Bio-Sawyers
SURNAMES:  HOPKINS, BUNKER

A native of Maine, Benjamin Frank Weston was descended from a long line of New England ancestors, his grandfather, Joseph Weston, having come from Massacheusetts to Madison, Maine, as its first settler. On his mother's side, the lineage goes back to Stephen Hopkins, who came to Plymouth, Mass., on the Mayflower in 1620. The second son of Col. William Weston, he was born at North Anson, Maine, December 3, 1849. Prior to the Civil War, with the movement of the logging and lumber business to the Great Lakes, he accompanied his parents to Milwaukee, Wis. He was educated in the public schools and at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., being a member of the Phi Kappa Psi. With his father and older brother he was successfully engaged in lumbering and banking in Michigan and also had large lumber interests in Wisconsin.

At the time of his marriage in 1883 Mr. Weston came to California and for many years made his home in Oakland and Berkeley. He was a man of wide business interests, owning valuable pine lands in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties, and was a director of the North Coast Steamship Company. In 1886 he bought the orchard property now known as Weston Place, near Santa Clara, which under his supervision became the most valuable Bartlett pear orchard of its size in the state. He was a prominent Knights Templar Mason in Muskegon, Mich., and at the time of his death, September 1, 1916, he was a member of Oakland Commandery, K. T. He was survived by his wife, Abbie M. (Bunker) Weston, and three children, William Bunker Weston, Samuel Hopkins Weston and Helen Gould Weston. A man of unblemished reputation, Mr. Weston was just and generous, standing high in the community

Transcribed cferoben, from Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California,  published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 989

SANTA CLARA COUNTY PIONEER BIOGRAPHIES

SANTA CLARA HISTORY