Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

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GRIFFITH DICKENSON COMPTON, 
 
the founder of the town of Compton, Los Angeles County, California, is a native 
of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, born August 22, 1820. His ancestors came from 
England. When in his twentieth year the subject of this sketch went to Hamilton 
County, Illinois, where he lived four years. While there he married a second 
cousin, Miss Compton, who was born the same day, month and year, with himself. A 
daughter born to them now lives in this city and is the wife of George Flood, 
who is also the brother of Mr. Compton's second wife, his first wife having died 
in 1852. Mr. Compton went to Des Moines, Iowa, in 1846. In 1849 he came to 
California across the plains, and settled at Woodbridge, Solano County, where he 
remained sixteen years. After that he went to Watsonville, and in the fall of 
1867 he came to Los Angeles on account of his own and his family's health. He, 
Mr. Morton and William Fowler each bought eighty acres of land at $5 an acre, in 
what was known as the Temple and Gibson tract, of the San Pedro Rancho, and 
started the settlement now known as Compton. Mr. Compton tells this remarkable 
story in connection with his early labors on this farm, which, as he has 
disposed of all his interests in that locality, cannot therefore be called a 
booming romance and is admissible here. All who are acquainted with Mr. Compton 
know him to be a man of strict veracity. He says that the great freshet of 1867 
and '68 flooded that whole country, enriching the land as the deltas of the Nile 
are enriched by the overflow of that mighty stream. After the land had dried 
off, late in the following spring, he planted two acres of potatoes, and from 
these two acres he realized $1,680 above all expenses, or $840 per acre! He says 
the ground, metaphorically speaking, was alive with potatoes. He sold them in 
Los Angeles, digging and delivering as wanted, mainly to two merchants, A. C. 
Chauvin and H. J. Yarrow, the former being still a resident of the city. He only 
received about $1.00 to $1.25 per sack. It was then believed that potatoes could 
not be profitably raised here, or if raised, that they would not keep; and at 
first he had great difficulty in getting any grocer to buy them or even to take 
any on trial. Previous to that time the Southern part of the State depended on 
Humboldt, Bodega and other northern counties for its potatoes. And so Mr. 
Compton demonstrated the wonderful capacity of Los Angeles County in this line, 
as did Messrs. Lankershim and Van Nuys, and Vignes and Wolfskill, and Wilson and 
Rowland, and others in other lines. Mr. Compton is only another example among 
many, showing that a poor man, with no capital but strong hands and a courageous 
heart, can conquer success in this fertile land, if he can anywhere in this wide 
world. Mr. Compton has latterly been engaged in developing the San Jacinto 
country; and he claims, which may or may not be disputed, that he has actively 
assisted in settling, satisfactorily to all parties interested, more families 
than any other one man in Southern California. Mr. Compton is one of the 
trustees of the endowment fund of the Southern California University and of the 
Agricultural College at Ontario. He resides near the University in Los Angeles.
 
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California �  Chicago, The Lewis 
Publishing Company, 1889   Page 715
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler