San Luis Obispo County CA Archives Biographies.....Howe, Elisha W. 1827 - 
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Author: Thompson & West (1883)

ELISHA W. HOWE,

Whose lovely residence near the town of Morro is shown on another page, is one
of that proud body of pioneers, whose spirit of enterprise and love of adventure
brought them at an early day to the Pacific Coast, and on whom devolved the
responsibility and honor of organizing a new Government, and creating a new
society far removed from the control and help of the General Government, or of
established orders of society. Mr. Howe was born in Providence, Rhode Island,
October 27, 1827. When three years of age, his parents moved to the city of New
York, and four years later removed to La Salle County, Illinois, then a wild and
comparatively unknown region in the extreme West. The broad prairies were then
in their primeval wildness, and the beautiful Illinois River knew only the
batteaux of the trapper and the occasional keel-boat of the trader. The Black
Hawk War had closed but a year or two before, rendering the country habitable to
the white race. La Salle, Ottawa, and Joliet were settlements where the old
French missionaries of 150 years before had reared the cross, or traded with the
savages. Such was the home the parents of Mr. Howe sought in his early
childhood, and it was a bold move to venture at that day from the extreme East
to the farthest frontier of the West. While residing at La Salle, and before the
subject of this notice had reached the age of thirteen, both his parents died.
He then, at the age of thirteen, returned to his friends in Rhode Island. During
his childhood and youth he attended the schools of the localities where he had
dwelt, and thus acquired a fair education. Remaining in Rhode Island until
eighteen years of age, he then set out to make his way in the world, choosing
the life of a sailor on a voyage to the Pacific. His sailor life was not as
pleasant as the story-books had made him believe, nor as his fancy had painted
it, and after a two-years' cruise he left his ship at the Sandwich Islands and
made his way to California, whence had come the news of the discovery of gold.
In 1848, he landed at the port of San Francisco, then commonly known as Yerba
Buena, and proceeded at once to the northern mines. There he engaged in mining,
and soon established a trading-post, continuing in the business for two years.
Then gold was the great product of the country, and profits on goods were
enormous, enabling a careful trader or lucky miner to quickly amass a fortune.
In 1850, Mr. Howe gave up his mining and trading operations in the north, and
moved to San Luis Obispo County, where he has since lived as stock-grower and
farmer, following the advice of Horace Greeley, and "growing up with the country."

  Mr. Howe was married in 1853, to Senorita Gabriela Estudillo, a native of
California. They have six living children, three of whom are sons and three
daughters.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY
CALIFORNIA

WITH

Illustrations and Biographical Sketches
OF ITS
PROMINENT MEN AND PIONEERS.


OAKLAND, CAL.
THOMPSON & WEST

1883.


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