San Luis Obispo County Biographies

C. P. FAULKNER

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

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

C. P. FAULKNER is a prominent landowner and horticulturist of San Luis Obispo County. 
His ranch is in the Ranchita Valley, three and a half miles east of San Miguel. He is a 
native of Guilford, Connecticut, born May 4, 1853. He was born in. the house where 
his father, "William Faulkner, and his grandfather, Charles Faulkner, were born. Faulkner 
Island took its name from this family. His mother, Mary Griswold (Stowe) Faulkner, was 
a native of New Haven, Connecticut; her father, Pittman Stowe, was born in Guilford, 
Connecticut, and their ancestors had been among the very earliest of America. Mr. 
Faulkner, our subject, was the only child by his father's second marriage, and was educated 
at Yale College, and completed his studies in pharmacy and chemistry at Philadelphia. His 
father was a pioneer of California, and in the year 1849 was one of the publishers of the 
Pacific News. He was an accomplished writer and business man. His editorials, at that 
early date, show a perfect estimate of what San Francisco was to be. His death occurred 
in 1882. Mr. C. P. Faulkner began the drug business in San Francisco, in 1873, on the corner 
of Mission and Fifth streets, where he has conducted a successful business continuously 
for fifteen years, with the exception that in the year 1876, being much impressed with the 
accounts given by Wells and Squiers in their works, of the richness of Honduras, Central 
America, in the precious metals and opals, he left his business and traveled for about a 
year in that country as a miner. Finding that, though the country was very rich, it was 
impossible to mine at a profit, he returned to his business in San Francisco. 

In 1884 he recovered from a severe attack of pneumonia, and to regain his health 
made a trip to San Luis Obispo County. He regained his health so rapidly, and was so 
delighted with the country that he called it God's footstool, and believed in the great 
future of the county. He selected 160 acres of beautiful land, commanding a fine view 
of the county, and filed a claim on it for a homestead, in 1885. It is located four and 
a half miles east of San Miguel, and they have built upon it a pleasant and cosy resi- 
dence. Mr. Faulkner, his wife and two sons reside on it, and take great pleasure in raising 
fruit, of which they have a large variety. The leading kinds are walnuts, chestnuts, pears, 
apples, peaches, apricots, prunes, nectarines, figs and cherries. They have a nice 
vineyard of many kinds of grapes. 

Mr. Faulkner was married in San Francisco, in 1872, to Miss Nellie McMorris, a 
native of Toronto, Canada, daughter of Robert McMorris, also of Canada. They have 
two sons, born in San Francisco; the oldest is now seventeen and measures six feet in 
height, and the youngest is nearly as tall. 

Mr. Faulkner is a Past Master of Excelsior Lodge, No. 166. Mrs. Faulkner is a member 
of Violet Chapter of the Eastern Star Lodge at San Miguel. They are refined and intel- 
ligent people, and their success in raising-fruit without irrigation show the fruit-pro- 
ducing value of the county. 

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.