San Francisco County
Biographies
JUSTUS S.
WARDELL
Alert, energetic and versatile, Justus S. Wardell has progressed with San Francisco, his native city, which numbers him among its successful stock brokers and substantial business men. He was born June 30, 1872. His father, Benjamin Augustus Wardell, was born June 15, 1830, in New York city, where he was reared and educated. In the ‘50s, when a young man of twenty, Benjamin A. started for California, en route to China, and in 1870 finally settled in San Francisco. He was for many years associated with the San Francisco Chronicle. He attained the ripe age of eighty years, passing away September 9, 1910. His wife, Pauline (Fliess) Wardell, belonged to a distinguished Austrian family that figured prominently in financial circles of Vienna and in military affairs of that country. She was born October 18, 1839, and at the age of twenty-one, in company with her sister and other relatives, crossed the Atlantic on a ship bound for America and lived for some years in New York. She arrived in California in 1870 and was married in San Francisco, where she resided until her demise on the 19th of June, 1919, at the age of eighty years.
Justus S. Wardell, an only child, pursued his education in the public schools of San Francisco, after which he read law in the office of the late Charles B. Darwin, a well known criminal lawyer of this city. He also studied under D. W. Burchard of San Jose, Santa Clara county, then district attorney of that county. However, Mr. Wardell’s age precluded him from taking the examination before the supreme court of California. He therefore renewed newspaper work, in which he was engaged in company with his father in Gilroy, California. He was a reporter for several years on some leading publications in San Francisco, and in 1897 assumed the management of the Daily Journal of Commerce. In 1905 he became owner of the paper, which he published successfully for fourteen years. From 1920 until 1927 he was a consultant and advisor on income tax matters and in securities, offering to his clients sound advice in placing their investments, and heads a large and steadily growing business, conducted under the style of Wardell, Doyle & Co.
Mr. Wardell was married July 9, 1895, in San Rafael, to Miss Clara Louise Kellogg, of New York city, a daughter of George Ensign and Regina Clarissa (Fox) Kellogg, the former a member of an old family of Georgia and the latter of German descent. Mr. and Mrs. Wardell have two children: Benjamin Augustus (II), who was born in San Francisco in 1905; and Virginia Pauline, born in 1909.
The residence of the family is at 2830 Broderick street, San Francisco, and Mr. Wardell’s office is in the Russ building. He belongs to the National Press Club of Washington, D. C., and to the Bohemian, Commercial and Commonwealth Clubs of San Francisco. Fraternally he is a Mason and is also identified with Stanford Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West. Socially Mrs. Wardell has connection with the Cap & Bell Club and in cultural circles of the city she is well known through her membership in the San Francisco Musical Society. Mr. Wardell attends the Episcopal Church and has been very active in politics and in public affairs. Since age conferred upon him the right of franchise he has been a stalwart democrat and is regarded as one of the leaders of the party in this state. He was a delegate to the democratic national conventions of 1904, 1908, 1924 and 1928, and in 1926 was the democratic candidate for governor of California. He has an extensive acquaintance among the prominent men of both parties. Called to public office, Mr. Wardell was an assemblyman of California from 1899 until 1901, championing every measure destined to prove of benefit to the commonwealth. During the period from 1913 to 1917 he was surveyor of customs at San Francisco, and in the latter year was made collector of internal revenue for the First California District, thus serving until 1920. He enjoys walking and also derives much pleasure from reading, choosing his books with care, for he is appreciative of the best in literature. His standards of life are high and the respect that is uniformly accorded him is well deserved.
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 173-175.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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