San Francisco County
Biographies
CHARLES A.
TUTTLE
CHARLES A. TUTTLE, deceased.--The subject of this sketch was born in Genesee county, New York, in 1819, a son of Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Tuttle, both born, reared and married in Connecticut. Mrs. Tuttle, by birth a Miss Taylor, was a first cousin of John Brown, of Harper’s Ferry fame. After marriage they moved into Genesee county, New York, settling on a farm, where Mr. Tuttle died at about the age of forty. Mrs. Tuttle survived him many years, dying at the age of sixty. The first American Tuttle came in 1671 and settled in Connecticut.
Charles A. Tuttle was educated for the legal profession and admitted to the bar in his native State. He was married, about 1845, to Miss Maria L. Batchelder, born in Genesee county, New York, about 1823, a daughter of Enos Batchelder and his wife, nee Pierson, both natives of Vermont and there married. She was a direct descendant of the first president of Yale College. After marriage Mr. and Mrs. Batchelder settled on a farm in Genesee county, where they lived to an advanced age, he being ninety-five and she ninety-eight at death. Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Tuttle moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, about 1845, where Mr. Tuttle practiced his profession until the discovery of gold aroused his desire to try his fortune in California. He left Milwaukee early in 1849, one of a party of five, with saddle horses and a single wagon, journeying across the plains without serious mishap of any sort, and having found such Indians as they met quite friendly they arrived in due season on the American river, where Mr. Tuttle engaged in mining. An incident of the days of ’49 that came within his experience may be worth mention. A company of Southerners on a prospecting tour found a valuable claim in possession of a company of foreigners, and they proceeded to dispossess apparently on no other ground than that these had no rights which they were bound to respect. Mr. Tuttle, with his legal training and keen sense of justice, volunteered in their defense, but the foreigners were beaten, prejudice being stronger than the sense of natural justice. Though much has been written in praise of the rude justice of “the days of ‘49,” it was sometimes overridden by rank injustice. Having gathered $7,000 or $8,000 in about a year, Mr. Tuttle went back to Milwaukee, late in 1850 or early in 1851, intending to remain. He, however, soon grew restless, and after a few months again set out across the plains accompanied by Mrs. Tuttle, to whom he had been married about 1845. Pushing through as before with a small company, a light wagon carrying supplies, and some saddle-horses, he arrived at Michigan Bluffs in Placer county. There he soon went into business, keeping a miners’ supply store for about two years. He then opened a law office, and was engaged in practice as early as 1854, when Leland Stanford was elected Justice of the Peace. He was elected to the State Senate from his district, and was quite prominent in the Gwin-Broderick and other political contests of those times. He moved in 1856 to Auburn, the county seat of Placer county, and about 1858 his political views underwent a change. From being a “Douglas Democrat” he became a Republican, and was Chairman of the second State Convention of the new party in 1860, and was put on the Lincoln Electoral ticket of that year, continuing his law practice until 1863, when he was appointed Supreme Court Reporter by Governor Booth, holding the position until 1867. He then moved to Oakland with his family of three sons and their mother. He was afterwards appointed with Sidney L. Johnson as Commissioner on Revision of the Code, which had been compiled about 1869. He declined an appointment to the bench and also to the regency of the University of California. He was re-appointed Supreme Court Reporter by the court to which the power had been transferred by the Legislature, and filled the office from 1871 to 1878. The power of appointment being again committed to the Governor, who was a Democrat, Mr. Tuttle’s services were promptly dispensed with. He resumed the practice of law in this city, and so continued until he retired from active business in 1883, to Auburn, California, where he died in 1888. Mrs. Tuttle had died twenty years before in Genesee county, New York, whither she had gone on a visit from this city, in 1868, with her three children, Charles, Frederick P. and Frank L.
Charles Tuttle, born in Sacramento, California, May 11, 1854, was educated in the schools of Auburn and Sacramento, and after removal of the family to this city in 1867, in the old college or preparatory school of Oakland. He then went to Yale College where he took a full course, being graduated in the class of 1877. He took up the study of law under his father, and was admitted to the bar in 1879, when he was taken into partnership under the style of C. A. & C. Tuttle. After his father’s retirement in 1883, Charles Tuttle continued practice alone until 1889, when he became assistant to A. A. Moore of this city.
Mr. Tuttle was married, in San Francisco, in 1878, to Miss Nettie L. Brown, born in that city, September 22, 1853, a daughter of Ezekiel and Lucilla (Lynn) Brown, both now deceased at over seventy years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle have three children: Harry A., born July 14, 1879; Winsor B., May 11, 1881; Lucille, September 15, 1883.
Fred P. Tuttle, second son of the late Charles A., was born in Auburn, Placer county, September 27, 1858, or September 28, 1857. He studied law in his father’s office and afterwards in the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, from which he was graduated in 1881. He was elected District Attorney of his native county in 1886 and re-elected in 1888. He is a charter member of Auburn Parlor, No. 59, N. S. G. W., is one of its Past Presidents and Grand Orator of the Order in 1890. He has three sons and three daughters. Frank L., the youngest of the three Tuttle brothers, born in July, 1862, is now engaged in real-estate business at Astoria, Washington. One uncle of these, Edward L. Tuttle, a land-owner in Arizona, and the clerk of one of the courts of that Territory, has one son living in Auburn, California.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2,
Pages 631-633, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2008 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.