Santa Cruz County Biographies

LUCIUS DAVID HOLBROOK

Submitted by Kathy Sedler

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

 
        L. D. Holbrook is a member of the bar of this county, and a resident of 
Watsonville, where he has lived since 1859. He was born in St. Lawrence County, 
New York, February 13, 1832, being the youngest of a family of twelve children. 
His father died when he was two and a half years old, and when eleven years old 
he moved with his mother to Wisconsin. He attended the Carthage Academy in that 
State, and, later, the Watertown Institute, teaching a part of the year to 
defray the expenses of his tuition during the balance of the year.
        He came to California via Nicaragua, arriving in San Francisco April 16, 
1854. While in Wisconsin he had learned the carpenter's trade, and devoted 
himself to this kind of work when he first arrived here. The same year of his 
arrival he went to Oregon to the alleged Coquille mines, but returned in the 
fall, having accomplished nothing. He spent three months mining in the Oregon 
beach sands, and cleaned up $12.50 as the result of his labors, but, 
providentially, sold out the day before a strong Sou'wester flooded the beach, 
and made mining impracticable for the balance of the season. He returned to 
California and engaged in carpentering, assisting in the construction of the 
insane asylum at Stockton. He went to Placer County, and worked at his trade and 
mining until 1859, residing in Todd's Valley. In this year a fire destroyed his 
possessions, and he came to Santa Cruz County. He built the house where John 
Grimer now lives, and taught school in it for a number of years, for $100 per 
month, taking what public money there was, and getting the balance of his salary 
from his patrons. In 1865 he was elected justice of the peace, which office he 
held continuously until 1882, when he was admitted to the bar, and has been 
engaged in the practice of law ever since. He has held the appointment of notary 
public ever since 1872, devoting himself principally to probate and divorce 
business. Mr. Holbrook was married, May 30, 1858, to Mary Headley, of Todd's 
Valley, Placer County. He has one child, Mrs. Mary Graham, who has two children.
 
HISTORY OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.-  E. S. Harrison, 
Pacific Press Publ. Co., San Francisco, 1891