Santa Barbara County Biographies

ROBERT CARR

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

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


ROBERT CARR, a rancher, and one of the early settlers of Lompoc Valley, was born 
in Lancashire, England, January 1, 1833. His father was connected with railroad work,
and was killed on the Liverpool Railroad, while in service. Robert entered the English 
army in 1855, when England, France and Turkey were allied against Russia, and they 
were in the first attack on Sebastopol, on June 18, 1855, and remained until alter the 
first surrender, after a siege of eleven months. He then came with his regiment to 
Kingston, Canada West, where they were stationed one winter. In September, 1857, 
he was discharged, and he came to the United States, settling in Jefferson County, 
New York, where he remained two years, working on a farm. In the fall of 1859 he left 
for California, by water and the Isthmus of Panama, arriving in San Francisco January 
9, 1860. He worked on a farm in Alameda County until 1864, and then rented one year. 
In 1864 he bought a ranch of 320 acres in the Livermore Valley, where lie raised wheat 
and barley; he remained until 1875, when he sold out and came to Lompoc. Mr. Carr 
then bought eighty acres in the northwest part of the town, which was covered with 
brush and timber, but he has since cleared it and now plants thirty acres each to beans 
and mustard. He has built a house and farm buildings, and has five acres in a variety of 
fruits. 

Mr. Carr was married in Jefferson County, New York, in May, 1859, to Miss Martha 
Rawley, a native of Long Island, Canada. Mr. Carr keeps six horses, and breeds for 
carriage purposes from a fine Bashaw mare. 

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.