Stanislaus
County
Biographies
CHARLES LEWIS ADOLPH HEWEL
The career of the subject of this
sketch is an illustration of the declaration that faithfulness in a few things
makes a man master over many and an exemplification of the value of character
in the battle of life. Charles Lewis
Adolph Hewel, one of the most prominent citizens of central California and one
of the most public-spirited men of Modesto, Stanislaus County, was born in
Hanover, Germany, May 9, 1835, a son of Ludwig and Conradine
(Korosh) Hewel. His father was an officer in the German army
and his mother was a daughter of a Prussian officer who fell at the Battle of
Waterloo. His great-grandfather was an
officer in the army of Frederick the Great, and through circumstances of which
he had no control he was forced into a duel, as a result of which he was forced
to leave Prussia and seek refuge in Hanover.
From these facts, fragmentary as they are, it will be seen that Judge Hewel
is descended in both the paternal and maternal lines from families in which
military men were conspicuous. The Hewel’s were Lutherans and the Koroshes
were Catholics. Ludwig Hewel was thrown
from his horse and killed in the forty-fourth year of his age, in August,
1849. His wife, Conradine,
died in her sixty-sixth year and was buried in Modesto, California, while her
husband was buried in his native land.
They had ten children, and of their four sons Judge Hewel is the oldest
and the only survivor.
Judge Hewel was educated in his
native city of Hanover and was fourteen years old when his father died. Not long after that event he went to sea and
during the succeeding three years he visited many parts of the world. In 1851, when he was sixteen years old, he
shipped at New York for California, and making the passage around the Horn,
land at San Francisco July 5, 1852. From
San Francisco he went direct to Mariposa and engaged in mining at Aqua Fria and
at other camps in the southern part of Mariposa County, where he remained for
about three years. In 1855 he came to
Stanislaus County and mined at French Bar on the Tuolumne River, and during the
forty-five years that have elapsed since he has been a resident of the county
except during eighteen months when he was in Shasta County.
Judge Hewel has been a life-long
supporter of the principles of the Democratic Party. In 1864 he was appointed deputy county clerk
of Stanislaus County and virtually had charge of the office most of the time
until 1866, when he was elected county clerk, in which capacity he served with
much ability and to the entire satisfaction of the general public until
1868. He began the study of law in 1862,
was admitted to the bar in 1864 and was soon after appointed court
commissioner. After leaving the county
clerk’s office he gave his attention to the practice of law at Knight’s Ferry,
with Abraham Shell as a partner, and gained a large and lucrative patronage.
In 1872 he removed to Modesto, where
in 1876 he formed a law partnership with W. E. Turner, which existed until
1889, when he was elected judge of the superior court and as such he served on
the bench five years, with great distinction.
He retired from legal practice because of an impairment of his sense of
hearing, and in association with C. D. Lane became largely interested in quartz
mining in Del Norte County, California, and in Arizona. Later he became a one-third owner of the
Utica mine at Angel’s Camp, Calaveras County.
From time to time he became the owner of tracts of land which aggregate
about six thousand acres, and he is a stockholder and director of the three
banks of Modesto: the Modesto Bank, the
National Bank of Modesto and the Union Savings Bank; and he is the president of
the Stanislaus Oil Company, which, operating in the hills fourteen miles south
of Huron, in Fresno County, has drilled to a depth of fourteen hundred feet and
has found abundant promise of success.
Judge Hewel is one of the most
eminent Freemasons of the state of California.
He was initiated as an Entered Apprentice, passed the Fellow Craft
degree and was raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason in 1874, and
quickly became conversant with the work and teachings of the order, filled all
the offices in the blue lodge and soon took the degrees of capitular
Masonry and was exalted to the sublime degree of Royal Arch Mason and filled
the several offices of his chapter. He
took the degrees of chivalric Masonry and was constituted, created and dubbed a
Knight Templar in 1876. After having
acquired all the degrees of the York rite and all the degrees of the Scottish
rite up to and including the thirty-second degree, when he was hailed a Sublime
Prince of the Royal Secret, ineffable degrees of the Scottish rite, he has been
greeted as a member of the Ancient Arabic order of the Nobles of the Mystic
Shrine. He has the honor of being a past
grand high priest of the order in the state of California and is held in high
esteem by Masons everywhere on the coast.
In 1872 Judge Hewel married Miss
Maria Fisher, a daughter of Jacob Fisher, of Schoharie County, New York, who
has borne him eight children, four of whom are living: Blanche, Arabella
V., Catherine S. and Clarence. The
family has a delightful home at Modesto; the upper portion of its residence
being the house in which Mr. and Mrs. Hewel passed the earlier years of their
married life and in which their children were born. When a more spacious residence became
necessary Judge Hewel, wishing to retain the old house on account of its
associations, elevated it and built under it the more modern portion of his
present residence.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 405-406. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.