San Joaquin County
Biographies
EDWIN HAMILTON CARY
EDWIN HAMILTON CARY, a music
dealer of Stockton, was born in Portland, Oregon, March 25, 1851, a son of
Luther and Rebecca (Harbart) Cary, the latter still living; the former died
April 2, 1890. Professor Luther Cary, the father, born in Norwich, New London
County, Connecticut, July 24, 1817, moved with his parents in 1833 to South
Warren, Bradford, County, Pennsylvania, where he taught school in 1837. In 1838
he moved to Peoria County, Illinois, where he was married and followed farming.
In the spring of 1850, allured by the great liberality of the “Donation Act,”
offering 640 acres to married settlers on the condition of five years’
occupancy, he set out for Oregon. The gold fever was raging, but his health
being somewhat impaired by the ague, and the substantial comfort of settling on
a section of land, induced him to prefer Oregon to California. Hitching up his
oxen and cows to his wagons he set out for the long journey across the plains,
arriving at the Dalles on Columbia river, September 25, 1850. He first settled
on that river six miles above Vancouver, and was for some time interested in
the ferry-boat business. In 1852 he settled on 640 acres in Marion County, and
went to farming, varied by school-teaching. Becoming security for a certain
person in 1853, to the extent of $2,000, by the flight of that person to
California, Mr. Cary was left to pay the debt. In this emergency he conceived
the idea of lecturing on astronomy, and proceeded to qualify himself by close
study of that interesting science for a year. Procuring the necessary outfit
for giving popular lectures on that subject, he proceeded to carry out his
idea, and in less than two years he was enabled to liquidate the debt. Having
entered upon a congenial field of labor, he continued giving those lectures for
many years, all over Oregon and California, with occasional trips farther east.
Professor Cary has lectured in Washington, California, Montana, Oregon, British
Columbia, Idaho, Nebraska, Kansas and Michigan, and in many other western
States and Territories. About 1863 he came to reside in San Jose, California,
which he made his home for about ten years. Many of the more prominent citizens
of San Jose, among the number being C. C. Owens, editor of the San Jose Mercury,
and Dr. Clark and others, urged him to seek a position in connection with
the Lick Observatory, when that institution was projected, as a desirable field
for the exercise of his marked attainments in his chosen specialty, but he had
so long followed the career of a traveling astronomer that the change to that
of a sedentary observer had no attraction for him. He was last a resident of
Rosedale, Pierce County, Washington, situated on Henderson Bay, and owns some
land at different points in that State.
The mother of our subject, by birth
Rebecca Harbart, was born July 14, 1831, and married in Illinois, September 25,
1848. Grandfather Luther Cary, Sr., was born in Windham County, Connecticut,
November 11, 1768, and had five older brothers who were soldiers of the
Revolution, and afterward settled in different parts of the country.
Grandfather Cary died in Pennsylvania March 1, 1834. Grandmother Rispah (Allen)
Cary was born in Groton, New Lon-London
County, Connecticut, February 18, 1772, was married November 11, 1792.
Great-grandfather Benjamin Cary moved from Massachusetts to Connecticut,
finally to Windham County, where he raised a large family.
E. H. Cary was reared on a farm until
about ten years of age, was educated in Portland, Oregon, and at an early age
began the study of music, a talent for which he has an inheritance in his
family. After school days he learned the trade of carpenter, and his time was
occupied chiefly as a carpenter and builder, as well as musician, until he came
to San Jose, California, in June, 1874. In Santa Clara County he joined his
father in the special industry of raising Angora goats, and for wider range
removed his flock into Calaveras County, February 23, 1875, when the father and
he became owners of 1,280 acres of pasture land, near Salt Spring valley. In
1877, finding the industry not likely to prove as profitable as they had
anticipated, they disposed of their pasture range, and a year in Oakland was
spent carpentering. Mr. Cary returned to Calaveras County and went to mining in
Angel’s Camp, where he remained over three years occupied chiefly in that
pursuit, and with little profit.
In 1882 Mr. Cary came to Stockton, and
from this point as a centre of operation he traveled for some years as salesman
for Kohler & Chase, music dealers of San Francisco, selling their wares and
giving bands instruction in music,--a combination of the commercial traveler
and itinerant band-master. In September, 1889, he opened his present place of
business, as a music dealer, on the northwest corner of American and Market
streets, Stockton.
Mr. E. H. Crary (sic) was married in
Albany, Oregon, September 16, 1871, to Miss Caroline Alda McLeran, born in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, November 12, 1849, a daughter of Sylvester and Wealthy
(Beals) McLeran, both deceased, in Oregon, in 1874,--the father aged
fifty-eight and the mother fifty-six. Grandmother Beals lived to an advanced
age. The McLeran family came across the plains in 1865, members of a large
party, having about 150 wagons. They were attacked by Indians on Rock creek, at
some distance from Fort Halleck, losing a few killed and some taken prisoners,
most of the company escaping uninjured. Among these were the McLerans, the
three sons and two daughters still living--Charles Mercias, who afterward
returned East, is living in Durand, Illinois; Sylvester Rufus, in Pendleton,
Oregon; Leonard Jackson, and Mrs. E. H. Cary, in this city, and Anna McLeran,
by marriage Mrs. Martin Fishburn, in Portland, Oregon.
Mr. and Mrs. Cary have two living children,
both born in Calaveras County; Edwin Liberty, July 4, 1875, a young musician of
marked talents, an artist on the cornet, having played in public with marked
acceptance at the age of nine, and now in his fifteenth year received with
great attention wherever he appears, the cornet being still his specialty;
Francis Raymond, born May 2, 1877, also evinces musical talents, but is not so
precocious as his brother.
Mr. E. H. Cary has two brothers and
sisters living: Matilda Almira, now Mrs. Curtis Parker; George Washington, a
rancher; Melissa Clementine, now the wife of R. A. Allen, a railroad engineer,
these three being residents of Josephine County, Oregon; and Charles Arthur, a
school-teacher and associate in interests with his father in Orting, Washington.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 655-656. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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