Santa Cruz County Biographies

W. H. GALBRAITH

Submitted by Kathy Sedler

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

 
        The subject of this sketch is the representative from Santa Cruz County 
in the twenty-ninth California Legislature. He was born near St. Johnsbury, 
Vermont, February 5, 1849. He attended the district school until the age of 
thirteen, working during his spare time for his father, who was a manufacturer 
of woodenware. He prepared for college by attending St. Johnsbury Academy, 
walking six miles daily. He graduated with honors from Dartmouth College in the 
class of 1872, notwithstanding he lost six weeks every winter, which time was 
engaged in teaching to help defray the expenses of his tuition. After graduating 
he taught two years as principal of the St. Johnsbury High School, and later was 
deputy collector of internal revenue. He read law for a year, and came to 
California in the fall of 1876, following the profession of a teacher for twelve 
years subsequent. During this time he was principal of the Santa Cruz and 
Haywards High School and vice principal of the Oakland High School, holding the 
latter position for six years, teaching during that time Latin and Greek. He 
served as a member of the Board of Education while here and in Alameda County.
        In the meantime he had bought a ranch in Santa Cruz County, which he had 
been improving, and in 1888 he quit teaching and moved onto the farm. He is one 
of the founders and principal stockholders of the Santa Cruz Mountain Winery, 
established in 1887, and for the past year and a half has been its manager.
        Mr. Galbraith's farm consists of two hundred and fifty acres, six miles 
northeast of Santa Cruz, on a southern slope overlooking the bay and ocean. To 
say that this is the most picturesque place among all of its pretty 
surroundings, as nearly every orchard and vineyard of this section of Santa Cruz 
Mountains is a poem to the lover of the beautiful, is but to pay it a deserving 
compliment. He has twenty-five acres of wine and table grapes and twenty-five 
acres of orchard,�apricots, Bartlett pears, French prunes, oranges, lemons, 
Japanese persimmons, limes, figs, etc.
        In 1890 Mr. Galbraith was elected to represent this county in the 
Legislature. In this body he was soon recognized as one of its leading and 
ablest members. He was made chairman of the Educational Committee and served on 
the Committee of Ways and Means and Appropriations, and Public Printing. To him 
was delegated the conspicuous honor of nominating in joint convention the Hon. 
Charles N. Felton for United States senator.
        Mr. Galbraith is a man of fine appearance, tall and commanding, is 
elegant in discourse and argumentative in debate. He was married, May 28, 1879, 
to Miss Susie McL. Dexter, of New York.
 
HISTORY OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.-  E. S. Harrison, 
Pacific Press Publ. Co., San Francisco, 1891