Santa Cruz County Biographies

LUTHER ALONZO DANIELS

Submitted by Kathy Sedler

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

 
        L. A. Daniels is one of the representative business men of Santa Cruz, 
who came here twenty-one years ago, investing $150 in the express business, 
represented by an express wagon and two Mustangs. This has grown into one of the 
leading businesses of Santa Cruz, with ten teams, fifteen employ�s, and the 
exclusive right of soliciting patronage upon all the railroad trains entering 
Santa Cruz, and the carrying of the mails to and from the trains. Mr. Daniels 
owns his barns, buildings, etc., necessary for economically conducting his 
business, some idea of the volume of which is best indicated by the monthly 
expense account, which is from one thousand to twelve hundred dollars.
        Mr. Daniels was born in Wheelock, Caledonia County, Vermont, November 
15, 1836. He was one of three boys in a family of nine children. His folks being 
poor, he was compelled at an early age not only to work for himself but to 
assist in the support of the family. When eleven years of age he worked on a 
farm at $6.00 per mouth. When fifteen years old he secured employment with E. & 
T. Fairbanks, the well-known manufacturers of scales, at St. Johnsbury, Vermont. 
He worked here fifteen years and became an expert in testing scales. He tested 
scales that were sent to the World's Fair in Europe. When twenty-one years of 
age his books showed that during the past ten years he had contributed $953 
toward the support of his family, besides learning a trade, obtaining the 
rudiments of an education, and supporting himself.
        In September, 1868, he left for San Francisco, going by steamer via the 
Isthmus. He first found employment with Hobson & Gilmore, manufacturers of boxes 
in San Francisco. In the spring of 1869 he was attacked with the White Pine 
mining fever, but when he arrived at Elko, Nevada, he met friends, who came to 
California with him, and with them went into the wood business in Nevada. He 
sold out and worked in the shop of the C. P. R. R., firing a locomotive on the 
C. P. when the junction was made with the U. P. In the spring of 1872 he left 
the railroad and returned to San Francisco, from which place he paid a visit to 
his friend, Norman Goss, in Santa Cruz. He was favorably impressed with the 
town, and bought Ford's Express business, which he has built up as above 
indicated.
        Mr. Daniels is a member of the I. O. O. F., Subordinate and Encampment 
Lodges, and the Knights of Pythias, being also a member of the Uniform Rank of 
the last-named order. He has never married, which I consider a fact worthy of 
note, as I cannot understand how so good-looking and prosperous a bachelor could 
have remained twenty years in Santa Cruz without receiving a wound from cupid's 
dart.
 
HISTORY OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.-  E. S. Harrison, 
Pacific Press Publ. Co., San Francisco, 1891