law in 1917, and continued therein until 1918, in which year he enlisted in the One Hundred and Forty-fourth United States Field Artillery. He entered as a private, served with marked credit in France, and in February, 1919, was honorably discharged with the rank of captain. He resumed the practice of law for one year, then became assistant manager of American Factors Limited, San Francisco, and in this capacity he remained until 1928, in which year he resigned in order to become a partner in the firm of A. O. Slaughter-Anderson & Fox, prominent dealers in stocks and bonds in San Francisco and other cities. The firm belongs to the New York and the Chicago stock exchanges.
On April 17, 1929, in Burlingame, occurred the marriage of George G. Montgomery and Miss Claudine Spreckels of San Francisco. Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery have one daughter, Anne, who was born in San Francisco, March 21, 1931. Their family residence is at 640 Brewer drive in Burlingame. Rudolph Spreckels is one of the most noted figures in San Francisco, known internationally as civic reformer and banker. He gained wide attention by his career in Philadelphia, where he was employed in his father’s sugar refinery, which was constructed to fight the sugar trust. The trust was defeated and was compelled to ask for terms. When he was twenty-two years old, Mr. Spreckels became president of the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company, owner of the great sugar plantations of Hawaii. He was also active in the reorganization and a director of the San Francisco Gas Company, which was in a death struggle with a competing company. He placed his organization on a safe basis and satisfactorily settled the gas war. He was a member of the commission of fifty at the time of the San Francisco fire of 1906, and was chairman of the executive committee of five of the San Francisco relief and Red Cross funds, which committee managed the interests of funds totaling nine million dollars. He was the active organizer and financier of the San Francisco graft prosecutions in 1906, also took a prominent part in the political uprising against corporation control of state and city governments, which resulted in a surprising victory for the people of California. He held many and varied interests in financial, industrial, realty, and corporated affairs of the city, in the history of which his name is one of the most eminent.
Mr. Montgomery’s political affiliation is with the republican party, and he worships in the Episcopal Church. He is a member of the University Club of San Francisco; the Burlingame Country Club; the Commercial Club of San Francisco; the Stock Exchange Club; the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce; and the Monterey Peninsula Club. Golf and outdoor sports of varied nature have appealed to him chiefly as recreational diversions. Both Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery are prominent figures in social circles of San Francisco and Burlingame, are very popular, and have upheld in admirable fashion the prestige of their family names.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Byington, Lewis Francis, “History of
San Francisco 3 Vols”, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1931. Vol. 2 Pages 319-322.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S SAN
FRANCISCO BIOGRAPIES