San Joaquin County
Biographies
OCTAVIUS HAYMAN HULL
OCTAVIUS HAYMAN HULL, of the
Hull & Stewart Company of this city, dealers in school supplies,
sewing-machines, pianos and organs, was born July 16, 1845, in Taylor County,
West Virginia, a son of Jacob and Sarah (Thomas) Hull, both natives of that
section of the “Old Dominion,” and now deceased. His father, a farmer and
tanner near Knottsville, died at the age of sixty-three, and his mother at
fifty-seven. Grandfather Jacob Hull, by birth a German, came to America with
his parents before the Revolution, and afterward became owner of a farm and
tannery in Harrison County. He was three times married and lived to the age of
104 years. His first wife, by birth Hannah Robinson, left three sons who lived
to become the heads of families. Great-grandfather Hull enlisted in the
Colonial army in the Revolutionary war and never returned, dying in the battle,
or perhaps perishing by exposure or of ill treatment as a prisoner.
Grandparents Thomas and Rebecca (Hale) Thomas, the former a native of Delaware
and the latter of Connecticut, raised a large family and were well beyond
middle life when they died. Great-grandfather Thomas was a Scotch emigrant.
O. H. Hull, the subject of this sketch,
was educated in a private school in his native country, and helped in his
father’s tannery until the age of sixteen. In his seventeenth year he was
enrolled in the militia of the proposed new State of West Virginia, and in 1862
enlisted in the Twelfth Regiment West Virginia Volunteer Infantry, and was
engaged in twenty-three pitched battles from Piedmont to Appomattox. After his
discharge he went to farming in Iowa, and in 1867 bought 140 acres in Mahaska
County, which he retained until 1870. He then learned the harness-making
business in Oskaloosa, and carried on a shop one year in Granville, Iowa. In
1872 he moved to Kansas, and followed the same business in Belleville, Republic
County, and afterward in Smith Center, Smith County, where he bought a farm of
160 acres. In 1879 he became a member of the Grand Army of the Republic in
Kansas. After a residence of eleven years in that State he sold his farm and
harness-shop and came to California in 1883, settling in this city, where he
engaged in the school-furnishing business. He has had the agency of the
National School Furnishing Company from the first, to which have been added the
goods of other manufacturers in that and other lines. In 1885 he formed a
partnership with W. B. Hardacre and J. A. Stewart, under the style of Hull,
Hardacre & Co., which, by the withdrawal of Mr. Hardacre in 1888, became
Hull & Stewart, and in 1889 was changed to the “Hull & Stewart
Company,” located since April 1, 1889, at No. 306 Main street. They handle not
only school supplies of all sorts, but also sewing-machines--the New Crown and
Wheeler & Wilson, No. 9, as well as Crown pianos and organs.
Mr. Hull was married in 1866, at her home
near Granville, Iowa, to Miss Nancy Maria Baldwin, born in Ohio, August 13,
1846, a daughter of Thompson and Sophronia (Phelps) Baldwin, who settled in
Mahaska County, Iowa, about 1847. Her father died aged about sixty-three; her
mother, born about 1820, is still living on the old homestead. Mrs. Hull’s
grandfather, Hiram Baldwin, was born and brought up in Grayson County,
Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Hull have five children--two born in Iowa, two in Kansas
and one in California, as follows:--Herschel Varian, born October 14, 1868;
Merrill Ord, October 26, 1871; Veda Belle, July 3, 1874; Sophronia Ariel, July
14, 1881; Leland Mentor, October 5, 1885. Herschel V. lost his sight by an
accident when only eight years old, and was placed in the Wyandotte Institution
for the Blind, and, coming with the family to this State in 1853, was placed in
the institution in Berkeley, from which he was graduated in the summer of 1887,
and is a broom-manufacturer on his own account in this city. Merrill O. is
attending a business college in this city.
Mr. Hull is a member of Morning Star
Lodge, No. 68, F. & A. M., and of Rawlins Post, No. 23, G. A. R.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Page 498-499. 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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