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 RASEY, CHARLES W. A well known and popular citizen of Santa Barbara, C. W. Rasey, president and manager of The Wright Abstract Company, has filled various positions of responsibility, as a railroad man, as a county official, and for the past fourteen years as the managing head of the above named land title company. He has always been held in high esteem as a public spirited man of ability and integrity. He was born in 1856 in Washington County. New York, of Scotch and Holland Dutch descent, and comes from patriotic stock, some of his forefathers who came to America before the Revolutionary war, having served in that war under Washington ; while several uncles and his father, Edward B. Rasey, served through the War of the Rebellion, his father having been a three years' member of the One Hundred and Twenty-third New York State Volunteers (infantry), participating in the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and other important engagements, and having been under General Sherman in his historic campaign and march to Atlanta and the Sea." In his boyhood days, C. W. Rasey became an expert telegrapher and as such was for several years in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company and the Rutland & Washington and Renselaer & Saratoga Railroad companies in commercial and railway departments at Saratoga Springs, Albany and other points in Eastern New York. Going to Colorado in 1879, ne was for the following two years in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company as its manager at Trinidad and with the Denver & Rio Grande Railway Company at Denver in its freight traffic department. Coming from Colorado to California in 1881, he accepted a position with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company (then the Central Pacific) in its general passenger and ticket office at San Francisco, having been in charge of the apportionment, rates and divisions department in that office for six years. Leaving San Francisco in 1887, he came to Santa Barbara, and, when, in the same year, the Santa Fe Railroad Company opened an office in Santa Barbara, he became its passenger and ticket agent, which position he held for seven years, giving the highest satisfaction to the railway management, and maintaining a high degree of popularity with the traveling public. In January, 1895, Mr. Rasey resigned his position with the railroad company to take up the duties of county recorder of Santa Barbara County, to which office he was elected in the autumn of 1894 in a triangular contest, his standing with the people being such that he won out in a spectacular fight against the republican candidate on one corner, and the democratic- populist candidate on the other. Again in another three cornered fight and as an independent candidate, he was re-elected, in 1898, to the same office. After having served the county in this important office for eight years to the highest satisfaction of the public, and upon the expiration of his second term, in January, 1903, he went into the office of The Wright Abstract Company as its manager, soon thereafter becoming the president, which position he still holds, and wherein his accuracy, promptitude and efficient knowledge of his work are fully recognized throughout the county by patrons of the office. Mr. Rasey has served upon the board of directors of the Young Men's Christian Association of Santa Barbara, and for a time was its treasurer. He has also served several terms as a director of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of several fraternal orders, including the Masonic orders, the Woodmen of the World, Knights of Pythias and Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In 1882, at Glens Falls, New York, Mr. Rasey married Miss Alice E. Whedon, who was a daughter of a prominent family of Rutland County, Vermont, and who was an accomplished musician, having studied at the New England Conservatory of Music at Boston. Into their home two daughters made their advent, namely, Mabel A., born in San Francisco, and Dorothy W., born in Santa Barbara. The former, a graduate of the Santa Barbara High School, was married in 1910 to Howard Mitchell, who is now and for several years past has been at the head of the department of modern languages in the high schools of the City of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Dorothy W. attended the Santa Barbara High School for one year, studied two years in Europe and subsequently graduated from the high school in the City of Holyoke, Massachusetts. She is now a student at Columbia University, New York City. Mrs. Rasey passed away in April, 1908. In December, 1912, Mr. Rasey married Miss Harriet Esther Peck of Santa Barbara, who was a graduate of the Ventura High School and who was later a student at the State Normal School at Los Angeles.