San Diego County Biographies

JOSEPH A. FLINT

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


a prominent business man of San Diego, was born at quarantine, in the harbor of 
New York, August 20,1840, of English parents, who were emigrating to the free 
land of America. His father was a shoemaker and manufacturer and settled at 
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where he acted as foreman in a large manufacturing 
establishment and where they remained until 1852. They then started for the 
Golden State of California, taking steamer at New York and coming by the 
Nicaragua route. Their trip was without special interest until they boarded the 
steamship North America on the Pacific at San Juan. This was an opposition boat, 
and the captain, as he afterward confessed, beached her on the coast eighty 
miles south of Acapulco, for which he received $5,000 from the opposition line. 
The passengers, 1,000 in number, landed without loss of life, but the steamer 
was a wreck. They then traveled to Acapulco on foot and on mules, a four days 
journey through a wild rugged country infested by robbers and desperadoes. At 
Acapulco they took steamer and arrived at San Francisco, April 10, 1852. Joseph, 
then twelve years old, went with his parents to Sacramento, and thence to Bear 
river, and settled at Rough and Ready, Nevada County, where they worked eight 
years at mining, and though Joseph was young he was very successful. In 1860 he 
went to Iowa Hill, Placer County, and worked under ground for three years, going 
in as a common hand, but was soon advanced and later had charge of a claim. In 
December, 1861, he went to Smartsville, Yuba County, and there remained twenty 
years at hydraulic mining, entering as agent, and the last four years was 
superintendent of the Excelsior Water and Mining Company. They did much heavy 
blasting, and the heaviest blast ever tried in the State he set off by 
electricity, using about 50,000 pounds of powder under a heavy bank of earth. On 
a forty-five days run the company took out $105,000 in gold.
        From 1876 to 1879 he was a member of the board of supervisors for Yuba 
County. In June, 1884, he came to San Diego as secretary, treasurer and manager 
of the San Diego Water Company, which position he still holds. This company was 
organized in 1873, with a capital of $90,000; H. M. Covert, president. They 
piped San Diego City, drawing the supply from the bed of the San Diego river. In 
1876 Jacob Gruendike was elected president. In 1887 the San Diego Water Company 
and the San Diego and Coronado Water Company merged with a capital of 
$1,000,000, with E. S. Babcock, Jr., as president. In 1889 the majority of stock 
was sold to an English syndicate and the company is now known as the San Diego 
Water Company, Mr. Babcock still acting as president. The directors are: E. S. 
Babcock, Jr., Captain B. Scott, manager of the International Company; G. H. 
Puterbaugh, judge of the superior court; W. W. Whitney, director of the First 
National Bank; J. H. Barbour, cashier Cousolidated National Bank; Joseph A. 
Flint, secretary and treasurer.
        Mr. Flint was married at Smartsville, Yuba Couuty, California, December 
16, 1869, to Miss Sarah A. Taylor, a native of New Hampshire. They have three 
children, of whom only two daughters survive, Alice May, born in 1870, and 
Gertrude Durose, born in 1873. Both are at home and attending school in San 
Diego. Under the new charter Mr. Flint was elected a member of the board of 
education in 1889. On February 19, 1890, he was appointed receiver of the street 
car company of this city. His residence is at 126 Grand avenue, Reed and 
Hubbell's Addition.
 
SOURCE:  An Illustrated History of Southern California:  Embracing the Counties 
of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California� Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890.  p.-  124-125
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
 



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