SAMUEL BRANNAN.

BY WILLIAM Y. WELLS.

Ew names among the prominent pioneers of California

tory of the State than that of Mr. Brannan. A review of many of the principal enterprises for internal or metropolitan improvement during the last twenty years, would reveal him as their zealous advocate and master mind, either as the originator or the active promoter; and it may be truly said of him that he has not been surpassed by any individual in the State in his encouragement of industrial progress.

Mr. Brannan was born in Saco, in the State of Maine, in 1819. He immigrated to Lake County, Ohio, in 1833, where he entered upon an apprenticeship to letter-press printing. Before the term of his indenture was pleted, he bought up, in 1836, the remainder of his time, and although a mere youth, entered into the great land speculations at an era when the whole country was seized with the mania of making fortunes without the worrying need of time, trouble, or capital. A year later he turned again to the press, and traveled the country as a journeyman printer. In the course of the five following years he visited most of the States of the Union. In 1842, he established and published in New York a weekly newspaper, styled the New York Messenger.

As early as 1846 he formed a company of pioneers to settle upon the distant and then unknown shores of Cali

fornia, and the ship Brooklyn, in which, with two hundred and thirty immigrants, he sailed from New York, arrived at San Francisco in July of the same year. When Mr. Brannan first landed in California he was about twentysix years of age. He at once became a leading and influential member of the isolated little community, and soon after his arrival he erected the machinery of two flour mills, in a locality answering to what is now Clay street. These were the first introduced into the country. He also, in January, 1847, projected and published a weekly newspaper, called the California Star, which was the first journal that appeared in San Francisco, and was the parent of the present Alta California. All this was before the discovery of gold, and when the early settlers little suspected that the progress and development of their new and distant home would be aided by any of the remarkable events that soon after made California a centre-point of attraction for the whole world.

In the fall of 1847, Mr. Brannan opened a store at Sutter's Fort, under the name of C. C. Smith & Co. This was the first establishment of the kind formed in the Sacramento Valley. In the spring of 1848, he bought out Mr. Smith, who shortly afterwards returned to the Atlantic States possessed of a handsome fortune. Mr. Brannan continued the business during the heat of the gold excitement, and there laid the foundation of his present great wealth. In 1849, he returned to San Francisco, where he had preserved a residence and citizenship, and, under the firm of Osborn & Brannan, conducted an extensive business for nearly a year in Chinese merchandise. In the noted affair of "the Hounds," about midsummer of that year, he took a leading part, and was active in extirpating that band of desperadoes from the city. In August following, he was elected a member of the first regular Town Council; and in 1851 was chosen President of the famous "Vigilance Committee.' About the end of 1851, Mr. Brannan visited the Sandwich Islands, where he bought extensive properties in farming land, and real estate in Honolulu. In 1853, he was elected a State Senator of California.