Los Angeles-San Francisco-Statewide County CA Archives Biographies.....Bixby, Llewellyn October 4, 1825 - December 5, 1896 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com July 11, 2010, 1:23 am Source: California and Californians, Vol. IV, Published 1932, Pages 51 - 52 Author: The Lewis Publishing Company LLEWELLYN BIXBY was born at Norridgewock, Maine, October 4, 1825, and died at Los Angeles December 5, 1896. His two great-grandfathers, Samuel Bixby and Joseph Weston, moved from Massachusetts about 1770, settling on the Kennebec River. By the middle of the nineteenth century Somerset County, Maine, was full of Bixbys and Westons, and there was little land left in the neighborhood for the younger generation. Llewellyn Bixby was a son of Amasa and Fanny (Weston) Bixby, being one of their twelve children. Llewellyn attended district schools and Bloomfield Academy, and had farmed, had taught school, and finally decided on engineering as a career, and in the spring of 1851 was studying engineering at Waterville. One day his father proposed he join his brother, Amasa, Jr., and his cousin, Dr. Thomas Flint, in a trip to California. Benjamin Flint had come out to California in 1849, being the pioneer of this numerous family in the state. It was on July 7, 1851, that Llewellyn Bixby and his two companions arrived in San Francisco. The following year his brothers Marcellus and Jotham came out around the Horn and ultimately the rest of the children followed: Amos, Henry, Solomon, George, Francina and Nancy, eight brothers and two sisters, besides the Flints and other relatives, all of whom contributed some of their qualities to the upbuilding of California towns and communities. Llewellyn Bixby was fifty three days in coming to San Francisco on the first trip, having crossed the Isthmus of Panama. From San Francisco he and his companions immediately went on to Sacramento and then to Volcano Diggings, where they found Benjamin Flint. Llewellyn Bixby searched for gold only a week, after which he took a job in a local butcher shop, and he and the Flints soon bought the business. Later he and his two companions united their fortunes with a view to bringing to California sheep and cattle. On Christmas Day, 1852, they started back home, carrying with them their heavy load of gold and guarding it carefully on the trip down the coast, over the Isthmus and until they had safely placed it in the mint at Philadelphia. Then, on March 8, 1853, the cousins began the long return journey by rail, horseback, emigrant wagon and foot, which ended ten months later at San Gabriel, in Southern California. While on the way, at Terre Haute, Indiana, they organized the firm of Flint, Bixby & Company. They made their headquarters at Quincy, Illinois, for a time while buying sheep, and on May 7, 1853, started on the overland journey with outfit and flocks that increased until they had about 2,400 head. They arrived in San Bernardino, California, January 1, 1854. They subsequently drove their sheep north to San Jose, and in the summer of 1855 moved to Monterey County, and in October of that year bought the Rancho San Justo, on part of which is now located the City of Hollister. This gave Flint, Bixby & Company permanent headquarters, and the firm for forty years centered their operations at San Juan Bautista. The sheep they drove up from Illinois, together with those of Colonel Hollister, who came in at the same time, were the first sheep of American breed to come to California. It was only after the death of Llewellyn Bixby that the firm was dissolved and the properties separated, the Flints retaining the lands in the north, and the Bixby heirs those in Southern California. In pursuance of their development as a firm of extensive wool growers in 1866 they bought in Los Angeles County the great Rancho Los Cerritos, soon selling a half interest to Jotham Bixby, and a little later took a part interest in the adjoining Los Alamitos, and also held a half interest in the western part of Rancho Palos Verdes, a tract that in recent years has figured so prominently in real estate literature. Besides raising stock Flint, Bixby & Company, beginning in 1869, operated the Coast Line Stage Company, carrying passengers, express and mails between San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, until the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad between the first two cities. They were among the stockholders who organized and built at Alvarado, in Alameda County, the first successful beet sugar factory in the United States. It was in 1878 that Llewellyn Bixby moved his family to Los Angeles, leaving the crowded San Justo Ranch, and he looked after many interests of the firm in Southern California until his death. Both Llewellyn Bixby and his brother Jotham, and also their cousin, John, married sisters, members of the Hathaway family of Showhegan, Maine,. There were five daughters of the Hathaway family, four of whom married Bixbys. Their father was Rev. George Whitefield Hathaway, a son of Washington and Deborah (Winslow) Hathaway. Mrs. Mary Hathaway Bixby, wife of Llewellyn Bixby, died in February, 1882. They had three children: Sarah, Mrs. Paul Jordan Smith, of Los Angeles; Anne, Mrs. Theodore Chamberlin of Concord, Massachusetts; and Llewellyn, Jr., a prominent citizen in Long Beach. Both daughters were born at the old Rancho San Justo, the son in Los Angeles. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/losangeles/bios/bixby1018gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/ File size: 5.8 Kb