California Biographies

Source:
History of Napa and Lake Counties
San Francisco, Slocum, Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1881

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper 2011

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


JAMES L. LOGAN.  Son of David and Margaret Phillips Logan, was born in Beaucoup, Washington 
County, Illinois, November 6, 1829, and remained in that county until he was twenty-nine years of age, 
and as schoolhouses were somewhat of a scarcity in those early pioneer days, Mr. Logan's education 
was home-taught and self-made. He worked on a farm, and afterward learned the carpenter's trade. 
In 1858 he moved to Centralia, Marion County, same State, and engaged successfully in the furniture 
and undertaking business, and continued in this until March, 1864, when, on account of failing health, 
he sold out and started with his family overland to California, with mule teams, and arrived at Santa 
Clara September 29th of that year. Staying there but a short time, he moved to Oakland, where he 
built a residence and engaged in the real estate business in San Francisco. July 24, 1865, he moved to 
Napa County, locating in St. Helena, where he bought a ranch and engaged in farming pursuits, on a 
tract of fifty acres, situated in the Logans Addition to St. Helena, where he now resides. April 10, 1878, 
he engaged in his present business of furniture and undertaking, located on the west side of Main 
street, above the Windsor Hotel, and has now one of the leading furniture and undertaking houses of 
the county. During the late Civil War he was at the head of a commission from his county, to visit the 
battle-fields and prepare and restore the dead soldiers to their friends, and holding a general pass 
from U. S. Grant to go and come at pleasure, he was enabled to do a great deal of good. Having an 
experience of thirty-five years in handling the bodies of the dead, he is now among the foremost in 
preparing and shipping bodies successfully to all parts of the world, by a method entirely his own, 
having, under a test, kept perfectly ten bodies more than six months in the vaults of San Francisco. He 
was united in marriage in Washington County, Illinois, November 15, 1849, to Miss Unity J. Livising, a 
native of that county and State, and by this union they have seven living children and three deceased: 
J. Melvin, born June 22, 1851; Alvin Rose, born May 22, 1853, died January 1, 1855; M. Hill, born August 
5, 1855; Celestie Amelia, born September 2, 1857, died August 22, 1858; Minnie Adelle, born July 6, 
1860; Charles Mead, born June 30, 1863; Inez May, born May 19,1866, died February 27, 1871; Aura 
Pearl, born December 13, 1868; Daisy Dell, born March 31, 1873, and Lee Ross, born September 22, 
1876.