DAVID GREENAWALT,
Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: BOOTH, McABEE, WITHERS
deceased. The fine farm, of over 200 acres, which this worthy citizen improved and occupied for twenty one years, is on the Almaden road, seven miles from the business center of San Jose, and is as well located, and as well adapted to general farming, as any ranch in the valley. This property Mr. Greenawalt bought and took possession of in November, 1867, it being at that time all inclosed with fences and having building improvements enough for shelter. The present commodious family residence was built in 1877, the large barn in the year preceding. All the buildings are noticeably good, and all were constructed with regard to convenience rather than to cost.
Mr. Greenawalt was born in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, April 2, 1824, of one of the old Pennsylvania families. His great-grandfather, Jacob Greenawalt, came from Holland about the beginning of the eighteenth century, being obliged to work for three years afterward to pay for his passage. The farm in Lehigh County, which this founder of the family improved, was the birthplace of the subject of our sketch, and is still in the possession of the family, having been the birthplace of six generations. The names of the grandfather and father of our subject were the same,—Abraham Greenawalt. David Greenawalt was reared to manhood on the old homestead, but afterward he left it to go to Wisconsin, where he spent four years in the lead mines of Iowa County. The discovery of gold brought him to California in 1850. He came on the overland route, and upon his arrival engaged in mining at Placerville, then called Hangtown. Two months later he visited this valley, where he married, on the ninth of October, 1851, Miss Eliza Booth, who was born in England, in May, 1831.
Immediately after their marriage they embarked for Australia. Three months' experience in the mining districts of that country taught Mr. Greenawalt that he had left much better opportunities for acquiring wealth behind him, and was only one of thousands who were following a delusion. The return voyage of the same vessel, the Jessie Burns, that took them out, brought them back to San Francisco, where they landed in August, 1852. Mr. Greenawalt then engaged in the stock business with his father-in-law, in this county, which was ever afterward his home. He recalled the fact that he had seen all of Santa Clara without a fence. He came to Santa Clara a poor man, and grew in prosperity with the county. Keeping fully apace with, or ahead of, the general advance of his surroundings in individual enterprise, he became blessed with a competence more than sufficient for all the needs of his declining years. In politics he had been identified with the Republican party since the candidacy of John C. Fremont.
The great bereavement of his life, the death of his wife, occurred October 29, 1887. She was the mother of seven children, all of whom are living: George lives in the immediate neighborhood of the old home, on a part of the original homestead ; Mary is the wife of Frank Blake; Edna is the wife of John McAbee, of San Benito County; Amelia is the wife of Alonzo Withers; and the others, William D., John K., and Thomas, are residing at the homestead.
Mr. Greenawalt, the subject of the foregoing brief outline, died July 6, 1888, a
highly respected citizen, whose departure from this life leaves many painful
reminiscences upon the minds of those left behind.
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.
Pg. 436-437
SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHY PROJECT