California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

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

CHARLES GRANDISON AUSTIN was a contribution to Ventura County from the City of Chicago, 
where for many years he was engaged in the real estate and collecting business. He bought 
land in the vicinity of Simi twenty-five years ago and now has it completely developed as a fruit 
ranch, has a beautiful home, and is spending his declining years in financial independence and 
in the midst of surroundings which many would call almost a paradise.
Mr. Austin has lived a long and eventful life. He was born at Blue- stores in Columbia County, 
New York, April 25, 1839, a son of Charles G. and Catherine (Blakeman) Austin. He is descended 
from old American stock, and some of his ancestors fought as soldiers in the Revolutionary war. 
He began his education in New York but at the age of nine years his parents removed to 
DuPage County, Illinois. He grew up within a few miles of the City of Chicago, attended public 
school until he was fourteen, and then the C. W. Richmond Academy at Naperville until he was 
eighteen. He finished his education in Blanchard College at Wheaton, Illinois, but in 1861 left 
school to enlist in the Thirty-third Illinois Infantry. He was with the army, doing his part in 
putting down the rebellion, until 1865. The two years after the war he spent on his father's 
farm in DuPage County, and then sought business opportunities in the neighboring City of 
Chicago, where he took up real estate and collecting. Mr. Austin was in business in Chicago for 
upwards of twenty years. In 1890 as a member of the Chicago Mutual Benefit Colony of 
Southern California he came out to Ventura County, and while here bought eighty acres in the 
Simi Valley. He remained only two weeks and then went back to Chicago to take up his business 
affairs.
In 1894, having disposed of his business interests ia the East, Mr. Austin returned to the Simi 
Valley and has lived in those delightful surroundings ever since. In the meantime before 
returning to his land he had begun its development as a fruit growing proposition. In 1892 5 
acres were set to apricots, 5 acres to prunes, 5 acres to grapes, 5 acres to figs, 5 acres to olives, 
10 acres to walnuts, 5 acres to almonds, 2 acres to miscellaneous fruits, 35 acres to oranges, 2 
acres to apples, 22 acres to peaches and a half acre to nectarines. Thus he experimented with 
almost the entire range of general fruits adapted to the climate of California, but in later years 
has gradually replanted the entire tract and now concentrates his efforts as a fruit grower upon 
walnuts, figs and prunes.
Among other business interests Mr. Austin is a stockholder in the Los Angeles Investment 
Company and the Simi Warehouse Company. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd 
Fellows, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Grand Army of the Republic, and a member 
of the Universalist Church. He is a republican in politics and cast his first vote for Abraham 
Lincoln. He was present at the convention that nominated Lincoln for President and was 
doorkeeper at the convention that nominated Garfield.
In Chicago December 29, 1881, he married Miss Mary E. Wheaden. Mrs. Austin died at their 
home in the Simi Valley May 15, 1910. There were three children. Harry S. now lives on his 
father's ranch. Mrs. Squire Monroe and Helen Phoebe both reside at Yuma, Arizona, the latter 
being a teacher in the public schools there.