Robert J. Burdette (ed.) Greater Los Angeles & Southern California: Portraits & Personal Memoranda The Lewis Publishing Company: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, 1910
p. 130 Stephen Harris Taft, Sawtelle
Born Sept. 14, 1825, at Palermo, N. Y. Abolitionist speaker at
eighteen; entered ministry at twenty-two. Delegate to tlie
National Free Soil Convention of 1852, the Anti-Nebraska con-
vention held at Saratoga Springs, and to the Maine Law conven-
tion of New York that nominated Governor Clark in 1854. Came
to Iowa in 1862; laid out the town of Humboldt, organized a church
and built a saw- and grist-mill; founded Humboldt Coll., in 1872,
of which Pres. nine years. Has attended five centennial celebra-
tions-Battle of Lexington, Boston Tea Party, Declaration of
Independence, Discovery of Oxygen Gas and World's Centennial
Temperance Congress of 1908; also, bi-centennial of the coming
of Great Ancestor from England to America. Has entertained at
his eastern home many celebrated reformers, men and women.
Came to California, 1896; superintended founding of Sawtelle; first
Pres. Los Angeles County Anti-Saloon League.