San Luis Obispo County Biographies

J. J. SIMMLER

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

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


J. J. SIMMLER, of San Luis Obispo, was born in the city of Mulhaus, in the Province of Alsace 
(now a portion of Germany), July 18, 1826. At that time Charles X was king of France, and 
this province was an important department of that kingdom. His father, George Simmler, 
a pupil of the celebrated Pestalozzi, the great educator, was a professor of thirty-one years' 
standing in the college of Mulhaus. He was born and reared in humble circumstances and 
educated himself. He died at the age of seventy-eight years, in France. He had three sons 
and two daughters. The sons emigrated to America, the second one coming in 1835 and 
settling as a pioneer in Texas. He was a professional pianist and piano manufacturer in the 
old country. Being an intimate friend of General Sam Houston, he entered public life and 
lived until 1881, having three sons and three daughters. Mr. Simmler, the subject of this 
sketch, received a first-class education in the old country, and learned the trade of painting, 
traveling two years in the completion of his apprenticeship. He came to this country in 
1847, then a young man of 21 years, just after the close of the Mexican war, and resided 
at Houston, Texas, untill852, following his trade. During that year his love for travel induced 
him to come to California. He was several months on the way, some of the time in the 
Republic of Mexico, and two months he was on the ocean, where his sufferings were so 
great as to cause him to land when the vessel struck shore near Port Harford. The story of 
his coming is somewhat thrilling. He shipped from Mazatlan, on the bark Holloway, and the 
vessel being for sixty days lost on the ocean the sailors and passengers fell short of rations. 
At length they saw land, which proved to be Point San Simeon, at which they landed. About 
seventy passengers debarked, all of whom except Mr. Simmler hastened off to the mines. 
He became employed as cook for an American physician named Clements, who was 
afterward killed by a California lion while out hunting about five miles from the town of San 
Luis Obispo. Afterward Mr. Simmler engaged in painting for Captain John Wilson, an 
Englishman then at the Los Osos Ranch, now the property of L. M. Warden. Captain Wilson 
was a diamond in the rough, a good man; was step-father of ex-Governor Pacheco. After 
working for Captain Wilson a year Mr. Simmler began farming on John '^Price's ranch, and 
in this enterprise lost all his accumulations. Next he kept a hotel, the first in San Luis Obispo, 
near the old Mission where Weaver's undertaking establishment now is, on the corner of 
Choro and Monterey streets. Subsequently he removed with his partner to the St. Charles, 
on Monterey street near the Blackman Block, in Mrs. Sauer's building, now a tin-shop. 

From the time he entered the hotel business near the old Mission, in 1856, he held the office 
of Justice of the Peace until 1858, when he resigned in order to join the Vigilance Committee. 
This body was disorganized six months afterward, and Mr. Simmler began work again for 
Captain Wilson, and was in his employ several months, pursuing meanwhile his trade as painter 
until Aprils 1859. At this time he married for his present wife Mrs. Rosa Butron de Canet, a 
native Californian whose husband was a Spaniard. Mr. Simmler was Justice of the Peace at 
intervals for ten years; also Deputy Sheriff and Deputy Assessor four years; one of the first 
Town Trustees; School Trustee for a number of years; first Police Judge under the first 
corporation and Postmaster about twenty years. Of course, during a portion of this period 
lie held two or three of these offices at the same time. He was an efficient and popular officer, 
and although he was the choice of 700 citizens for re-appointment as Postmaster, he was not 
re-commissioned under the administration of Benjamin Harrison. At present he is book-keeper 
and manager for Louis Marre. 

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.