San Diego County Biographies
 
LEONARD L. LYNCH

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


was born at Harrington, Washington County, Maine, September 27, 1828; his 
parents were natives of New England. The family consisted of four children, only 
two of whom survive. The educational facilities of the time and place being 
limited the subject of this sketch was only permitted those of the common 
school. At the early age of thirteen years he went on board ship as a common 
seaman, coasting between New York and other eastern ports. He followed this 
business several years; also spent one season on the fishing banks at Labrador. 
About 1845 he sailed from Boston to the Mediterranean Sea, on the bark Elvira, 
Captain Gorham, of Cape Cod, in command. He took over an assorted cargo to 
Malta, and then sailed to Palermo, Sicily, and brought back a cargo of fruit. In 
1846 and 1847, he went out as first mate of the Clarissa, a square-rigged brig 
from Rockland, Maine, to Wilmington, North Carolina, then took a cargo of naval 
stores to New Orleans, during the Mexican war. He was there taken sick and left 
the vessel. On recovering he sailed as mate on the brig Lawrence for Havana, 
then to Sisal, Laguna and Tabasco, taking a cargo of logwood and mahogany back 
to Havana, where the vessel was sold for a slaver and was sent to the coast of 
Africa. Mr. Lynch returned to New York in the spring of 1848, and made a voyage 
to Jacksonville, Florida, and the West Indies, and in the fall sailed on the 
Gen. Lincoln, and was wrecked on the Duck Ledges near Rockland, Maine. The 
vessel went to pieces, they all got on the ledge from head of main top gallant 
mast but two, who were frozen before they could be taken off. They were exposed 
sixteen hours, midst terrible suffering. Mr. Lynch there lost all his charts, 
maps and instruments, of which he had a very valuable assortment, and was 
perfectly capable of taking all reckonings and observations, having sailed as 
master out of Newburyport, Massachusetts. After several voyages to the West 
Indies, September 5, 1849, he sailed before the mast for California, many of the 
crew being mates and captains. It enabled them to reach California during the 
year of the great gold excitement. They were on the ship Albatross, of Boston, 
and made but one stop, at Valparaiso for water. They carried an assorted cargo 
and forty passengers, and were 180 days on the voyage, arriving at San Francisco 
February, 1850. In the summer of that year he ran a steamboat on the Sacramento 
river, and in the fall went to Rhodes' diggings near Folsom, Sacramento County, 
and there opened a grocery store and did some mining at Negro Bar, now Folsom. 
He remained until 1853, when he returned to Sacramento and built the Union 
Hotel, paying $300 per 1,000 feet for green lumber. He continued in this hotel 
until the fall of 1858, when he sold out and went East, going and returning by 
the Isthmus of Panama. He was absent sixteen months, visiting his family and 
friends in Maine. He returned in the fail of 1859, arriving in the spring of 
1860. He went to Sacramento and again opened a hotel called the Philadelphia 
House, in which he continued about twelve years, selling out in 1873. In 1875 he 
came to San Diego, and took up a ranch of 160 acres at Poway, and began 
honey-bee culture, which he still carries on with good success, also cultivating 
his ranch. He has a fine orchard of six acres, set out with a variety of fruits, 
and fifteen acres of raisin grapes, all bearing, and has several horses and a 
large number of fowls.
        Mr. Lynch has never married. By integrity, economy and strict attention 
to business, he has lived a life filled with incident and marked with success, 
and though at the age of sixty-one years is still active, alert, and conditioned 
to enjoy many years of usefulness.
 
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.-  149-150