SAMUEL MARTIN

Bio-Sawyers
SURNAMES: CRAVEN, O'HANLON,

A merchant whose well-organized, dependable service is much appreciated by a discerning public is Samuel Martin. the experienced dealer in feed and grain at 180 South Market Street, San Jose, in which city he was born Decem­ber 10, 1869. His father, James B. Martin, who had married Miss Margaret Craven, came with her to California around Cape Horn from New York in a sailing vessel in 1860, landing at San Francisco. He was a stationary engineer. After leaving San Fran­cisco he went to Monterey and where he remained until he came to San Jose in 1863, where he was engineer at Fremont's Planing Mill and when he gave up this line of work and became a merchant. In 1886 he died, highly esteemed by all who had dealt with him. Mrs. Martin, whose qualities as a good neighbor have always been appreciated, is still living and resides at Cupertino. Of their six children, all of whom are living, Sam, as he is familiarly called by his friends, is the youngest.

After the usual elementary schooling, he went to work as a mere youngster, and until 1890 he followed the grocery trade with the Mariposa Store, after which he went into the grain business with his brother, H. B. Martin, of the firm of H. B. Martin & Company, and for eighteen years was with him, working from the bottom up to assistant manager. Then, in 1908, he opened a store for himself on South Second Street, and later he came to his present location at 180 South Market Street. From the beginning he has been phenomenally successful; and it is natural that he should early have been selected as a director of the Growers' Bank, of which he was one of the organizers and first vice-president. He is a member of the Merchants' Association, the San Jose Chamber of Commerce, the San Jose Progressive Club and a charter member of the Commercial Club of San Jose.

At San Jose, in 1906, Mr. Martin was married to Miss Lila B. O'Hanlon, the daughter of Robert J. O'Hanlon, a well-known pioneer of his time; she was born at San Jose and reared here and is a graduate of San Jose high school and San Jose State Normal. The union has proven a happy one, and they are the parents of two children, James Beaumont and Lucretia Birch Martin. Mr. Martin belongs to the Woodmen of the World, and he is a charter member of Observatory Parlor No. 177, of the Native Sons of the Golden West.

 Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California,  published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 1129

[NOTE: Samuels full names is Samuel B