Ira Martin Wentworth

 

Ira Martin Wentworth, president of the Wentworth Boot and Shoe Company of Oakland, was born in Rochester, New Hampshire, June 22, 1837, a son of Stephen and Lucinda (Hayes) Wentworth.  He is descended in the sixth generation from Elder William Wentworth, the friend and disciple of Rev. John Wheelwright.  William Wentworth, born in Alford, Lincolnshire, England in 1615, came to Massachusetts in 1636, and in August 4, 1639, with Wheelwright and thirty-three others, signed what they called “A Combination for a Government at Exter, New Hampshire,” and settled in that colony.  He died in Dover, New Hampshire, March 16, 1697.  Stephen Wentworth, born in New Hampshire, in 1800, became a skilled machanic in many lines, and more especially as a blacksmith and wheelwright, in which department he did much work for the Portsmouth Navy Yard.  He died of erysipelas in 1855, comparatively young, longevity being a marked inheritance of the Wentworth family.  His brothers and sisters, nine in number, all lived to be about eighty.  Lucinda Hayes Wentworth, was a daughter of Ensign Nathaniel Hayes of Revolutionary fame, who lived to the age of ninety and nearly all of his seven or eight children lived to be over eighty, Mrs. Wentworth reaching the age of eighty-three.  Grandmothers Wentworth and Hayes both lived to an advanced age.

 

Ira M. Wentworth, the subject of this sketch, received a limited education in his youth, and early learned from his father how to use the tools of various handcrafts, working under him until his death.  He had learned to manufacture shoes at the age of sixteen, and before he was twenty he could shoe a horse or an ox, and had also picked up the trade of carpenter.  At his father’s death he continued to work for his mother, and helped her to settle his father’s estate to the best advantage.  He manufactured shoes in his mother’s factory in his native town for the firm of Atherton & Stetson, of Pearl street, Boston, and in the financial panic of 1857, he was entrusted by the local bank with the exchange of $10,000 of their currency for the issues of other banks, and discharged the commission without misadventure.  His parents had fourteen children, of whom ten grew to maturity, and nine—six sons and three daughters –are living, in 1890, the oldest being Charles H., of Boston, born in 1827.

 

In 1859 Mr.  Wentworth was married, in his native town, to Miss Mary H. Place, also a native of that place, a daughter of Leonard F. and Mary H. Place.  The mother died in middle life, but the father is still living, in 1890, a resident of San Francisco, aged over seventy.  Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth have one child, Miss Lulu L.  Mr. Wentworth came to California in 1863, leaving New York, April 1, and arriving in San Francisco, by way of Panama, on April 28, of that year.  He first went to work in Georgetown, El Dorado County, as a blacksmith and wheel-wright, remaining but a few months when he returned to the coast and worked in the navy yard about four months.  His next job was as a conductor on the Mission Railroad in San Francisco, from which he was transferred eight months later to the position of cash receiver in the office of the company, being in their employ thirteen months in all.  Seeking to better his financial condition he was induced to take the position of cutter for a custom shoe-store, where he remained but a short time, when he engaged in the shoe manufacturing business in a small way, on his own account.  From that time, November, 1864, to the present he has been engaged in that industry pushing forward from a very modest beginning until the company of which he is the president, organized in Berkeley in 1883, and removed to Oakland in 1885, has come to be recognized as holding the front rank in that line, and one of the great manufacturing enterprises of this city.  The factory, 40 x 100 feet, and four stories high, at the foot of Sixteeth street, is conveniently situated for the shipment of it product by rail or water.  It is furnished with the latest improved machinery, and employs from forty to eighty hands, according to the pressure of business, its capacity being 600 pairs per day.  While the chief product is in heavy goods, other and finer goods are also manufactured, as well as certain specialties adapted to the use of different mechanics and laborers. Mr. Wenworth’s familiarity with the requirements of the general market and the peculiar needs of artisans and workmen, has enabled him to direct the facilities of the factory into producing goods that are yearly becoming more popular.  For the local trade of this city he also conducts a retail store at 1059 Washington street, with a large and varied assortment of their goods, but their trade is chiefly wholesale, and of large proportions all over the Pacific coast.

 

Mr. Wentworth’s only heavy reverse has been outside of his manufacturing business, and was due to his purchase of a large tract of land in Berkeley on a declining market in 1878, by which he lost the fruits of many years of patient toil in a profitable business in which he is a master craftsman.  He was elected a Trustee of Berkeley, in 1879, but has filled no other public office.  He is a member of Oakland Lodge, No. 188, F. & A. M.