San Diego County Biographies
 
S. G. HAVERMALE

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


a man of great versatility, successful in both church and State, who now 
occupies the most beautiful residence in San Diego, corner of Seventh and Ash 
streets, was born October 15, 1824, in the obscure village of Sharpsburg, 
Maryland, now become the renowned battlefield of Antietam. His parents were 
natives of the same State.  He was second in a family of eight children, seven 
of whom are still living, one brother having been killed in that terrible 
railroad accident on the Wabash
railroad, near Chatsworth, Illinois, where lives were sacrificed to such a 
terrible degree. His father was a weaver by trade in youth, but in later years 
was devoted to the interests of farming. In 1833 he moved to Montgomery County, 
Ohio, where he purchased a small farm.  Here the subject of this sketch received 
his preliminary education, which was finished at the Rock River Seminary, at 
Mount Morris, Illinois, where he also studied for the ministry. He was educated 
in the Methodist faith, and began the active work of the ministry in 1852 in 
Northern Illinois, and for twenty-one years labored in that particular field, 
and, being a man of genial temperament and loving disposition, was beloved by 
all and was very successful in his ministry. In 1873 he was appointed Presiding 
Elder of a district in Washington Territory and Oregon, whither he had been 
transferred from Illinois, and moved his family to Spokane Falls, from which 
parish he traveled over his district, which covered an area of some 40,000 
square miles, and embraced a pastorate of twenty-five parishes. In 1879, at the 
age of fifty-five years, feeling that the hardships and exposures of travel were 
too great, he resigned his charge, after an active pastorate of twenty‑seven 
years, the last six being on the frontier, and exceedingly burdensome.
        In 1875 he took up, by pre-emption, the second Government claim of 160 
acres at Spokane Falls, there then being but two houses at the place. This land 
was subdivided and became the center of what is now a city of 22,000 
inhabitants, enterprising and progressive. Here, after retiring from the 
ministry, he built a flouring mill, which was the first full roller mill in the 
Territory, which he operated with great success for five years, selling out in 
1887, that he might seek a more temperate climate in southern California, coming 
direct to San Diego to enjoy the accumulations of his business prosperity in a 
balmy atmosphere and amidst continuous sunshine. He soon invested in improved 
property, and is now the owner of the Richelieu and Bon Ton blocks on D and 
Fifth streets, and completed the purchase in October, 1889, of the most 
beautiful residence in Southern California. Mr. Havermale has taken no active 
part in politics while in San Diego, but at Spokane Falls was president of the 
first city council, and continued a member thereof for many years.
        Mr. Havermale was married November 1, 1849, at Elizabeth, Jo Daviess 
County, Illinois, to Miss Elizabeth Goldthorp, a native of Illinois. They have 
three children, two of whom are residents of San Diego, California, and one 
resides at Spokane Falls, State of Washington.
        Mr. Havermale belongs to a family of marked longevity. His parents died 
at the ages of eighty-nine and ninety years, and were buried in the same grave.
 
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.-  117-118