Santa Barbara County Biographies FAYETTE BENNETT Submitted by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm FAYETTE BENNETT, a rancher near Lompoc, was born in Seneca County, Ohio, in 1830, and lived with his parents, who carried on farming and stock-raising until 1852, when he started for California, going first to New York, and from there by steamer to the Isthmus of Panama. He landed in San Francisco, May 1, 1852, and went to the mines at Hangtown, now Placerville, and was engaged in mining for thirteen years, being engaged all through the mining district and in every kind of mining. He passed through the usual vicissitudes of this life with the usual success, often gaining a pound of gold per day; but the heavy expenses and losses were often very great. In 1867 he gave up raining and began lumbering in the redwoods in Santa Clara County, and also carried on general farming until 1873, when he secured a contract from a pa- per manufactory at Saratoga, Santa Clara County, and for four years he had charge of their bleaching apartment. In 1877 he went to Fresno County, where he took up a Gov- ernment claim and engaged in the sheep industry, keeping about 500 head, and which he continued very successfully until 1880, when he came to Lompoc. He then bought eighty acres northwest of town, covered with brush and timber; he has since cleared forty acres, where he has established a comfortable home, and carries on general fanning, making beans and mustard the principal crop, with barley sufficient for feeding purposes. He keeps twenty head of cattle and ten head of horses, breeding from a fine grade of mares, and securing some rare colts. Mr. Bennett was married in Santa Clara in 1868 , to Miss Malinda Orr, a native of Ohio, and they have three children. History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California - by C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II. -Lewis Publ. Co., Chicago, 1917.