Los Angeles County CA Archives Biographies.....Westover, Oliver S. 1832 - ************************************************ 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: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 1, 2006, 11:33 pm Author: Luther A. Ingersoll (1908) OLIVER S. WESTOVER, a well-known and highly esteemed citizen of Santa Monica, is a native of Indiana, having been born in Fayette county, near Connersville, October 11th, 1832. He is the son of Hiram Westover, a farmer of Holland Dutch descent, his ancestors having come to America before the War of the Revolution. There were three brothers who were active participants in the war, one, a loyalist, removed to Canada, one located in New York and one in Virginia. Hiram Westover, the father of the subject of our sketch, was born in Central New York, on the shores of Cayuga Lake, was a farmer, and married Minerva Campbell, a grand-niece of Alexander Campbell, the founder of the Campbellite Church. About 1820 the family came West and located in Fayette county, Ind. Later they removed to the northern part of the state and located in Huntington county. In this county, Hiram Westover donated land and laid out a town, naming the place Clayville in honor of Henry Clay, for whom he had great admiration. The first brick house in Clayville was his spacious and substantial home, which has withstood the ravages of a vigorous climate for over fifty years and is still in good condition. He raised a family of seven children, of whom Oliver S. is the third. The subject of this sketch spent his boyhood on the farm, attended the local schools and, at twenty-two years of age, taught the district school at Clayville and the adjoining county. In 1852, he married Miss Lucinda Lewis, by whom he has one daughter. In 1859, Mr. and Mrs. Westover located in Union county, Iowa, near the town of Afton, at that time the county seat. They were among the first settlers of that frontier county. The daughter, Cinthia, wife of John Alden of Brooklyn, New York, is known throughout the world as Cinthia West-over Alden, the founder and President-General of the International Sunshine Society. She is a woman of brilliant attainment and pleasing personality and is devoting her entire time to the work of her organization. Mrs. Westover died in 1862. In 1863, he was again married to Miss Isabel Cornelius, a daughter of James Cornelius, a Kentuckian, owner of valuable lands near Ashland in Fayette county, the heart of the famous "blue-grass region." Mrs. Westover's ancestry is in direct line from the famous MacClouds of Scotland, her father's mother having borne that illustrious name. At this time Mr. Westover held the offices of Justice of the Peace, Township Supervisor and Assessor. They lived at Afton about four years and then joined the gold rush for Pike's Peak, which resulted in their locating at Denver, Colo., then a small frontier mining town. Here Mr. Westover spent four years mining and prospecting in Gilpin county. It was during this time that Mrs. Westover became interested in mineralogy and geology, gaining a practical and comprehensive knowledge of the same. She interested her husband in these subjects and for some years they carried on a business of preparing collections of mineralogical specimens for educational and other public institutions. The Westovers were proprietors in Denver of a large store, mineral and geological, carrying on an extensive business. On account of the high altitude, they left Denver in 1887, coming to Los Angeles, where, with W. D. Campbell, they engaged in the curio business. They also owned a store in Pasadena. In 1893, they came to Santa Monica. They have two children, Walter R. of Denver, an expert on Indian blankets and basketry, and Grace, the wife of John B. Fraser of Sacramento. Additional Comments: Extracted from: Ingersoll's century history, Santa Monica Bay cities: prefaced with a brief history of the state of California, a condensed history of Los Angeles County, 1542 to 1908: supplemented with an encyclopedia of local biography and embellished with views of historic landmarks and portraits of representative people. Los Angeles: Luther A. Ingersoll (1908) File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/losangeles/bios/westover216nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cafiles/ File size: 4.5 Kb