California Biographies Mendocino and Lake Counties, California Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm Source: History of Mendocino and Lake Counties, California With Biographical Sketches History by Aurelius O. Carpenter And Percy H. Millberry Illustrated, Complete In One Volume Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1914 DAVID BRANDON.� From the age of eighteen years Mr. Brandon has made his home in California. Prior to that he made his home in Lennox county, Ontario, Canada, where he was born in the town of Napanee, Decem- ber 15, 1856, the son of Matthew and Rose A. (Close) Brandon, both natives of Canada, where they carried on farming. David Brandon received a good education in the public schools of his native place. Upon coming to California in 1875 he found employment in Contra Costa county, but six months later he went to Cherokee, Butte county, where for six years he was employed in lumber camps. During the spring of 1881 he came to Mendocino county and settled at Ukiah, from which point as headquarters he entered the employ of the Mendocino Flume and Mining Company. While working for that concern he had charge of the erection of the large flume in the valley and superintended at Leonard's lake the building of trestle work one hundred and forty-nine feet above ground. The spring of 1882 found him at a logging camp near Westport on the coast, where he remained for four years. As an employe of the Noyo Lumber Company he worked at Noyo superintending the manu- facture of ties, and then came to Fort Bragg, where now he has a comfort- able home on Fir street. In 1889 he started to take contracts to furnish rail- road ties on his own account. The entire work was under personal super- vision, the selection of the timber, hewing of the trees, shaping of the logs and every detail of construction work up to the turning over of the material to the railroad company. He is still engaged in contracting to get out ties, and has contracts for seventy-five thousand ties thus far in 1914. In less than a year and a half, some years ago, he got out six hundred thousand ties. He owned twenty-four acres on Brandon Hill which he laid out into resi- dence lots, himself building a splendid residence as a pattern, and the addition is today the finest residence portion of the city. It might be expected of one so enterprising in road work, so keen in understanding the needs of good highways, so aggressive in his determina- tion to secure first-class transportation for vehicles of every kind, that his service as supervisor would be helpful to that branch of county development, and such we find to be the case with Air. Brandon, who served as supervisor from the fourth district during four years, 1908-12. Through his efforts the roads in the district were improved, and numerous bridges built. If the difficulties under which he had to work and the limited amount of money at his disposal for road purposes are taken into consideration there is, perhaps, no feature of Mendocino county more strikingly characteristic of its mountain roads than the stretches of highway such as may be found in the portion of the county surrounding Fort Bragg. The efforts of Mr. Brandon changed the entire character of the highways and have made them an important part in the development of the county. While the coming of a railroad to this section will be most important, it is to be questioned if such an enterprise will be of greater community value than has been the careful extension of the highways. Such a worthy work entitles Mr. Brandon to be numbered among the most progressive and helpful citizens of his district and in other ways also he has promoted the community well-being. In politics he has not been active, his efforts for civic upbuilding being made as a private citizen and not as a politician. By his marriage to Mary Dougherty, a native of Mendocino county, he has one son, Leo, now employed as a teller in the Commercial Bank of Fort Bragg, in which Mr. Brandon himself is interested as vice-president and a director, having been one of its organizers.