Santa Clara County Biographies


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



 
BENSON GRISWOLD, 
 
dealer in hardware, agricultural implements, wagons, buggies, etc., City Market 
Building, corner Market and El Dorado Streets, San Jose, was born in Troy, Miami
County, Ohio, in 1844. His parents were Daniel and Susan (Benson) Griswold. His 
mother having died in 1845, his father, in 1854, removed with the family
to Peru, Indiana, where the subject of this sketch attended the Normal School. 
He then removed to Minnesota, where, in 1863, he enlisted in the Second 
Minnesota Cavalry, Company F. This regiment was sent, under Generals Sully and 
Sibley, to the northwest territories, and was engaged until 1865 in subduing the 
Sioux Indians. One engagement, the battle of Yellowstone, in August, 1864, 
lasted three days, being a running fight, in which the Indians lost heavily. 
There were about 3,000 Indians in that fight, after which they broke up into 
small bands and kept up the war until the fall of 1865, when they were pretty 
well subdued, the country being patrolled up to that time by small bodies of our 
troops. The volunteer troops were mustered out in the fall of 1865, the regular 
troops taking their places. The next five years Mr. Griswold devoted to farming, 
after which he engaged in the lumber business at Glencoe, having lumber yards at 
Stewart, Brownton, and Bird Island, Minnesota. This business he continued until 
1881, when he removed to California, purchasing forty acres of the Quito Ranch, 
on the Los Gatos road, and setting it out to apricots and prunes. This place he 
sold in 1887, and purchased the beautiful ranch and home he now occupies, on the 
Stevens Creek road, two miles from San Jose, containing twenty-five acres. This 
is planted with 1,525 French prunes, 100 Oregon Silver prunes, 400 apricots, 140 
apples, 50 cherries, a variety of trees for family use, and 2,500 Muscat and 
Rose of Peru grapevines, the latter four years old, and in full bearing. The 
trees have been well cut back to make the limbs strong for bearing a full crop 
of fruit. In 1887 Mr. Griswold purchased the interest of A. S. Babcock, 
deceased, in the business of W. F. Babcock & Co., and in 1888 purchased the 
interest of his partner, and became sole owner.
        He was married, in 1866, to Miss Lucy Stocking, of Hutchinson, 
Minnesota, who died in 1872, leaving two children: Alta, now the wife of Louis 
W. Countryman, of Moorhead, Minnesota, and Edith, now attending the State Normal 
School at San Jose. In 1873 he was married to Miss Matilda J. Latta, of Roann, 
Indiana. They have one daughter, Orra, now attending school in San Jose. Mr. 
Griswold is a member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of San Jose; member 
of the Masonic order, and of John A. Dix Post, G.A.R., San Jose. He is a 
Republican, and believes in a tariff protection of American industries.
 
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, 
Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 
1888.
Pg. 533