San Luis Obispo County Biographies

DAVID LEWTY

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

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


DAVID LEWTY was born in England, in 1842, and at the age of thirteen years was apprenticed 
to John Bond, in the town of Preston, who kept a contract and general machine shop. There 
David learned the trade and remained seven years. He then went to Liverpool and worked in a 
marine shop, and then to Crewe, where in railroad shops and mills he remained until 1869; 
then emigrated to the United States and direct to California. He soon found employment in 
San Francisco with the Ben Holliday Steamship Company. In 1872 he went to Salinas, and for 
J. E. Preston ran his engine for his steam threshing-machine, continuing the work to Santa 
Maria, in 1873, when they threshed all through the valley; and out of threshing season he 
worked at his trade in the machine shop of Hart Bros, at Guadalupe, continuing up to 1877, 
when he spent one year in San Francisco, and in the fall of 1878 started his saloon at 
Guadalupe, selling out in 1881 to take a trip to England, and was away fourteen months. On 
returning to California in 1882 he opened business at Quincy, and in 1883 at San Luis Obispo, 
returning to Santa Maria in September, 1885 He owns town property and fifty-seven and 
one-half acres on Santa Maria mesa. He is a member of Guadalupe Lodge, No. 237, F. & A.M. 

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.