HORATIO B. VALPEY.--A life of well directed energy and thrift now
enables Horatio B. Valpey of San Jose to spend his declining years in
freedom from business cares after many years of active connection with
ranching interests. He was born at Eastport, Maine, May 15, 1840, a son
of Captain Calvin and Elizabeth (Gardner) Valpey, the former of French
and the latter of English descent. Capt. Calvin Valpey was born March,
1806, in Yarmouth, N. S., and passed away at warm springs, Cal.,
September 12, 1880. From 1818 to 1832 he followed a seafaring life in
various capacities, from cabin boy to sailor before the mast, then in
1833 he was made captain. When not sailing the seas he followed the
pursuit of farming. In 1847 he sailed from Eastport, Maine, to
Liverpool, England, as captain. The same year he decided to quit the
sea, but was persuaded to pilot a vessel, "The Eagle", from Yarmouth to
San Francisco via the Straits of Magellan. On November 9, 1850, he left
Yarmouth and after five months and nine days arrived in San Francisco
and spent some time in piloting boats up the Sacramento River and about
the San Francisco Bay.
Later he engaged in the merchandise business at Centerville, Cal., and
then mined for a time near Marysville. He assisted in the building of a
dam, but it did not stand and when it went out ruined the mining
prospects in that locality, and Mr. Valpey turned his attention to the
stock business.
Going to Los Angeles, he purchased 300 head of Texas cows and drove
them north to Alameda County, having as a partner George W. Bond. Later
he purchased 400 acres of land at Warm Springs at sixteen dollars per
acre and there he lived until his death. He was the original owner of
Warm Springs Landing.
Mr. Valpey's eldest son, Calvin came to
California in 1858 and he passed away in San Jose in 1914. Horatio B.
Valpey was the next to leave and came alone to California in 1859 via
Panama
and the next year saw his mother and two sisters, Elizabeth and Alice,
and one brother, Charles, en route to California. The eldest child,
Emeline, married a Mr. Prosser and she passed away in 1921 at
Yarmouth. Captain Valpey was here during the stirring times of the
Vigilante days and the foundation of the state. Mrs. Valpey was born in
1810 and died in 1901 at the ripe old age of ninety-one years.
Horatio B. Valpey was one of a family of six children and when ninteen
years of age came to California by way of the isthmus route. He
assisted his father in cultivating the Warm Springs ranch and in caring
for the stock and in 1870 he removed to Ashland, Ore., where he was
employed in a planing mill. After his father's death in 1880, he
returned to Warm Springs, Cal., and farmed there, and following his
marriage he went to Saratoga, where he remained for eighteen months, at
the end of which time he again went to Warm Springs and farmed until
1906.(see residence)
In 1906 he sold his ranch there and went to Santa Clara, where he
lived for one and a helf years, later going to Pacific Grove, where he
spent an equal period. He became a resident of San Jose in 1910 and has
since lived retired in this city, having accumulated a
competence through the capable mangement of his ranching interests.
On July 30, 1884, at Irvington, Mr. Valpey was married to Miss Margaret
Leeds, a native of Mount Pulaski, Ill., and a daughter of Timothy and
Mary Ann (Latham) Leeds, both of whom died when she was but three years
old; she was reared by her grandparents, Richard and Margaret Latham of
Springfield, Ill.; her grandfather Latham was a close friend of
President Lincoln. Mrs. Valpey attended the grammar and high schools of
Springfield, Ill., and in 1879 came to California in company with her
uncle and aunt, Rev. and Mrs. J. H. McCollough, the former a minister
of the Christian Church. They settled in San Francisco, thence going to
Irvington where he was president of Washington College, later known as
Anderson Academy, and she had charge of one of the departments. Mrs.
Henry Curtner and Mrs. McCollough, both of San Jose, are her aunts. She
has one brother, Timothy Leeds of Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Valpey
have become the parents of six children; Henrietta, now the wife of
Clarence Homan, of Aromas, Cal.; Frank Dunn, who died when fourteen
years of age; Elizabeth, the wife of Luther Quentel, a prominent
building contractor of San Jose; Lucy at home; Horatio Calvin, who met
death by drowning in November, 1913; and Rebecca Ruth, who married
Russell Henwood of Porterville, Cal. They have one grandson, Harold
Quentel.
Mr. and Mrs. Valpey are allied with the Prohibition cause and are
stanch republicans. He has ever been deeply interested in the cause of
education and while residing at Warm Springs served for seventeen years
as clerk of the school board, making a high record in that connection.
The family are members of the Christian Church of San Jose and endeavor
to follow
its teachings. Mr. Valpey's life has been an upright and honorable one
in all respects, crowned with successful achievement.
Transcribed by Marie Clayton, from Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California, published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 450 SANTA CLARA PIONEER BIOGRAPHIES