San Diego County Biographies

GEORGE M. WETHERBEE

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

 
GEORGE M. WETHERBEE was born in Westminster, Massachusetts, December 7, 1837.  
His father having died when he was quite young he made his own way in the world 
and earned his own living from the time he was nine years of age.  There was a 
family of four boys and one girl, and notwithstanding the fact that they were 
all thrown upon their own resources young, not one of them ever used tobacco or 
tasted whisky.  In his mother�s family there were twelve brothers and sisters, 
and only one girl weighed less than 200 pounds.  The baby of the family now 
living weighs 300 pounds!  Mr. Wetherbee himself now weighs 270 pounds.  His 
weight when a young man at the time of entering the army was 211 pounds. 
Notwithstanding his weigh he now works hard in his mills every day.  He has a 
son, Allen H., who at seventeen years of age weighed  207 pounds.  In 1852 Mr. 
Wetherbee went to work for the Hayward Chair Company of Gardner, Massachusetts, 
and in 1854 he went to Boston and entered upon what has ever since been his 
principal business, the planing-mill business.  In 1861 he went to Boston and 
enlisted for three years in the First Massachusetts infantry, Colonel Robert 
Cowdern, commander, and served as a musician during the entire war.  He 
commenced playing in a brass band when thirteen years of age, and has followed 
it as a partial business until within the last four years.  During the last year 
of the war he was the leader of a brigade band, and was with Sherman on his 
march; played at Richmond, and at  the close played in the grand review at 
Washington.  Brigadier General Knife was Mr. Wetherbee�s commander, and Mr. 
Weatherbee recruited the band for this brigade.  When he came out of the army he 
located in business in Boston until 1869.  He then went to San Francisco and 
carried on a general mill business and bee-hive manufactory until October, 1884. 
 He then came to San Diego and built the first planing-mill in the city, which 
was burned by an incendiary on December 12, 1884, the day after its completion.  
He lost everything in this, to him most disastrous fire, but the courage of a 
brave and true American stood by him.  He borrowed capital and rebuilt at once, 
and has added to the mill and machinery until he has the largest and most 
complete mill of its kind on the coast, having 26,000 square feet of work room  
His mill is a complete one, capable of manufacturing al kinds of work in the 
planing, molding and scroll sawing line, including all sorts of work usually 
done in a first-class establishment. Mr. Wetherbee is a practical workman and 
can run in keeping order any machine in the mill. He has a reputation for 
honorable and upright dealing; that in itself alone is a fortune; he has 
employed as high as eighty men at once in this establishment.  In addition to 
the wood-working part of the mill they have a barley rolling mill, and roll 
large quantities of barley.  Mr. Wetherbee was married to Angelina Barney, born 
April 26, 1837, a daughter of Captain Reuben Barney, who sailed in a whaling 
ship.  They were descendants of Benjamin Franklin.  Their ancestors were Quakers 
and were among the first settlers of Nantucket.  Mr. Wetherbee had a family of 
four children, namely: George A., born June 12, 1858, and is now foreman in his 
father�s mill; Angie L, born July 12, 1866: she is married  to Mr. George H. 
Hebrank, a native of Pittsburgh, who is in the glass-blowing business; Allen H., 
born February 24, 1871,  now a civil engineer in Utah with the Bun River Cavell 
Company.  Mr. George M. Wetherbee is a member of Heintzelman Post, No 33, of San 
Diego, G. A. R., is president of its board of trustees, a member of Occidental 
Lodge, No. 179, I. O. O. F., and Past Grand.  He is a member of Encampment No. 
57, I. O. O. F., and Past Chief Patriarch; also a member of Franklin Lodge, A. 
O. U. W., and a member of the board of delegates of San Diego County, 
representing the Fifth ward.

An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San 
Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California, from the Earliest Period of Occupancy to the Present Time.... - 
Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. pp 271