San Francisco County CA Archives Biographies.....Phelan, James D. April 23, 1821 - December 1892 ************************************************ 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 Wakley iwakley@msn.com October 30, 2010, 2:20 pm Source: California and Californians, Vol. IV, Published 1932, Pages 92 - 93 Author: The Lewis Publishing Company JAMES D. PHELAN. Among the pioneers who came to California immediately after the discovery of gold, an outstanding figure was James Phelan. He was born in Queens County, Ireland, April 23, 1821. When he was about six he came with his father to New York, and received his early education in the public schools there. He began his career as a merchant early in life, doing business in Philadelphia and New Orleans, and climbed to a financial success that eventually made his name synonymous with financial strength and integrity from the Atlantic to the Pacific. James Phelan was in Cincinnati in 1848 when he read of the discovery of gold in California. He immediately decided to come to San Francisco. Closing out his business in the Eastern States, he selected a stock of goods for the new market and shipped it on three different ships bound for California. He himself took passage on the schooner El Dorado, intending to reach San Francisco before his goods arrived. But he was stricken with fever at Panama and for some weeks was dangerously ill. After his recovery he took passage on a steamship and arrived in San Francisco in August, 1849. His brother, Michael, had preceded him by a few months, and together they organized the firm of J. & M. Phelan, which steadily expanded. Their business success was interrupted only by the great fires of 1850 and 1851, in which they lost heavily. Michael Phelan died in 1858, but James continued the business. In the early '60s he made large purchases of California wool, shipped it to New York and made large profits. A few years later he was one of the first California capitalists to enter the wheat trade. He shipped California wheat to New York and foreign ports, and was one of the founders of the great wheat export business that now centers in San Francisco. He continued as a trader until 1869, when he retired from active commercial life with a large fortune and devoted himself to real estate and finance. In 1870, with a capital of $2,000,000, he organized the First National Gold Bank, now the First National Bank of San Francisco, and was elected its first president. He was also interested in the American company which contracted for dredging work on the Panama Canal. James Phelan invested heavily in San Francisco real estate, and in 1882, on land he had owned for nearly thirty years, he erected the Phelan Building. Besides, he owned real estate in many California towns, and great deal of farming land, and property in New York City. With James G. Fair and others he organized the Mutual Savings Bank of San Francisco. He was known not only as a wise and eminently successful business man, but also as a public-spirited citizen. He was noted for his quiet, unostentatious charities. At his death, which occurred in December, 1892, he bequeathed large sums to charitable institutions. His distinguished son, James Duval Phelan, former mayor of San Francisco and former United States senator from California, has devoted wealth and his time to the civic betterment of San Francisco and to the good of the state. The name of Phelan has been associated intimately with the industrial, social, historic and artistic advancement of California.—By Eric Howard File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/sanfrancisco/bios/phelan1064gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/ File size: 3.9 Kb