Alameda County Biographies

HON. R. A. REDMAN

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

Flavius Josephus, the ancient Jewish Historian, says, in speaking of the 
creation of man (Book I., chap. I), that �Adam, in the Hebrew tongue, signifies 
one that is red, and the first man being made of red earth was therefore called 
Adam.�  Messrs. Nott & Glydon, in their �Types of Mankind� (page 573), admit 
that the word, AD aM, consists of two words, which, when applied to man, signify 
red man.  The subject of this sketch, therefore may justly claim to be a direct 
lineal descendant of the �first family� of Eden.  His American ancestry, 
however, dates back to the times of Lord Baltimore, in the early settlement of 
Maryland.  Dr. Joshua Winn Redman, the father, was born near the City of 
Baltimore, and was graduated in medicine, at Transylvania University, Lexington, 
Kentucky, in 1821, when he married Miss Jane Redman, a distant relative, and 
connected with the Breckenridges of Kentucky.  About this time that portion of 
Missouri which had been ceded to the United States from Spain, as part of the 
Louisiana purchase, was attracting much attention, and Dr. Redman, with his 
young bride, removed to St. Louis, and thence to the border town of Franklin, in 
the county of Howard, on the Missouri River, where he afterwards became 
distinguished as a physician, a man of fine military attainments, and for many 
years a leading Democrat, representing his county in the State Legislature, he 
was regarded as a man of unusual ability, an able debater, and of great personal 
courage.  After abandoning the practice of medicine, which he had followed for 
twenty years, he took up that of the law, having also studied that profession in 
his younger days.  It was said of him not long since, in a Missouri paper, that 
he was at one and the same time, a Colonel, a Doctor, a Lawyer, a Notary Public, 
a Justice of the Peace, and a Postmaster.  He was afterwards a 
Brigadier-General, and commanded a brigade on the field at the time of the 
�Mormon difficulties� in Missouri.  He was likewise the first County Judge of 
Santa Clara, in this State, having been elected to that office in 1850, for the 
term of four years, and died in Santa Clara in 1857, having amassed a 
considerable fortune.  The town of �Old Franklin� was located on the north bank 
of the raging and ever-changing Missouri River, surrounded by dense forests, 
filled with wild and savage Indians, and was the semi-annual rendezvous for 
Santa Fe traders, mountain trappers, speculators, etc.  It was at this place 
that Rezin Augustus Redman was born, January 8, 1829, and where he spent his 
early boyhood, much of the time being wasted in fishing, hunting, etc., having 
lost his mother at the age of eight years.  He then became an inmate of the 
family of his uncle, the Rev. Wm. W. Redman, then residing in St. Louis, for the 
purpose of receiving an education.  After a residence of two years in St. Louis, 
he went to the Academy of Clinton, Missouri, the principal being his cousin, A. 
C. Redman.  Whilst here at school the discovery of gold in California became a 
fixed fact, and Dr. Redman sent immediately for his son to go with him to the 
golden shores of the Pacific, and together they set out for the journey across 
the plains, in May, 1849, reaching the headwaters of the North Fork of the 
American River, in the Sierra Nevada, on pack-mules, having left the teams to 
follow, on the 1st of August, 1849, when they went to work mining, with 
wash-bowl, knife, and spoon, and continued this quite successfully for three 
months; thence they went to Sacramento, and remaining a few weeks there, 
proceeded to San Francisco.  About this time the first Legislature met at San 
Jose, to which place they made up their minds to go and spend the winter.  As 
they sailed out from San Francisco, in a small whale-boat, for San Jose, and 
looking towards the east across the bay, towards where Oakland and her suburbs 
now stand, with their fifty thousand inhabitants, there was not a single hut nor 
a sign of human habitation to be seen, so far as the eye could reach.  Dr. 
Redman immediately entered upon the practice of the Spanish law at San Jose � 
the son doing at the time clerical services in the office, at the same time 
studying Spanish law, and trying to fathom the mysteries of old Spanish 
documents � until, as has been seen, Dr. Redman was elected County Judge; R. A. 
Redman was then appointed Deputy County Treasurer under the �old pioneer,� John 
M. Murphy, Esquire.  In December of 1850, our subject concluded to return East 
to complete his education, and then come back to San Jose.  Taking leave of his 
father, he proceeded to Mexico; thence to New Granada; thence to Havana, Cuba, 
where he spent the winter; returning to Franklin, via New Orleans, in 1851, 
where he entered into the mercantile business as copartner in the firm of Powell 
& Redman, and afterwards as copartner in the mercantile house of A. Lory & Co.  
In 1852 this firm sold out, two of the partners coming to California, viz.:  A. 
Lory, now of El Dorado County; and C. E. Wilcoxon of Sutter, now a member of the 
State Board of Equalization; and Mr. Redman going to the University of 
Louisville, Kentucky, where he attended the sessions of 1852 and 1853.  At the 
close of the session of 1853, in March, Mr. Redman made a tour of the Atlantic 
States as far west as Council Bluffs, and east again into Canada; thence from 
New York to the West India Islands; and thence, via Panama, to San Francisco, at 
which place he arrived in July of that year.  A few months afterwards he entered 
the law office of Hoge & Wilson for the purpose of familiarizing himself with 
local practice.  In 1854 Mr. Redman was admitted to the bar of the Supreme 
Court, and in a short time opened an office in San Jose.  In 1858 he was elected 
to the State Senate for the Fourth District, which then comprised Alameda and 
Santa Clara Counties, his term of office expiring December 31, 1860, at which 
time he removed to San Francisco, and entered again upon the practice of law.  
Mr. Redman came to Oakland to reside in 1872, but kept his office �over in the 
city� until 1874, when he was appointed Court Commissioner by Judge S. B. McKee, 
which office he resigned in 1878, to accept that of County Judge of Alameda, to 
which he had been appointed by Governor Irwin, on the resignation of S. G. Nye.  
This office he held until by the New Constitution County Courts gave place to 
the Superior Courts, since which time Judge Redman has been engaged and still is 
in the practice of law.  He has not been out of the State for thirty years, 
except to the Pacific Coast States and Territories; and having made and spent a 
large amount of money in that time he may be truly said to have �seen the 
elephant,� and being blessed with a good memory and some literary attainments, 
doubtless could furnish interesting accounts of the changes which time has 
wrought.  Judge Redman ranks amongst lawyers of the first class, and stands well 
with his brethren of the bar.  This sketch would be very incomplete if the 
following were left out, viz.:  that he has known his wife ever since she was a 
child seven years old, and all that time in California, she also being a 
�forty-niner.�  They have eleven children.  He was married on the 2d day of 
January, 1860, in Santa Clara County, to Miss Bettie Bascom, daughter of the 
late Dr. Louis H. Bascom of San Jose, and niece of the distinguished American 
orator and divine, Bishop Henry B. Bascom of Kentucky.  Mrs. Redman is a native 
of that State, coming across the plains in 1849, with her father, at the age of 
seven years.  She was educated at the old �Bascom Institute,� in San Jose � a 
lady of superior natural talents, highly cultivated, and a devoted wife and 
mother.  In religious belief Judge Redman and wife are converts to the Roman 
Catholic Church.  An excellent and characteristic portrait of the Judge will be 
found in this volume.
 
History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 962-964