San Diego County Biographies
                        
JOSEPH J. HENDERSON

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

 
        A leading member of the bar of San Diego and a life-long Republican is 
Joseph J. Henderson. He was born in Pike County, Missouri, July 19, 1843. His 
grandfather, James Henderson, was a native of Pennsylvania. He was a 
Presbyterian of Scotch-Irish descent, his forefathers having fled to Ireland to 
escape persecution in Scotland. Mr. Henderson's father, Rev. J. H. D. Henderson, 
was born in Kentucky and was a Presbyterian minister in Missouri, Pennsylvania 
and Oregon. He was one of those men of whom it was said " he was born an 
abolitionist," and had an intuitive sense of the great wrong of human slavery. 
When a boy in Kentucky he was often reprimanded for exulting over the escape of 
slaves. His dislike in later years for the institution on account of its baneful 
effects on society caused him to remove with his family from the South to 
Oregon, where he became a prominent Republican, being elected to the United 
States Congress from there. In Missouri he knew a smart young slave who had 
learned how to read, write and cypher, and preach to his brethren. He was 
arrested while preaching in Jefferson City, put in prison, and the authorities 
told his master that he would have to get rid of him as " he knew too much " and 
would be likely to teach their " niggers " things they should not know. It was 
decided to send him south and he was there put upon the market for sale. Buyers 
in want of slaves examined him and asked what he could do; he replied among 
other things: " I can teach your children to read and write; and if you should 
die I can preach your funeral sermon." 'Well, they did not want such a " nigger 
" as that. One slave-holder said to him: " I had a fellow like you, and I took 
him to the block and chopped the first finger off from his right hand and that 
stopped his writing." " But," said the slave, " I can write with either hand." 
The price asked for him was $800. He was finally brought back to St. Louis, 
where a gentleman told him if he would serve him faithfully he would buy him. He 
did so, and at the end of the first months' service gave him $40 and said: " If 
you serve me as well every month I will give you the same, and at the end of 
twenty months you will be a free man." After three months this master died and 
in the settlement of the estate he was again to be sold. He wrote to Mr. 
Henderson, in Pennsylvania, his misfortune, and money was soon raised to buy him 
and he was set at liberty. He went to work and afterward bought his wife. 
Another circumstance occurred, while Mr. Henderson was in the South, of which he 
spoke to his family. One of the members of his church was selling at auction 
some of his slaves, and among them was a woman put upon the block with her baby 
in her arms. The owner said to the auctioneer, " Sell the baby first." His wife, 
who stood near, interceded with him and urged him to sell the mother and child 
together, and with a good deal of reluctance he finally consented and they were 
sold together. Mr. Henderson said, " I lost all faith in the religion of the man 
who could he so heartless." Mr. J. J. Henderson's mother, Mary E. (Fisher) 
Henderson, was also a native of Kentucky, a daughter of Joseph Fisher. They were 
of German descent. She was born in 1820 and was married to Mr. Henderson in 
1839. The subject of this sketch was the second of a family of six children. He 
finished his law studies at the Albany Law School in 1870, and the same year 
began practice in Portland, Oregon. In the year 1873 he was appointed, by 
President Grant, United States Consul to Amoy, China. He remained in the 
consular service for five and one-half years, when he resigned to engage in the 
practice of law at Shanghae, China.  He was there about three years and after 
traveling in Europe awhile finally came to California and settled in Sonoma 
County, in 1880, where he bought and managed a vineyard. He came to San Diego in 
1886, where he invested in property and engaged in the practice of his 
profession.  He was married in 1871 to Miss Emma A. Woodruff of Albany, New 
York, daughter of Cyrus L. Woodruff. Mr. Henderson is a Thirty-second Degree 
Mason.
 
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.-  139-140