Surnames: BALTIMORE, WHITE, DAVIS
DR. DAVID PAUL CAMERON.-A very skilful dentist who has become a leader
in his profession and is today one of the most distinguished
representatives of the second dental college in the world, is Dr. David
Paul Cameron, of 410 View Street, Mountain View, at which place, for
practically one-quarter of a century, he has resided and practiced. He
was born at Cincinnati on January 3, 1867, the son of Dr. J. G.
Cameron, one of the first dentists in that city, and who, for forty
years, was one of the ablest professional men there. Grandfather
William Cameron was a farmer in Cecil County, Md., and lived upon a
portion of a grant given to the Cameron family by Lord Baltimore, which
grant has been in the Cameron family for 200 years. The Camerons may
trace their ancestry back to noted Scotchmen of birth and honor, and
this branch of the
Cameron family became prominent in the states of Maryland and Ohio.
David Paul Cameron grew up in Cincinnati and lived there until he was
thirty years old educated in private schools and for a while attending
the Chickering Institute, whose prescribed course of study he
completed. He then studied dentistry under his father, and when only
sixteen could fill teeth. After that he entered the Ohio Dental College
at Cincinnati, the second oldest dental college in the world, of which
his father was a trustee, while a brother, Dr. Otis L Cameron, was a
lecturer there; and he was duly graduated from the college, with the
class of '90. Thus favored with a complete course in dentistry, Dr.
Cameron opened a dental office in Cincinnati, and he practiced
independently of his father, who remained eminent in that city for four
decades. Upon the latter's death in 1892, our subject succeeded to his
patronage, maintaining a suite of offices with his brother, Dr. Otis L.
Cameron, who practiced medicine at 132 Garfield Place.
After a siege of double typhoid-pneumonia, when he hovered between life
and death for 110 days with that dread malady, Dr. David P. Cameron
came out to California in 1897, abandoning the extensive practice he
had taken such pains to build up. Not only had his life been despaired
of, but he had been reduced to a mere skeleton, and when he came to
California, he was so weak that he could scarcely walk a block. He
stopped for a while in Los Angeles, but not being content, he went to
San Francisco and began to pick up both strength and flesh; he weighed
108 pounds when he reached San Francisco; then he gained thirty-four
pounds; after that he went back to 135 pounds, where he stood for two
years, next he advanced to 170 pounds, and now for several years past
his normal weight has been 160 pounds. As he grew stronger, he began to
look for a place to locate, and in 1898 good fortune directed him to
Mountain View, where he has built up an enviable practice, with his
office at his residence.
At Cincinnati in 1890, Dr. Cameron was married to Miss Florence Edith
White, of Cincinnati, member of a prominent Southern family and a third
cousin of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States; and
their union has been blessed with three children: David Paul Cameron,
Jr., was graduated from the Mountain View high school with the
class of '21, and he is now taking post-graduate work at the high
school, and is the captain of the high school's football team; Otis
Little is in first-year work at the high school; Joseph Gay is still at
home. .