San Francisco County
HENRY CLAY TAFT
Henry Clay Taft, senior partner and founder of the house of Taft & Pennoyer, dry-goods merchants of Oakland, was born in Rochester, New York, May 29, 1847, a son of Mason and Samantha (Gray) Taft. The father, a native of New Hampshire, was for many years a merchant in Dansville, New York, where he died of cancer of the stomach nearly thirty years ago, at the age of fifty. Two of his brothers, born about 1818 and 1820, are still living; and their father, Samuel, also a native of New Hampshire and one of the first manufacturers of combs in that State, lived to the age of seventy. His father, Elijah, for many years a resident of that State and probably a native thereof, also reached an advanced age. The Tafts are of the early New England immigration. The mother of H. C. Taft is still living, at the age of seventy-five.
Mr. Taft received a common-school education, supplemented by a term in an academy in Dansville, New York. He obtained a situation as clerk in the United States Express office of that city in 1863, and in 1864 a similar position in the Dansville Bank. In 1865 he came to California and engaged as a clerk with Haskell & Campbell, dry goods merchants of Petaluma. In 1868, at the age of twenty-one, he went into business there on his own account, in the same line, under the style of H. C. Taft & Co. He had two partners at different times, for short periods, being most of the time sole proprietor. In 1877 he started a branch store in this city, and in 1879 he sold out in Petaluma. Since that date he has given undivided attention to his business in Oakland. In 1880 Mr. Albert A. Pennoyer became a partner, under the style of Taft & Pennoyer, which continues unchanged to the present time. The firm is confessedly in the front rank in the dry-goods line, with all the usual accessories of that trade. Their store is in every sense metropolitan, having a frontage of seventy feet and a depth of 125 feet on the main floor, on Broadway near Fourteenth, in the very center of trade. Up-stairs they have 70 x 140 feet besides the large cellar rooms for storage purposes. They are among the first in this city to introduce the modern convenience of a passenger elevator, and in all the appointments of a first-class dry-goods house, Taft & Pennoyer are fully abreast of the times, being determined to afford no pretext to the ladies of this city for carrying their trade to the rival city across the bay. Mr. Taft visits the Eastern markets twice a year to buy goods, and in 1886 went to Europe to establish connections for direct importation from Paris.
H. C. Taft was married in St. Peter’s Church, Dansville, New York, in 1877, to Miss Lizzie Maxwell, born in that city, August 27, 1854, a daughter of Olney Bryant and Elizabeth (Foote) Maxwell. The father was a man of prominence, wealth and influence in Dansville and reckoned among relatives two men of more than national reputation, William Cullen Bryant and Theodore Pomeroy, United States Senator from New York. Mr. Maxwell died in middle life, aged about fifty-six years. His wife, a relative of William H. Seward and H. W. Beecher, is living, at the age of sixty-six years. Grandfather Wymond Maxwell was a son of Joshua, who was of Scotch birth or descent.
Mr. and Mrs. Taft have three children: Joshua Maxwell, born March 11, 1878, Clara Maxwell, April 21, 1879, and Dorothy Elizabeth, December 18, 1890—all natives of Oakland. Mr. Taft was for eight years a Vestryman of St. John’s church, Petaluma, and for some years Treasurer of St. Paul’s, Oakland. He is a Knight Templar and a member of the A. O. U. W.
Transcribed
by David Rugeroni.
Source: "The
Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Page 214 - 215, Lewis
Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2005 David Rugeroni.