San Joaquin County
Biographies
WALTER BLACKMORE STARBIRD
WALTER BLACKMORE STARBIRD,
resident partner and sole manager of the firm of Schmidt & Co., of
Stockton, manufacturers and exporters of Sarsaparilla and Iron Water, was born
in Portland, Maine, December 31, 1847, the oldest son of Charles H. and Eleanor
Stuart (Chase) Starbird, both natives of that State. His father, a business man
of Augusta, Maine, died there in 1879, aged about sixty; his mother, born
January 1, 1827, is still living, being a resident of California since 1874.
Grandfather George B. Starbird lived to be over seventy, and his wife, Eliza
(Beckett) Starbird, of English parentage, died in Portland, about 1887, at the
age of nearly ninety. Great-grandfather Albert Starbird, an extensive
land-owner of that State, also lived to an advanced age, as did his English
wife Anna (Blackmore) Starbird.
W. B. Starbird was educated in Augusta,
and his academic education had just begun when he went to sea in a vessel
belonging to one of his uncles and followed a seafaring life a few years. In
1868 he went to Boston and became a partner in a lumber, grain and flour house,
and in 1872, his health having become impaired through overwork, he went to
Australia and spent a year in travel. Early in 1874 he came to California, and
soon after to Stockton. Here he filled the position of book-keeper for Simpson
& Gray nearly nine years, and in 1883 went into the insurance business with
C. W. Dohrman, under the style of Dohrman & Starbird, continuing about two
years. After a year spent in San Francisco and in travel he returned to this
city, where he has since represented the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company
and five fire insurance companies. He became interested with Fred W. Schmidt in
the manufacture of Sarsaparilla and Iron Water, June 28, 1887, and after the
death of Mr. Schmidt in September of that year he became equal partner with his
widow, Mrs. Clara H. Schmidt, and sole manager, October 6, 1887, under the
style of Schmidt & Co. When he first engaged in the business the output was
about 300 quart bottles a day, to meet a local retail trade. In January, 1890,
the product is about 12,000 quart-bottles a day, in the dull season; and the
goods are shipped up and down the coast, as well as to Honolulu and Australia,
and even into the heart of the wine and beer drinking countries of Europe. The
number of employés
has grown from two men and a boy in 1887 to thirty men or more at the close of
1889. Schmidt & Co. are also interested, since January 1, 1890, with George
West & Son, in a new product composed of sherry and iron, under the style
of the Sherry-Iron Company.
Mr. Starbird was married in Sacramento,
October 24, 1882, to Miss Carrie A. Blatchley, born in Connecticut, a daughter
of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Blatchley, of that State, and a resident of California
since 1882. The father died in 1888, at the age of eighty-three.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 513-514. 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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