Walter Scott Chaffee

Walter Scott Chaffee, a pioneer and one of the most prosperous business men of San Buenaventura, was born in Madison County, New York, February 2, 1834. His ancestors were from Massachusetts, but his father, E. H. Chaffee, was a native of Madison County, and was a farmer in the "town" (township) of Petersburg, where the celebrated Gerrit Smith was brought up; they were playmates together. During the great slavery excitement Messrs. Smith and Chaffee were "under-ground railroad" men, and many a one of God's poor they helped along the road to liberty. Mr. Chaffee's mother, whose maiden name was Celinda M. Stranahan, was a native of Cooperstown, New York. He was the third child in a family of seven children, and at the early age of fourteen years he began his mercantile career, being ten years a clerk in the city of Syracuse, New York. In 1858 he went to Portage City, Wisconsin, and opened a general merchandise store; but a year afterward he sold out and returned to his home in New York, where he remained a year. Then, in company with Jerome B. Chaffee, he went to Pike's Peak and bought two claims at Leadville, where he was a miner for one season. The following year, 1861, he came to San Buenaventura, when there were but three American settlers in what is now Ventura County. Two of them still reside here, - V. A. Simpson and W. D. Hobson. Mr. Chaffee started a ranch on T. Moore's grant and engaged in raising hogs. Six months afterward he sold his interest and opened a general merchandise store, and has ever since been in mercantile life excepting two years. When he began here there was but one other store in the place. He purchased his goods in San Francisco, and had them brought here by schooner. He has also been engaged meanwhile in general farming and stock-raising. He was one of the original incorporators of the Bank of Ventura, and is at present one of its directors. When the town was incorporated he was appointed by the Legislature a member of the first Board of Trustees. During the late war he kept the United States flag flying night and day upon a liberty pole in front of his store. After several of the flags had been stolen, he guarded the next one with a shot-gun for several nights. It was the only flag south of San Jose that was placed at half-mast when the news of President Lincoln's assassination reached the coast. Although interested in the political welfare of the country, he has never accepted office.

    He built his present brick store, 30 x 100 feet, on East Main and Palm streets, with a store-house in the rear, another 100 feet in depth. He has also built an elegant residence on a 100-acre ranch near town, and he has a 3,000 acre farm and stock ranch on the Santa Clara River, thirty four miles from Ventura, where he has several hundred head of sheep, cattle and horses, and is constantly improving the stock. Parties are now sinking the fifth oil well on this land, the four already in operation yielding an average of twenty-five barrels per day each. Mr. Chaffee, notwithstanding the fact that he has seen forty years of active business life, appears like a man in the prime of life about forty-five years of age. He has truly seen a "wilderness bloom as the rose." From a little Spanish settlement the city of San Buenaventura has sprung up to a place of 3,000 inhabitants living in homes of beauty and refinement, with their numerous business blocks, metropolitan hotels, fine churches, model school buildings, etc. San Buenaventura has indeed been to him what the name implies, - "Good Luck."

    For his wife, Mr. Chaffee married Miss Rebecca Nidever, a native of Texas, born 1846, and of their nine children all are living save one. Walter Scott, Jr. was born in Santa Barbara, in his grandfather's house, and now has charge of his father's ranch. The following children were born in San Buenaventura: John Hyde, now teller of the Ventura Bank; Arthur Leslie, his father's bookkeeper; and Helen L., Ethel, Lawrence, Chester and Margareta, all of whom are at home with their parents. Mrs. Chaffee is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and Mr. Chaffee, although brought up a Presbyterian, has never joined any church. He is a Master Mason and a Knight Templar.

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