San Francisco County
Biographies
HON. SAMUEL D. WOODS
WOODS,
HON. SAMUEL D., Attorney-at-Law, San Francisco, was born at Mt. Pleasant,
Tennessee, September 19, 1845, the son of James and Eliza (Ann) Woods. His father, who was a Presbyterian clergyman,
was sent to California by the Board of Domestic Missions of the Presbyterian
Church to establish a station in Stockton, and in other parts of the state, and
after a tedious trip of eight months “around the Horn” reached his destination
in February, 1850, bringing with him his wife and four children. He first settled in Stockton, where the early
boyhood, and an important part of the manhood, of Samuel D. Woods were passed.
After
attending the public schools of Stockton and Los Angeles, to which latter place
the state of his father’s health prompted his father to move, Mr. Woods at the
age of nineteen taught school in the Suisun hills, and had for his pupils some
of the subsequently notable figures of
He
practiced his profession for about ten years when, his health failing, he took
to mining as a temporary occupation.
During the next few years his experience in the open not only stimulated
his native love of nature but also lent much romance to his early manhood. His explorations of Death Valley gave him a knowledge of that ill-fated district that enabled him to
assist in the preparation of official maps which have since been improved but
little. He explored a large part of the
Pacific Coast, both on horseback and on foot.
On one trip he rode from
In
1884 Mr. Woods resumed his law practice in
As a
Congressman Mr. Woods was one of the first “Insurgents,” so-called, by their
opponents. He opposed Roosevelt’s plans
for Cuban reciprocity, and aided in preventing the realization thereof at the
general session. In this session he also
voted against the Panama Canal project, on the ground of what he deemed the
fraud involved in the acquisition of the isthmus, having previously voted for
the Nicaragua Canal. On his retirement
from Congress he resumed his practice in San Francisco, and has been engaged
therein ever since. His only other
political office was that of Judge Advocate, under Governor Budd.
In
1910 Mr. Woods’ book, “Lights and Shadows of Life on the
The
work is clearly a labor of love and it deserves a permanent place in the
historical annals of
Another
phase of Mr. Woods’ busy life is shown in the various concerns for which he has
been either an officer and attorney.
Among
these corporations are included the following:
Attorney
and a Director of the Sierra Railway Company of California, Union Hill Mining
Company of California, and the Huff Creek Coal Company of West Virginia; Secretary,
Bullock Lumber Company; Attorney, Standard Lumber Company; President and
Attorney, Realty Holding and Improvement Company; and Secretary and Attorney,
Sugar-Pine Timber Company. He has never
allowed himself any time for Club-life, and is a member of only the San
Francisco Commercial Club.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition, page 85, 1913.
© 2007 Donna L.
Becker.