| Col. JAMES A. HARDIN is a representative of the best type of the best type of the American business man. Like most men who achieve distinction in their respective callings, he started in life with but little capital save a fine physical organization and an active well poised brain. He was born in the State of Kentucky, September 2, 1830, and was the fourth of a large family of children, eight of whom (three sons and five daughters) are still living. His parents, Henry Hardin and Mary (Phillips) Hardin, were also natives of the Blue Grass State. In 1839 they moved to Missouri, and resided there until 1853, when they emigrated to California and settled near Sebastopol in Sonoma County. There the remainder of their lives was passed, Mr. Hardin dying in 1859 at the age of fifty-eight years, and Mrs. Hardin in 1866, aged sixty-three years. The subject of this memoir crossed the plains with his parents, being then a young man of twenty-three years, and the same year started in the cattle business with a few hundred dollars capital; and from that to the present has been actively and extensively engaged in raising live stock. In early years his ranch interests were confined to Sonoma County, but in the rapid expansion of the business under his masterly management they extended into other counties and finally into other States. While there is quite enough in such a great growing business to occupy the mind and energies of an ordinary man, such was not the case with Colonel Hardin. In 1859 he opened a store in Petaluma, with a combined stock of groceries and staple dry goods. Two years later he took in Mr. A. W. Riley as a partner, and they enlarged the stock so as to embrace general merchandise. Soon after the firm began to establish stores in other towns, and for some years they owned and conducted a number of mercantile houses in as many towns in Sonoma and adjacent counties. The firm of Hardin & Riley continued merchandising until 1880, when they sold out and discontinued that branch of business. In 1870 Mr. Riley became a partner with Colonel Hardin in a portion of his already extensive ranch property, which relation still continues. Mr. Riley not being a practical stockman, Colonel Hardin has always had active supervision and control of their vast and expanding business, which he was handled with such phenomenal success that they now own great range in California, Nevada and Oregon, number their herds and flocks by the tens of thousands, and rank among the "Cattle Kings" of the Pacific slope. Besides their joint property, Colonel Hardin owns a large ranch to Mendocino County, which has until recently been stocked with sheep, but is now occupied by cattle chiefly. During the thirty-five years of his ranching life in developing and managing this gigantic business, which places Hardin & Riley in the front rank among the wealthy live-stock firms this side of the Rocky Mountains, Colonel Hardin has not only demonstrated his thorough knowledge of stockraising, but has exhibited those rare powers of mind possessed by recognized leaders of men, the founders of great enterprises and the characters which shape the events of their time. Such men wear nature's stamp of superiority and leave the impress of their extraordinary individuality upon whatever they come in contact with. In his more than third of a century of experience as a stockman, Mr. Hardin has performed labor and endured hardships which few men could undergo. In 1857 he went East and brought a drove of cattle across the plains from Missouri. In 1866 he took a drove of horses and cattle across the country to Helena, Montana, spent the summer there disposing of them, and in the fall went by steamer from Fort Benton down the Missouri River, to St. Joseph, Missouri, consuming a month en route. Being joined there by his family, they went by rail to New York and thence took passage by steamship to California via the Isthmus of Panama. In the years 1870, 1871, and 1872 Colonel Hardin took droves of cattle overland from Texas to Nevada. He has crossed the plains six times with droves of cattle; has made six round trips across the continent by rail, and has been in peril on both land and sea, in railroad wrecks and shipwrecks. In the winter of 1854-'55 he sailed from San Francisco on board the steamer Southerner, Captain F. A. Samson in charge, for Portland, Oregon. On their way up a heavy storm stuck them off the coast of Oregon and so seriously damaged the vessel that she sprung a leak of such magnitude as to require constant and vigorous use of the pumps and bailing of water to keep her afloat. After forty-eight hours of incessant effort it became evident that the vessel would go down, and the passengers and crew, consisting of forty-five men, five women and three children were compelled to take the life-boats, with such few articles of provisions as they could hastily gather and carry with them. On the 26th of December they landed near Cape Flattery at the mouth of the Quineote River, and there on that bleak shore, in the midst of hostile Indians, with no shelter to protect them from the fury of the elements during the almost continuous storms of December and January, and subsisting on quarter rations, they remained twenty-seven days, waiting and watching for deliverance. The terrible suffering of body and anguish of mind that shipwrecked band endured during those three weeks of exposure to the mid-winter storms -- hoping and despairing, tortured day and night by the grim specter of death by starvation -- are beyond the power of the tongue or pen to portray. Finally, when the last meager ration had been issued and eaten, their vigilant watch for a passing vessel was rewarded. One was sighted and in response to their signal of distress sent her relief-boats and took them on board. It proved to be the old Major Tompkins which rendered them such timely succor. The party landed at Olympia, and from there were obliged to travel through a wilderness country about seventy miles to the Cowlitz River, which they descended in small boats to its confluence with the Columbia. Colonel Hardin was the first to reach the river and impart the good news of their rescue, as it was supposed that all on board the ill-fated Southerner had perished with her. Another instance of the almost miraculous escape of Colonel Hardin from death occurred on his last birthday, September 2, 1888, on the Central Pacific Railroad at Cisco. He was riding in the caboose attached to a train of twenty cars loaded with the firm's cattle, coming down from their ranch in Nevada; his train had just come to a stop after passing through the tunnel at full speed and crashed into the caboose. The engine struck with such terrific force that it literally crushed the caboose in which was riding and plowed half its length into the car filled with cattle in front of it. Some articles of clothing of the train men which were lying on the seat opposite to that occupied by Hardin were torn to shreds. The concussion was so great that Mr. Hardin who weighs about 200 pounds, was raised bodily from his position in the caboose and hurled many feet, landing in the front end of the car forward among the cattle. While very much stunned by the shock, he retained sufficient consciousness to realize his perilous situation under the frantic animals' feet, and dropping through a hole broken in the side of the car he was hurriedly picked in a state of partial syncope just in time to save him from being crushed to death by the escaping cattle. Upon examination of his injuries it was found that he was suffering from a dislocation of the wrist, several painful bruises and contusions, some of which were made by the cattle feet, and a severe wrenching of his shoulder and spine. These were only sufficient to curb his irrespressible energies for a few weeks, when he again assumed charge of his own and the firm's business interests. Two years after coming to this El Dorado of the Occident, in 1855, Mr. Hardin returned to Missouri, and was there united in marriage with Miss Nannie C. Myers, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, born in 1834. Her father and mother, Charles and Rebecca (Williams) Myers, were from Pennsylvania and Virginia, respectively. Five children, two sons and three daughters, comprise the family of Colonel and Mrs. Hardin, viz. C. H. E. Hardin, Miss Eudora, Miss Jimella, Amos Riley Hardin and Miss Ethel. C. H. E. Hardin was married in 1882 to Miss Ursula Mason, of San Francisco, and there have been born to them two children, a son and a daughter. Miss Jimella was married in 1887 to William J. Eardley, of Santa Rosa. The three unmarried children reside with their parents in the family home. Colonel Hardin has been during his whole life an earnest advocate of higher education and has extended to all his children the advantages of collegiate and university courses of study. He is now, and for many years past has been a member of the board of trustees of Pacific Methodist College in Santa Rosa, and has materially aided its fortunes, not only by his advice but also by large contributions of his means. Colonel Hardin and family lived for fourteen years in Petaluma before removing to Santa Rosa, sixteen years ago. Since settling in this city he has built their elegant residence on Fifth and Beaver streets. It occupies a full block of richly ornamented grounds, and is one of the most charming residences in California. Everywhere within and without abound those ornaments that indicate the superior taste and culture of its occupants and appeal to the sense of the beautiful. Spending much of his time in Nevada, as he does, looking after their great stock interests, he is considered a citizen of that State, and was chosen one of the Presidential Electors for 1888 on the Democratic ticket. Owning to his conscientious regard for the rights and feeling of others, and his courteous gentlemanly manners, Colonel Hardin commands the respect and esteem of all who come in contact with him either in business or social relations. In his happy home and on the ranch he rules with the law of kindness. |
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