Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
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J.  DE BARTH SHORB, 
 
President and general manager of the San Gabriel Wine Company, was born April 4, 
1842, in Frederick County, Maryland, a son of Dr. James A. Shorb, who also was a 
native of that State; and the grandfather of De Barth, also a native of that 
State, died in Pennsylvania, at the age of 104 years! Mr. Shorb's 
great-grandfather
came from Alsace, France, to this country, and became a large land owner in 
Maryland, North Carolina, Delaware and Pennsylvania, settling in the latter 
State, near Hanover. Mr. Shorb's mother, also a Marylander, was of a 
Scotch-Irish family, being the daughter of Captain Felix McMeal, whose name 
appears in the first directory published in Baltimore City. He was one of the 
very first officers in the merchant marine service, which antedates the American 
navy; he died during the '60s. Dr. Shorb, our subject's father, was also the 
owner of a large amount of real estate, a part of which was the well-known San 
Marino plantation. Mr. Shorb graduated in 1859, at the old classical college of 
Mount St. Mary's, at Emmettsburg, Maryland, where also Cardinals McClosky and 
Gibbons and Archbishops Hughes and Bailey, of New York, and Kendrick and 
Carroll, and others, most of whom are eminent divines in the Catholic Church 
graduated. After graduation Mr. Shorb commenced the study of law in the office 
of W. W. Dallas, nephew of George M. Dallas, Vice-President of the United 
States, 1845�'49. Upon the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion, Mr. Shorb 
came to California as assistant superintendent of the Philadelphia and 
California Oil Company, of which the late Thomas A. Scott, of Pennsylvania 
railroad fame, was president. In 1867 he purchased the tenure of the Temescal 
grant and began mining operations; and the same year he married the daughter of 
Don Benito Wilson, one of the best known men in Southern California, and at his 
request he entered the wine and grape business, as a member of the San Gabriel 
Wine Company, who now own 10,000 acres, and cultivate 1,300 acres of the best 
varieties of grapes; indeed the vineyard, both in respect to quality of vines 
and equipment, is said to be the best in the world, by such judges as Henry 
Grosjean, who was here as the French Commissioner of Agriculture, and who is a 
member of the Institute Agronomique. The product of this vineyard bears the 
highest reputation in the Eastern markets. The winery comprises a ferment room 
120 x 260 feet in dimensions, and two stories high, with a capacity of 900,000 
gallons; actual fermenting capacity of upper and lower floors, 2,640,000 
gallons. The storing cellars are in a two-story brick structure 147 x 217 feet. 
The distillery, 43 x 46 feet, attached to the building, has a large Sherry room 
with a capacity of 200,000 gallons annually, with a portion partitioned off for 
bonded warehouse. The buildings are so situated, arranged and equipped with the 
most approved and complete machinery that the work is all done at the lowest 
minimum of expense from the moment the grapes are received in the fermenting 
room until the wine is ready for shipment. A track half a mile in length 
connects the building with the Southern Pacific Railroad at Shorb's Station, 
thus placing the wines immediately upon one of the greatest thoroughfares in the 
Union, and at a point also that is only twenty-two miles from a seaport. 
Shipments are made to all parts of the world. The company have also within their 
enclosure 1,100 orange trees of the Washington Navel variety, and they have 
apple and pear orchards, on a large scale, all furnished with the finest water 
system to be found in California. These great enterprises�many in one�were 
brought to their present state of perfection by Mr. Shorb, the president and 
general manager. He has given to these matters twenty years of study; is 
identified with all the leading agricultural enterprises in the State. He is 
commissioner for the State at large of the State Viticultural Commission. He was 
the first president of the San Gabriel Valley Railroad, of the Pasadena & 
Alhambra Railroad, and former president of the Chamber of Commerce and several 
other corporate enterprises. He is one of the best-known and most 
public-spirited citizens on the Pacific Coast. Mr. and Mrs. Shorb have nine 
children, five sons and four daughters.
 
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California �  Chicago, The Lewis 
Publishing Company, 1889   Page 813
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler