BIO-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: RUMSEY, FALEZ,

son of Alvin B. and Sallie D. (Rumsey) Austin, was born  in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, February 12, 1834.  His father was of Scotch  and German Descent, and his mother of Scotch and French, and both were reared  near Lake Champlain.  His father was born in 1800, and was a drummer boy in  the War of 1812.  He died on the home place, in 1882, and his wife, born  1801, died in 1884.  He was a lumberman, and at one time owned large timber  tracts in Tioga County.  They reared a family of seven children, six sons  and one daughter, of whom all are living except the fifth son.  Daniel B.  Austin remained on the home place until he was eighteen years of age, and in  1853 came to California, by Nicaragua route, from New York, through Central  America, and arrived at San Francisco April 12, 1853.  

His first employment  was on the steam ferryboat Clinton, plying between San Francisco and San Antonio  (now East Oakland), where he remained nine months, at a salary of $16 per  day.  He then engaged in the butchering business in San Francisco, and  subsequently became a farmer at San Pablo, Contra Costa County, in partnership  with Dr. J. M. Tewksbury, who owned a large tract of land there.  He farmed  until 1863, when he went to Austin, Nevada, where his brother, A. B. Austin,  resided, and after whom the town was named.  Mr. Austin at once engaged in  engineering and mining, and followed this business, principally, for nineteen  years.  He put up a number of quartz mills for reducing ores, etc. 

 He  returned to California in 1882, and, after looking around over the State,  selected Santa Clara for a home and purchased sixty acres, situated about a mile  and a quarter from Los Gatos, on the Los Gatos and Saratoga road.  In May,  1888, he sold all his land, except two and a quarter acres, where his residence  is situated.  He was married at Austin, Nevada, in 1867, to Felicitas  Falez, a Mexican lady by birth, whose father was a prospector and miner in the  State of Nevada.  She died in 1869, leaving one daughter, Delphena C, born  December 24, 1869.  Mr. Austin again married, November 8, 1871, taking this  time Sarah C. Rumsey, a native of Pennsylvania.  They have six children:  George B., born March 5, 1873; Birdie E., May 31, 1874; Floyd L., October 27,  1875; Luther R., January 5, 1877; 
Ruby S., February 27, 1879; Jesse S., May  27, 1882.
 
Mr. Austin is one of the original stockholders of the Los Gatos and  Saratoga Wine and Fruit Company, and one of the directors of the  corporation.  He has also an interest in some silver mines in Nye County,  Nevada.  He was mainly 
instrumental in having the Austin School District,  in which he resides, established, and the district was named after him.  He  was a member of the celebrated First California Guard, under Captain  Bluxon.  Each member of this company was six feet high.  Their armory  was located on Pine Street, San Francisco, and they encamped three months each  year on the Alameda, in San Jose.

SOURCE:  Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888. page 306-397
transcribed by Roena Wilson