FRANK KASSON.—For the past eleven years
city clerk of
Palo Alto, Frank Kasson is
numbered among the early
residents of that city, having located there in 1895, when there were
only a few inhabitants, and only four years after the opening of
Stanford University. Mr. Kasson was born near Broadalbin, N. Y., on
September 22, 1856, where his forefathers had settled about 1740. The
family is of Huguenot descent, having fled from France at the time of
the St. Bartholomew massacre, finding refuge in Ireland. In 1720 Adam
Kasson and six sons arrived in Boston, and shortly thereafter one of
the sons associated himself with Sir William Johnson, who colonized
what is now Fulton County'in New York State.
George Kasson, the father of the subject of this sketch, married Jane
Gay, whose family came from England to Prince Edward's Island and later
to Massachusetts. The Gays were men of liberal education, numbering
many preachers and teachers among them. Frank Kasson was one of a
family of eight children, and as his people were not wealthy he had to
fend for himself from the age of fourteen.- He began teaching school
when sixteen years old, and later graduated from Claverack College.
When twenty-two years old he went to Illinois, where he taught for a
time and where he later engaged in newspaper work which he followed for
thirty years. In 1885 he married Miss Fannie Scott, a descendant of the
Lees of Virginia, and a few months after that event moved to Pasadena,
where he was associated with H. J. Vail in founding the Pasadena Star,
the first daily published in that city, and of which he was city editor
for two years. He then founded the Monrovia Leader, and still later he
was associate editor of the Redlands Citrograph. He was for a time on
the staff of the Los Angeles Tribune and was also a special writer for
the San Francisco Examiner. In 1893 he became joint publisher of the
Mariposa Gazette,
being associated with Mrs. Frances A. Reynolds (nee
Utter), whose family was among the early settlers of New Jersey. Two
years later she became his second wife. Mrs. Kasson was an experienced
newspaper woman and a brilliant writer, and was the first woman to
publish a newspaper in California. A year after locating in Palo Alto,
Mr. and Mrs. Kasson began the publication of the Palo Alto Live Oak,
which they continued to issue for four years. A newspaper merger united
the Live Oak and the Daily Times, with which Mr. Kasson was connected
for a number of years as city editor.
In 1910 Mr. Kasson was appointed city clerk and assessor of Palo Alto,
which office he still holds. His work naturally implied an interest in
civic and political affairs, and he has always been an adherent of the
Republican party with strong progressive tendencies. Mr. Kasson had two
children by his first marriage. They are Eugene Field, who won a first
lieutenancy in the World War, and is now engaged in newspaper work in
Philadelphia, and Mrs. Xyris Gay Ely of San Francisco. Mrs. Kasson also
has two children, Irene E. Reynolds of Palo Alto and Richard F.
Reynolds of San Francisco.