San Benito-Los Angeles-San Francisco County CA Archives Biographies.....Tully, E. C. 1860 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 28, 2007, 10:34 pm

Author: Luther A. Ingersoll, Editor (1893)

HON. E. C. TULLY.—This well-known pioneer of San Benito county is known
throughout the State as a reliable, honest citizen. He came to California from
Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1853, via Los Angeles.

  Mr. Tully is a native of Tennessee, and was born on .the banks of the
Mississippi river, April 16, 1826. His father, L. B. Tully, was an Attorney at
law, a Virginian by birth and his mother, Sarah Claffin, a native of Tennessee.
Mr. Tully spent spent [sic] his boyhood on a farm in Arkansas, but when only
sixteen he started in life for himself. He spent several years in the western
interior, joined the United States Army as an independent volunteer in 1847, at
Santa Fe, New Mexico, and fought until the close of the Mexican war. He then
engaged in merchandising at Chihuahua until 1853, when he sold the business,
invested his capital in sheep and with a partner drove a herd of 20,000 sheep to
California. These they sold, and from 1856 to 1861 engaged in stock-raising. In
the latter year he located on his present ranch and for several years was the
only settler in Bitter Water valley, his nearest trading post and post office
being Gilroy, sixty-five miles distant.

  Mr. Tully is a self-made man, never having had but eight months of common
schooling, but ranks among his associates as a "many-sided" and most thoroughly
educated person. In addition to his complete mastery of the English language and
all its branches of literature, he reads, writes and speaks fluently the French
and Spanish languages, reads and writes the Italian and Portuguese, and has some
knowledge of German and Latin.

  Mr. Tully was married, in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1849, to Miss Maria Gaudalupe
Quintanar, and they have had eleven children: Louis B., Edward A., Frank P.,
Richard R., James B., John C., Lucrecia, Sarah E., General Lee, George W. and
Henry C., the last four but one being deceased. The Tully family tie is a strong
one. The estate is owned and managed in common, and the family live almost as
one. Their musical instinct is very great and the Bitter Water brass band, of
several pieces and a full "string band" are almost entirely composed of members
of the Tully family.

  Mr. Tully is well read in legal matters, and is now the People's candidate for
District Attorney of San Benito county. He is a licensed, but not now a
practicing attorney, preferring his present farmer life. He has, on several
occasions, declined nominations for Congress from his State, but has served his
Assembly district in the Legislature of 1857-'58, 1868-'69, 1872-'73 and
1887-'88, and as a Legislator he has made an able officer. He is a clear,
forcible reasoner; is logical, and, at times, even eloquent. He has left a clean
record in his public career, and his present comparative poverty fully attests
his honesty and integrity, which has never been questioned.

  We quote entire the following extract from a biographical sketch, written by a
long-life friend of Mr. Tully: "His life has been one of many interesting
adventures, one of which, as illustrating the character of the man, or rather
boy, was the leading of a party of four from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to
Independence in the midwinter of 1846-'47, over the then desert of 1,100 miles
of unbroken, snow-covered plains, without the loss of a man,— a feat that, it is
believed, had never before been successfully accomplished by a white man.
Another was the 'piloting' of a 'prairie schooner,' as the huge Santa Fe
traders' wagons were called, with six yoke of Missouri oxen attached, from
Independence, Missouri, to the city of Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1847-'48, a
distance of about 1,700 miles. And later, the driving of a herd of 20,000 head
of sheep from the interior of Mexico overland to San Francisco, California, in
1853, 2,500 miles, through a country teaming with hostile Indians.

  "Mr. Tully belongs to the 'Old School' of gentlemen (now fast becoming
extinct), the 'Southern type,' inheriting as he did from his father those ideas
of social life and unbounded hospitality common to the 'Old Virginia gentleman.'
He has always kept 'open house,' and is known far and wide for his genial
hospitality; in his own words, 'the latch string always hangs on the outside.'
As may readily be inferred, his varied experience and adventures in life, and
especially, in the 'woolly West,' have furnished him with an almost
inexhaustible store of anecdote and story, which make him a genial and
interesting companion and a good conversationalist. Always 'at home,' whatever
the place or occasion, whether to respond to a toast, make an impromptu stump
speech, or pull an unfortunate out of a mudhole; frank and open handed; always
ready and willing to help the distressed. It need scarcely be necessary to add
that he is not a 'bloated bondholder' or millionaire, yet he has always
contrived to 'keep the wolf from the door,' and is at present in 'good
circumstances,' with a reasonable guarantee that his old age will be
comparatively free from danger of want. His time is spent mostly on his ranch in
company with his family, who are mostly settled down around him; occupied in
making or repairing wagons and other farm machinery,—for he is 'a jack of all
trades,'—and writing occasional articles for the press, on political and social
economics, many of which have been extensively copied throughout the land.

  "Mr. Tully was 'born a Democrat' and lived a Democrat until the late campaign,
when he joined the F. A. & T. U. and became a 'Populist,' dedicating himself to
the cause of 'the class with which his lines in life have been cast' (to use his
own words) the 'laboring and producing class.' He was a delegate to the late
'Supreme Council' of the F. A. & T. U. from California; is Deputy State
Organizer and Lecturer for his State; and expects to make a vigorous canvass, in
the interest of the order for the next campaign. Such, in brief, is the man
whose biography we have presented in these pages."


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Memorial and Biographical History of the Coast Counties of Central California.

Illustrated.

Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the
Earliest Period of its Discovery to the Present Time, together with Glimpses of
its Auspicious Future; Illustrations and Full-Page Portraits of some of its
Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers, and Prominent
Citizens of To-day.



HENRY D. BARROWS,
Editor of the Historical Department.

LUTHER A. INGERSOLL,
Editor of the Biographical Department.

"A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendants."-Macaulay.


CHICAGO: THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1893.


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