Henry Dwight Barrows

Henry Dwight Barrows (1825–1914) was an American teacher, businessman, farmer, goldminer, reporter, United States Marshal, Los Angeles County School Superintendent, manufacturer, writer, and a founder and president of the Historical Society of Southern California.

Henry D. Barrows was born in Mansfield, February 23, 1825, a son of Joshua Palmer and Polly (Bingham) Barrows. The early years of his life were spent on a farm a village known as South Mansfield, or Mansfield Center. He received his education, in the public school, and later in the high school at South Coventry Afterward he spent several terms in the academy at Ellington When he was seventeen, he taught school for four years, and devoted considerable time to music, joining the local band, of which he became the leader, and taking lessons on the organ at Hartford.

His first business experience was clerking in New York City in 1849. The next year he went to Boston, where, as entry clerk and then as bookkeeper, he worked in the dry goods business of J. W. Blodgett & Co. for over two years acquiring business experience. While there he enjoyed the books, lectures, music, and opera., which that city afforded.

On April 26, 1852, he sailed for California from New York on the steamer SS Illinois to Aspinwall, crossed the isthumus of Panama, then took the connecting steamer SS Golden Gate to San Francisco. Soon after arrival, he went to the northern mines, going as far as Shasta County; but, as the dry season had set in, he returned down the valley, working at haying at $100 a month on Thomas Creek, near Tehama. He returned to San Francisco, July 31, with chills and fever, which the climate of that city only aggravated. He then went south to San Jose, where he raised a crop of wheat and barley which in 1852 to 1853 sold at a very high price. In the fall of 1853 he went to the southern mines, working at placer gold mining near Jamestown.

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