Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

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


ALBERT H. JUDSON 
 
was born in Portland, Chautauqua County, New York, on the 21st of September, 
1838. He received a common-school education in his native town, and attended the 
Fredonia Academy several terms; taught school, and afterward followed civil 
engineering for a time; then studied law, attended one term at the Albany Law 
School, and was admitted to the Superior Court of his native State in 1860. He 
commenced the practice of law in Fredonia, New York, in 1861, and in 1871 
removed to San Leandro, California, where he remained, practicing law and 
editing the Alameda County Gazette, until May, 1873, when he went to Los 
Angeles, California, opening a law office and starting the first abstract office 
ever opened in Los Angeles. The abstract branch of his business grew rapidly, 
and was carried on successively by Judson & Fleming, Judson & Gillette, Judson, 
Gillette & Smith and Judson, Gillette & Gibson, and at present is known as the 
Abstract and Title Insurance Company, a corporation, the largest institution of 
the kind in the State. Mr. Judson sold out his interest in the abstract firm in 
1884, but remained as counsel for the firm until 1886, when he retired from his 
law practice and removed to Highland Home, in San Gorgonio Valley, on account of 
the failing health of one of his children. He has recently returned to Los 
Angeles. Mr. Judson has always been an Independent Republican in politics. He 
has not sought office, but reluctantly consented on two occasions to permit 
himself to be nominated, once for superior judge and once for city attorney, but 
on both occasions was defeated, with the most of the ticket, his party being 
both times largely in the minority. As a lawyer, Mr. Judson has occupied an 
honorable position at the bar, and enjoyed a lucrative practice, and is esteemed 
one of the best real-estate and title lawyers in Southern California. He has 
bought and sold largely of real property in this and adjoining counties, and was 
very successful. He has the confidence and respect of the community in which he 
lives. He belongs to no church, has no love for creeds, but believes in 
Christianity in its broadest and best sense; and while he has contributed 
liberally toward the building of half a dozen or more churches in Los Angeles, 
his sympathies are with the church of the Unity and liberal religion. Mr. Judson 
was married in 1876 to Sarah A. Fairman, of Elmira, New York, by whom he has 
seven children, five sons and two daughters, four of whom�all sons�still 
survive.
 
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California �  Chicago, The Lewis 
Publishing Company, 1889   Page 522
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler