San Luis Obispo County Biographies

GEORGE VAN GORDEN 

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

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


GEORGE VAN GORDEN is a pioneer, of California, who came to the State in 1846, lacking 
only one year of being a native son of the Golden West. He was born September 8, 1845, 
near Buchanan, Berrien County, Michigan. His mother died in 1848, and he was raised by 
his aunt, Mrs. H. C. Smith, of Alameda County. Mr. Smith, his uncle, was a Representative 
of Alameda County to the first State Legislature. Mr. Van Gorden attended school in 
Alameda County, and Visalia, Tulare County. He was raised on a farm, and, with his father, 
has been twenty years in the cattle business, and nine years in the same business on the 
ranch of Senator Hearst, the Piedro Blanco Rancho of 46,000 acres. Mr. Van Gorden has 
had the care and management of it for nine years. They are doing a large dairy business, 
and have 1,000 cows. They are also engaged in raising horses and mules; they have 300 
head of trotters, runners and draft horses. Their stock horses are of the very best breeds, 
and several of them are very valuable. The ranch contains a race course, and everything 
connected with the business. They also have the Santa Rosa ranch, of 1,500 acres, one of 
the best ranches in the county, on which they are breeding and raising their running horses. 
In the forty-four years that Mr. Van Gorden has been in this county, is comprised nearly all 
the American history of the State, from the formation of the government to the present 
time. At one time his uncle, H. E. Smith, kept a prisoner, Thomas Bell, in his house for three 
weeks. Bell was a noted horse-thief and a desperado, had stolen two of their horses, was 
pursued and captured, and when they brought him to their house the high water 
prevented their taking him to San Jose. After he was taken to San Jose he made his escape, 
and after many depredations he was finally killed. Mr. Van Gordon's people were at the 
San Jose mission when the cholera broke out, and hundreds of Indians died with it. 

He was married in 1868, to Miss Annie Stiner, a native of California, born at Mariposa. 
She is a daughter of Mr. Calvin M. Stiner, a native of Mississippi, and a veteran of the 
Mexican war. They have three children, born in California, viz.: Annie K., George M. 
and Laura Emma. Mr. Van Gorden is a member of the Odd Fellows fraternity, and in 
politics is a Republican. While he may be called an " old-timer " and a pioneer, still he
 is a young man, and in the business in which he is engaged he is the right man in the 
right place. He is a great lover of horses, and is producing some very fine ones. He has 
lived in San Luis Obispo County twenty-two years, and considers it the best stock 
county in the State. 

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.