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.ht


JAMES LEONARD.  The name Leonard has many interesting associations with Ventura County, and also 
with other sections of the State of California. The present James Leonard, who for a number of years 
has been successfully identified with the management of large ranching 
properties in the vicinity of Oxnard, is a son of James Leonard, Sr., whose experiences and enterprise 
made him one of the builders of California.
 
James Leonard, Sr., was born in Ireland, was educated there, and coming to the United States when 
quite young reached San Francisco during the early '50s. His part in the founding of the University City 
of Berkeley has recently been recounted for the benefit of a modern generation, and from an article 
recently published at Berkeley the following facts are taken. The article recounts how George M. Blake 
and a fellow miner by the name of James Leonard, who also was from the East, returned to San 
Francisco to catch a steamer that would carry them back to New York. Francis K. Shattuck in the 
meantime started over the trail headed for Marysville and on his way fell in with a man who 
afterwards proved to be William Hillegass. Destiny brought all four of these men together. Hillegass 
and Shattuck decided to link their fortunes and together they proceeded to Marysville. In the 
meantime Blake and Leonard, who were waiting in San Francisco for the vessel to sail, found an 
acquaintance in the master of the vessel they expected to take passage on. The captain suggested 
that inasmuch as the boat was not yet ready to sail that the three make a trip across the bay to Contra 
Costa, which all of the east side of the bay was then called. After landing at the foot of Broadway, the 
only available place on this side at that time, they secured horses and rode through a vast field of wild 
oats several miles to the northeast to the cabin of a squatter who was a typical Irishman and a good 
congenial spirit. It was he who persuaded Blake and Leonard to ride with him overland to where 
Berkeley is now located. Such an enthusiast over the future of the oat field was the Irishman that he 
succeeded in convincing Blake and Leonard that it would be wise if they would locate at once. They 
immediately wrote to Shattuck who with Hillegass came down from the Marysville country and joined 
them. Blake, Shattuck, Hillegass and Leonard staked off a parcel of land one mile square, the northern 
boundary of which is now Addison Street and the southern Russell Street, the eastern College Avenue 
and the westerly line Grove Street. This land the four men divided into four equal parts or strips, each 
containing 160 acres, being one mile in length, running north and south and one quarter mile in width 
running east and west. They drew straws for first choice, which fell to Hillegass, who settled on the 
eastern strip. Leonard drew the next strip, Blake the next and Shattuck the westerly strip. Each of 
these strips of land became known after the names of their owners. That portion of the land which 
the University of California now occupies was donated to that institution by Hillegass, Leonard and 
Blake.
 
So much for his very active part and share in the founding of one of California's most beautiful and 
noted cities. James Leonard in 1868 came to Ventura County, being one of the first white settlers in 
that section. He bought 1,000 acres of the Colonial grant, and was prosperously engaged in its 
management as a farm until his death on September 3, 1893. Since his death the estate has been in 
the ownership of the family. It was James Leonard, Sr., who built the first wooden house south of the 
Santa Clara River in Ventura County. While in Oakland he married Margaret Connelly, and they became 
the parents of eight children.
 
James Leonard, Jr., was born at Oakland, California, February 3, 1858, but has lived in Ventura County 
for almost half a century. He attended the public schools of Oakland until 1868, then the Franciscan 
College at Santa Barbara until 1870, and was then sent to the Quebec Seminary in Quebec, Canada, 
where he had some of the best literary advantages and influences until 1873. In that year he returned 
to his father's ranch in Ventura County, but in 1875 again entered the Franciscan College at Santa 
Barbara, where he remained engaged in his studies for six months.
 
Since that date Mr. Leonard has been identified with the management of his father's ranch and since 
his father's death has managed and owned a large section of this old property, which with the 
changing of years has adapted its cropping to modern demands and is now one of the chief centers of 
the lima bean culture in Ventura County. Mr. Leonard is a member of the republican party, of the 
Catholic Church and of the Elks Lodge. On July 25, 1899, he married in El Rio, Ventura County, Miss Ella 
McGrath, daughter of one of the fine old pioneers of Ventura County. Mr. and Mrs. Leonard have 
seven children: James Dominick, aged sixteen, and attending the convent in Oxnard; Eleanor Cecelia, 
aged fourteen, Thomas, aged twelve, Margaret, aged ten, Mary Letitia, aged eight, Virginia, aged 
seven, and Elizabeth, aged four. All the older children are students in the Oxnard Convent. The home 
of James "Leonard and family is one of the most palatial residences in Ventura County or anywhere in 
Southern California for that matter.