Alameda County Biographies

Dr. Enoch Homer Pardee

Transcribed by Peggy Allen, April 20, 2006

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


  
            Enoch Homer Pardee, Mayor of Oakland, is a native of Rochester, N. 
Y., where he was born on the 1st day of April, 1829.  His father was French and 
his mother German.  His parents moved to Michigan when he was but seven years of 
age.  When fifteen years old he was seized with a disease of the eyes known as 
Egyptian ophtalmia.  After consulting the chief medical skill of the principal 
Eastern cities in vain, he was finally cured by a Dr. Bigelow, and obtained the 
secret of his treatment.  Then he entered Ann Arbor College, in Michigan, and 
took a regular course of lectures in medicine.  Came to California in 1849, in 
the steamer Panama, and landed in San Diego. Arrived in San Francisco on the 6th 
day of January, 1850.  Went to Marysville and turned auctioneer, receiving as 
payment an �ounce� a day.  Went to the mines and worked successfully, and on the 
fourth of July following had $7,000 on hand, the result of hard work and 
perseverance.  The breaking out of the cholera that year gave him abundant 
employment at his profession; but he caught the malignant infection and came 
near dying.  Soon got disgusted with life at the mines and returned to San 
Francisco, about February, 1851, with a capital of $12,000 to $15,000�a pretty 
good sum for the time spent in acquiring it.  The Doctor, after some doubt as to 
whether he should return East or remain in California, opened an office in 
Brenham Place, on the Plaza, where he continued to practice medicine and treat 
diseases of the eye, until burned out.  His next office was at 737 Clay street, 
where he continued to treat patients successfully for twenty years.  The writer 
has seen a returned Californian in the East, who declared to him that Dr. 
Pardee, of San Francisco, had restored his sight after two years� total 
blindness.  Ill health caused him after a time to confine his practice 
altogether to diseases of the eye and ear.  Patients flocked to him from all 
parts of the Pacific Coast, and he would frequently have from 80 to 140 patients 
a day visit his office.  Half of his patients, at times, would have to be 
treated gratuitously. 
          In 1865 De. Pardee returned to the States, and graduated at the Rush 
Medical College in Chicago,  having left his business in San Francisco in charge 
of a son of Dr. Bigelow.  After an absence of two years, he returned to San 
Francisco. 
          His first visit to Oakland was in 1852, where he hunted quail and 
rabbits, and was edified with the spectacle of bull and bear fights on Twelfth 
street.  Was attracted towards the place by the excellence of the climate and 
the beauty of the scenery, and would have settled in it long before he did, only 
for the difficulty offered to speedy transit by the bar at the mouth of the 
creek.  Finally, the Doctor did come over, in 1867, and has been a steadfast and 
Prominent Oaklander ever since, holding various public positions and offices of 
trust.  In 1869 he was elected to the City Council, and was re-elected in 1870, 
1871, 1872, and in 1876 was placed in the honorable position of Mayor of the 
city, by his fellow citizens. 
          The Doctor was always an ardent Republican in politics, having 
attended the very first meeting of that party organized in San Francisco.  In 
Oakland he was, from the first, a leading man in the councils of his party, and 
was elected to the Legislature as joint Assemblyman with Mr. Crane, in 1872, 
serving with credit to himself and satisfaction to his constituents.  There was 
no more popular member in the house to which he belonged; his genial manners and 
fund of anecdote, as well as his practical ability, having made him a general 
favorite.  Several important local measures were passed through his exertions, 
and he received an ovation from his fellow-citizens on his return home at the 
conclusion of his arduous legislative labors. 
          He has been a successful business as well as professional man.  Mining 
stocks had charms for him as well as others, and he has been generally 
successful in his ventures�as the phrase goes, �coming out ahead.�
          Dr. Pardee is distinguished as a marksman, having made shooting a 
hobby nearly all his life.  In 1866 he made his best score; he shot with Warren 
Land, at San Bruno Station, for $1,000�making, in one hundred successive shots, 
131 inches, from center of target to the bullseye�the best target known to the 
world.  The demand upon him for fac-similes of that target was so great that he 
had them lithographed, and they have been sent to all parts of the world.
          Dr. Pardee was married in 1855 to a young lady of his own name in San 
Francisco.  In 1857 his only son and child, now a fine young gentleman attending 
the State University, was born.  His wife died in 1870, and he had been since a 
widower.  There are few more elegant homes in Oakland than that of the Mayor, on 
the corner of Eleventh and Castro streets, where he dispenses hospitality to 
those friends whom he is happy to have about him.  He is yet a comparatively 
young man, and looks good for much future service. 
 
The Centennial Yearbook of Alameda County, California - Oakland, Calif., 1876 
Pages 538-540