Sunday, September 2, 2007

Hooker Memorial - Members of High Society

Charles (left) and Osgood Hooker (right) (Photos from SF Call)
Family mausoleum photo by Michael Colbruno]

Plot 18A

C. Osgood Hooker was a native of California, born in 1860, and was the son of Charles G. Hooker, a prominent hardware merchant of California, who came to this State in 1852. He lived and owned a business in San Francisco. His company, Truman, Hooker & Co. were the manufacturers and dealers of agricultural implements, hay presses, baling presses, wagons, buggies, steam engines, threshing machines and hardware.

John Hooker (1838-1911) and his wife Katharine Putnam Hooker (1849-1935) were important figures in the early days of West Adams high society, between 1886 and 1911. John, born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, was a hardware and steel-pipe millionaire. John went to California in 1861, living first in San Francisco. In 1869 he married Katharine Putnam of San Francisco.

John D. Hooker paid for one of the telescopes at the Mount Wilson Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Charles Hooker (1821-1905) was born in Hillsdale, Massachusetts in 1821 and came to California in the 1850s. He opened up a hardware store in Sacramento, but left the city after the flood of 1861. He moved to San Francisco and opened up Hooker & Company on California Street. 

Sources: San Francisco Call, Berkeley Gazette

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You are improperly mixing up the Osgood Hooker family and the Daggett Hooker family. Please revise your blog AFTER you do some respectable research. The two families might have been cousins, but they were entirely separate.

John D., Katherine P., son John, and daughter Marion (yes, with an O) are all buried in the family plot in Los Angeles. A truly great family in the building of our great country.

Anonymous said...

Yet Charles G and John D were in business together per this 1871 SF directory: http://www.sfgenealogy.com/san_francisco_directory/1871/1871_447.pdf