Alameda County Biographies

CHARLES LUTHER TRABERT

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

        The rapid rise of Charles Luther Trabert in the lumber business is a 
splendid example of the value of specialization in the modern commercial world, 
and it demonstrates also the importance of well-directed energy, resolution and 
ambition as factors in the attainment of success. Mr. Trabert has devoted his 
entire active life to the lumber industry and has been associated with the 
various C. A. Smith companies longer than any of his business associates or 
employes, rising from a humble position to be secretary of all of the great 
lumber corporations controlled by C. A. Smith. Mr. Trabert is not only a 
lumberman, but a forester also, having made a scientific study of forestry and 
having accomplished a great deal of constructive and important work along this 
line.
        He was born at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, April 30, 1871, and is a son of 
Rev. George H. Trabert, pastor of an English Lutheran congregation in that city. 
He is of Pennsylvania-Dutch stock and of a family descended from a line of 
German burgomasters which can be traced back to an ancestor who was a soldier 
under Gustavus Adolphus. The father of the subject of this review is still 
active in the ministry as pastor of the Salem English Lutheran church at 
Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has reached the age of seventy years.
        For more than forty years he has been a great individual force in the 
advancement of the Lutheran religion in this country and has accomplished a 
great deal of important work during that time. In 1883 he went to Minnesota as 
missionary for the Lutheran synod and with the exception of five years spent in 
Pennsylvania, has made Minneapolis his home since that time. He has established 
English Lutheran congregations in Duluth and Red Wing, Minnesota, Fargo, North 
Dakota, La Crosse, Wisconsin, and many other cities, and he was for years the 
only English Lutheran minister in the northwest. His wife, who was in her 
maidenhood Miss Mary Elizabeth Minnigh, is of mixed Pennsylvania-Dutch and 
English stock, an ancestor of the family having come from Munich in 1622.
        When Charles L. Trabert was still a child his parents moved to Lebanon, 
Pennsylvania, and in that city he began his education, later completing it at 
Minneapolis, where he attended the grade school and later the Central high 
school for three years. He was a member of the first manual training class in 
the Minneapolis schools and was for three years a student in Gustavus Adolphus 
College at St. Peter, Minnesota. Before he received his degree he was obliged to 
lay aside his books in order to earn his livelihood, and the summer after his 
last year at college he entered the employ of C. A. Smith, with whom he has 
remained connected since that time. His first position was in the office of C. 
A. Smith & Company in the Lumber Exchange and his work consisted of drawing maps 
and plans. In this way he became interested in the lumber business and gained 
his first knowledge of standing timber, along which line he directed his future 
interests and activities. Later Mr. Trabert was engaged by Mr. Smith as tutor 
for his eldest son, Oscar Smith, afterward killed in a street-car accident, and 
while holding this position he traveled with young Smith to Florida and spent 
the winter there, returning the next summer to Minnesota. They spent the season 
in the Pine River district, living at the summer farm camp for the logging 
crews, and Mr. Trabert went with the driving crews, thus becoming familiar 
through personal experience with the various details of practical lumbering. Mr. 
Trabert was afterward able to arrange his work so that he took his final year in 
college at Newberry College, North Carolina, from which institution he received 
his degree of B. A. in 1894.
        Following this he returned to Minneapolis, where he permanently entered 
the employ of C. A. Smith & Company, then a partnership of C. A. Smith and 
former Governor John S. Pillsbury. Mr. Trabert at once became connected with the 
timber end of the business and rose within a year to be private secretary to Mr. 
Smith, a position which he filled for seventeen years, gradually taking charge 
of the financial side of the business. Mr. Trabert retained his position as 
private secretary to Mr. Smith until January 1, 1904, when the C. A. Smith 
Timber Company was formed with a capital stock of one million dollars. This 
company took over all of the timber holdings of the former concern and moved its 
northwestern headquarters and Mr. Smith's private offices from the mill in North 
Minneapolis to the Andrus building, whence they moved in May, 1912, to their 
present premises in Oakland, California. Gradually the C. A. Smith Timber 
Company acquired interests in the west, and the business grew so rapidly that 
subsidiary corporations were formed to handle various phases of the western 
business. Of each of these companies Mr. Trabert was made secretary, and he now 
holds this position in the C. A. Smith Timber Company of Oregon, a corporation 
with a capital of six million dollars; the Linn & Lane Timber Company, with a 
capital of three million; the C. A. Smith Lumber & Manufacturing Company, with a 
capital of four and one-half million; the Smith-Powers Logging Company, with a 
capital of eight hundred thousand; the Inter-Ocean Transportation Company, with 
a capital of five hundred thousand; the C. A. Smith Fir Company, and six or 
seven minor corporations. As the Smith timber was cut off in Minnesota and the 
interests on the Pacific coast grew, Mr. Smith, looking about for a western 
location, decided upon Oakland, for the reason that the five timber districts 
controlled by the Smith interests�two fir tracts and one spruce in Oregon and 
one redwood and one sugar pine and yellow pine tract in California �all are 
tributary to tidewater. He therefore moved all of his interests to Oakland and 
established yards, a planing mill and a box factory at Bay Point, which he has 
made the distributing center of the concern. The company occupies nearly an 
entire floor in the Syndicate building, on Broadway in Oakland.
        For many years past Mr. Trabert has been interested in forestry, or 
rather in what he terms "conservative lumbering." Mr. Smith placed Mr. Trabert 
in general charge of the forestry department of his companies, and under his 
able management one of the best forestry libraries in the United States has been 
collected. This has been moved from Minneapolis and is now in Oakland. Mr. 
Trabert spent a week with the late J. E. Defebaugh and others studying with Dr. 
C. A. Schenck at Biltmore, North Carolina, the methods of reforestation employed 
there. He has written considerably on the subject and has talked before numerous 
bodies in the effort to direct public sentiment and to stir up interest in 
reforestation. He advocates the abolition of prohibitive taxation of timber 
lands; his theory being that the only way to get justice in this regard is to 
make the public see that it is to its interests to get trees grown rather than 
to have them sacrificed. Mr. Trabert is in direct control of the foresters in 
the employ of C. A. Smith, and while the company has given up reforesting its 
Minnesota lands, several men trained under Mr. Trabert's direction are now in 
the Minnesota service under State Forester W. T. Cox. Mr. Trabert is a member of 
the National Forestry Association, the National Geographical Association, the 
Archaeological Association of America and kindred bodies. He also belongs to the 
Oregon Conservation Association, and consulted with the secretary of state of 
California in regard to the formation of the California Conservation 
Association. He has frequently lectured before the University of California and 
the Forestry Club on the subject of forestry.
        On the 25th of June, 1894, in Newberry, South Carolina, Mr. Trabert was 
united in marriage to Miss Harriet Abney Wells, a daughter of Osborne Wells, a 
prominent planter of that city. The father is a veteran of the Civil war, having 
served as commissary officer in the Confederate army. He is still managing his 
estate, which is on the outskirts of Newberry, partly within the city. Mr. and 
Mrs. Trabert have become the parents of a daughter, Dorothy, aged seventeen.
        Mr. Trabert was well known in social circles of Minneapolis, where he 
held membership in the University Club, the Interlachen Club and in various 
other organizations, such as the Minneapolis Choral Club, the Philharmonic Club, 
of which he was president, and the Federation of Men's Church Clubs, of which he 
was a member of the executive committee. He was a member of the Minneapolis bar, 
having received a degree in law from the University of Minnesota in 1899, and he 
intends to ask admission also in California. In Oakland he has also become well 
known in community life, holding membership in the Athenian Club and the 
Commercial Club. In addition to this he is a director in the Chamber of Commerce 
and in the Young Men's Christian Association and belongs also to the University 
Club of San Francisco. During his entire life he has been active in the affairs 
of the Lutheran church and during his residence in Minneapolis was choirmaster 
of the vested choir of the Salem English Lutheran church. He was one of the 
prime movers in organizing the St. Michael's Lutheran church of Berkeley, which 
was incorporated September 29, 1913, and is vestryman and choirmaster. He is a 
director in the Berkeley Ontario Society. He belongs to the Sons of the 
Revolution, and his wife is treasurer of John Rutledge Chapter, D. A. R. She is 
in addition a member of Joseph Le Conte Chapter, Daughters of the Confederacy, 
and is popular in the Wednesday Morning Musical Club, connected with the Ebell 
Society of Oakland.
        The American Lumberman, under date of June 22, 1912, speaking of the 
career of Charles L. Trabert, says: "Faithful allegiance to an enterprise and 
faithful adherence to a principle bring many rewards. There is the satisfaction 
of having done good things well. There is the success that certainly follows 
consistent thought and action. In the lumber industry especially are many 
notable examples of men who have devoted their lives to the industry, or to some 
particular phase of it, and who have been long connected with houses of national 
standing. In some instances that connection began in the early days of the 
enterprise, when its proportions were smaller than they are today. It is fair, 
therefore, to give these men credit for having contributed a share toward the 
upbuilding of these particular concerns and the development of the industry in 
general. It is the purpose of this article to indicate in a small way the part 
that Charles L. Trabert, secretary of the various C. A. Smith companies, has 
played in the operations of that great lumberman, and in shaping public thought 
and policy regarding conservative lumbering. No better example can be found of a 
man who has grown with his company, whose capacity has kept step with his 
increasing responsibilities and increasing opportunities for labor that would 
count. In the rapid development of great industrial enterprises in this country 
the pace often becomes too swift for the little men; by the potential big man 
the pace is relished and accelerated. Mr. Trabert began in a most humble 
capacity but quickly demonstrated his fitness for larger responsibilities. In 
the development of the great C. A. Smith operations he has done his share and is 
accorded proper credit by his associates and fellow lumbermen."
 
Past & Present of Alameda County, California � Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 
1914, p. 222  


Charles Luther Trabert is a man of marked ability and judgment, a resident of 
Berkeley, California, and prominently identified with the industrial interests 
of California. He is connected with the C. A. Smith Lumber Company as secretary. 
Mr. Trabert was born at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, April 30, 1871, son of the Rev. 
George H. Trabert, pastor of an English Lutheran church. Mr. Trabert has devoted 
his entire life to the lumber business, and has been associated with the C. A. 
Smith companies longer than any of his business associates. He has made 
scientific study of forestry and has accomplished a great deal of important work 
along this line. His father, in his seventy-second year, is still active in the 
ministry as pastor of the Salem English Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, 
Minnesota. He was the only English Lutheran minister for years in the Northwest, 
and he established churches in Duluth and Red Wing, Minnesota; Fargo, North 
Dakota; La Crosse, Wisconsin; and many other cities. His wife, who was in her 
maidenhood Miss Mary Elizabeth Minnigh, is of mixed Pennsylvania Dutch and 
English stock, an ancestor of the family having come from Munich in 1622. 
Charles L. Trabert received his education in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and 
Minneapolis, where he attended high school for three years. He was a member of 
the first manual training class in that city, and was for three years a student 
in Gustavus Adolphus College, at St. Peter, Minnesota. During his last year in 
college he became identified with the C. A. Smith Lumber Company in the office, 
drawing maps and plans. In this way he became interested in the lumber business 
and gained a knowledge of standing timber. At this time Mr. Trabert decided to 
take his final year in college, and attended Newberry College, North Carolina, 
graduating in 1894, and receiving the degree of B. A. He returned to Minneapolis 
and permanently entered the employ of C. A. Smith & Company, then a partnership 
of C. A. Smith and ex-governor John S. Pillsbury. Mr.  Trabert became connected 
with the timber end of the business, and in one year became private secretary to 
Mr. Smith, which position he held for seventeen years. January 1, 1904, the C. 
A. Smith Timber Company was organized with a capital stock of one million 
dollars; this company took over all the timber holdings of the former concern, 
and in May, 1912, removed their offices to Oakland, California. The C. A. Smith 
Timber Company acquired interests in the West, and their business grew rapidly, 
and subsidiary corporations were formed, and Mr. Trabert was made secretary of 
the various holdings. As the Smith timber was cut off in Minnesota and the 
various interests on the Pacific Coast grew, Mr. Smith, in looking for a Western 
location, decided upon Oakland for the reason that the five timber districts 
controlled by the Smith interests - two fir tracts and one spruce in Oregon, 
with one redwood and one sugar-pine and yellow-pine tract in California - were 
tributary to tide-water. He therefore moved all of his interests to Oakland, and 
established yards, planing-mills, and a box-factory at Bay Point, California. 
Mr. Trabert is a member of the National Foresters Association, the National 
Geographical Association, the Archeological Association of America, a kindred 
body. He also belongs to the Oregon Conservation Association. He has frequently 
lectured before the University of California and the Forestry Club on the 
subjects of forestry. On June 25, 1894, Mr. Trabert was united in marriage to 
Miss Harriett Abney Wells, of Newberry, South Carolina, a daughter of Osborne 
Wells, one of the most prominent men of that city and an officer in the Civil 
War. To this union a daughter, Dorothy, was born in 1895. Mr. Trabert was well 
known in social circles of Minneapolis. He held membership in the University 
Club, the the Interlochen Minneapolis Choral Club, the Philharmonic Club, of 
which he was president, and the Federation of Men's Clubs. He was a member of 
the Minneapolis bar, having received his degree in law from the University of 
Minnesota in 1899. In Oakland he holds membership in the Athenian Club of San 
Francisco, and the Faculty Club of the University of California. During his 
entire life Mr. Trabert has been active in the affairs of the Lutheran church, 
assisting in the organization of the St. Michael's Lutheran Church of Berkeley, 
which was incorporated September 29, 1913, and is vestryman and choir-master. He 
is a director in the Berkeley Ontario Society, and a member of the Sons of the 
Revolution, while Mrs. Trabert is treasurer of the John Rutledge Chapter, D. A. 
R. She is in addition a member of Joseph Le Conte Chapter, Daughters of the 
Confederacy. She is also a member of the Wednesday Morning Musical Club and the 
Ebell Society of Oakland.
 
Source: "The History of Contra Costa County, California", Elms Publ. Co., 1917, 
pp. 494-495.

Transcribed by Sally Kaleta, December, 2006.