Santa Barbara County Biographies

CHARLES W. LARZELERE

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

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


CHARLES W. LARZELERE, a prominent citizen and rancher of Lompoc, was born at 
Seneca Falls, Seneca County, New York, in 1834. His father owned a canal-boat which 
ran from Buffalo to Albany, and also traded, having a grocery at Seneca Falls. His 
uncle, Abraham Larzelere, built the first four-story building in Buffalo. His father 
emigrated to Lenawee County, Michigan, in 1836, when the country was very wild 
and unsettled; he took up land and also traded with the settlers. The subject of this 
sketch remained at home until 1853, when he came to Salt Lake with Colonel Steptoe, 
who had command of 600 soldiers and 100 work-hands. They passed the winter in 
camp at Salt Lake, and in the spring of 1854 the Government took up a reservation, 
eight miles square, at Rush Valley, and built barracks for the accommodation of 
officers and men. In 1854 Mr. Larzelere came to California and engaged in mining in 
Nevada County for two years, then to Humboldt Bay and to Jacksonville, Oregon, 
where the  Government command was stationed during the Indian war of 1856. He 
remained at Jacksonville for five years, engaged in mining, farming and dairying. In 
1859 he went to Coos Bay, Oregon, bought 160 acres of land and farmed and 
lumbered until 1866, when he was married to Miss Clarinda Rowley, a native of Illinois. 
They -then came south and traveled through California and settled at Los Olivos, and 
with a friend took up 320 acres of land. After three years he traded his claim for a 
lumber- wagon, which is still In use. In 1870 he went to Santa Barbara and leased 175 
acres, near the present town of Goleta. He there carried on farming until 1877, when 
he moved to his present ranch, which he had purchased in 1876 to the amount of 384 
acres, 106 of which he has since sold. He started an apiary at Goleta in 1876, which he 
has since continued on his ranch at Lompoc and has about 350 stands, which average 
100 pounds to the stand; but he has taken as high as 200 pounds from one stand. He 
has four children living, all at home. 

History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California  - by 
C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II.  -Lewis Publ. Co., 
Chicago, 1917.