San Luis Obispo County Biographies

ISAAC H. BUNCE

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

ISAAC H. BUNCE, a rancher of San Luis Obispo County, was born in Auburn, New 
York, December 24, 1831. On his father's farm he received his early training, and at the 
age of twenty -two he came to the golden center of the world's excitement, by the Panama 
route; but he had no luck whatever in his search for the shining nuggets, and he went 
to San Francisco and worked at his trade, carpentering, and a year afterward he began 
work on a saw-mill in Monterey County, the first mill of that kind in the county. He 
lived in Santa Cruz County for four years; and then, in the spring of 1858, he came to 
San Luis Obispo County, and worked at his trade at the county-seat for many years, being 
engaged in some of the most important structures of the city. He was for a time a member
of the firm of Bolaud & Bunce. In 1870 he settled upon his present ranch near the oil 
wells. It is known as a part of the Avila place, and consists of twenty acres. In 1868 
he met with a severe accident, falling from a building at Chorro, and he has not yet fully 
recovered from the effect. 

August 22, 1862, he married Miss Juanita Avila, a daughter of Don Miguel Avila, and 
has nine children: Eliza, Lydia (now Mrs. B. L. Smythe), Charles, Henry J., Alfred Lyman, 
Martha, John, Minnie and Isaac William. 

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.