Santa Cruz County Biographies

DR. PIERCE B. FAGEN

Submitted by Kathy Sedler

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


        Doctor Pierce B. Fagen was born November 22, 1818, in the town of New 
Lisbon, Columbiana County, Ohio. He received a college education in Cincinnati, 
and took his medical degree in the medical department of Kemper College, St. 
Louis, Missouri.
        Shortly after completing his studies he went to Iowa, and settled at 
Fort des Moines (as it was then called) a few days after the commanding officer, 
Captain Allen, had left it with his company to join the troops in the field in 
the Mexican War. That part of Iowa had just been thrown open to settlers, and 
they were flocking to it by hundreds.
        Doctor Fagen commenced practice there under very favorable 
circumstances, as there was no other physician nearer than the Indian agency 
three miles below and on the opposite side of the Des Moines River.
        Commissioners were soon afterwards appointed to locate the county seat 
of Polk County. They chose the grounds of the Fort des Moines, in the forks of 
the river known as Raccoon Forks. The man who had been appointed county surveyor 
had but little knowledge of surveying, and, after trying for three days to close 
his lines around a square plot of about a quarter section of land, he gave up 
the job. Someone referred him to Doctor Fagen as being able to solve the 
difficulty, and he employed the doctor to do the work. So Doctor Fagen laid out 
and platted the town as it is now�the original town.
        Shortly after this Doctor Fagen purchased eighty acres of land adjoining 
the town on the west side, and laid it out into town lots. Two years afterward 
he entered several quarter sections west and north of the town, much of which is 
at this time covered with improved city property.
        Doctor Fagen remained in Des Moines from 1846 to 1850, and then crossed 
the plains to California, arriving at Nevada City on August 28 of that year. He 
brought five men across the plains with him, who had agreed to give him one-half 
of what they cleared the first year. Of course his first thought was to get them 
to work in the mines as soon as possible. They prospected around for a few days, 
and then located claims and proceeded to work. The selection proved to have been 
a good one, and Doctor Fagen and his men took out considerable money in the next 
three months. His men, however, became dissatisfied, as each was anxious to work 
on his own account and use his own judgment. Consequently they separated, and 
each took his own course. Doctor Fagen  says he supposes the others are taking 
their own courses yet, for he has never seen or heard of any of them since.
        Doctor Fagen invested his share of the money already earned in flour or 
speculation. The first fire in Nevada City occurred at this time, and the 
doctor's flour went up in smoke, along with nearly all else in the city. 
        Shortly after the doctor located in Placer County, and was prominently 
identified  with the principal mining ditches of that county, where he resided 
some nineteen years. He afterward traveled through the Northwest, and then 
settled in Santa Cruz, where he has steadily held a leading position in the 
practice of his profession. Doctor Fagen is a Mason and an Odd Fellow, and has 
always been prominent as an intellectual and public-spirited man. He has been 
president and vice president of both the Santa Cruz county banks, and he is now 
a director in each. He owns much real property in this State and Washington. The 
doctor has been at different times coroner and public administrator of Santa 
Cruz, also one of the trustees of the public-schools for the past fourteen 
years, and the most of their efficiency is to his credit.
        Doctor Fagen was married at Des Moines, in 1849, to Miss Melissa Hoxie. 
His first wife died while he was in Placer County. He married for his second 
wife Mrs. Mary Jordan, of Santa Cruz, whose photograph also appears herein. 
Doctor Fagen's first wife bore him two sons, one of whom resides in Texas and 
the other in Santa Cruz, where he is assistant cashier of the Bank of Santa Cruz 
County.
 
HISTORY OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.-  E. S. Harrison, 
Pacific Press Publ. Co., San Francisco, 1891