Charles Emerson Hoar

Charles Emerson Hoar

Find A Grave Memorial ID # 114791653

Charles Emerson Hoar was the son of U.S. Attorney General and Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar and Caroline Downes Brooks of Concord, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. He was named after his aunt Elizabeth Sherman 'Lizzie' Hoar's fiancee Charles Chauncy Emerson, the brother of famed author Ralph Waldo Emerson. Charles Emerson died of tuberculosis in May 1836, before they were able to wed.

Like his siblings, Charles' youth was spent in Concord and environs. He attended Phillips Exter Academy and then Harvard University, graduating in 1870. Charlie traveled West in 1871, staying in Nebraska before eventually moving on to Simi Valley, California.

The earliest Anglo American ranchers showed up in Simí Valley in the late 1860s into the early 1870s. Charles Emerson Hoar was given the title of "first American farmer" by early Simí historian Janet Scott Cameron. He acquired a property called 'El Nido de Chuparosas' also known as the Hummingbird's Nest Ranch from Juan Pucillo. It's not clear whether he purchased Hummingbird's Nest from Mr. Pucillo, or purchased land that Mr. Pucillo was leasing. In any case, Mr. Pucillo continued to live at Hummingbird's Nest and manage the property after Mr. Hoar resided there. C.E. Hoar lived in an adobe structure on the ranch for a number of years before moving to another property he acquired near the current day Royal and Erringer.

In a rather cryptic comment to his sister Clara, he described his life in the West as a result of having "misarranged" his life. Whatever the cause, Charles lived there the rest of his life, making only a few visits to his former home in Concord. Apparently something of a recluse (called by a few obituaries "the hermit of Simi Valley"), especially in his last years, he died on June 7, 1912 at the age of 62.

Name: Charles E Hoar
Gender: Male
Race: White
Age: 0
Birth Year: about 1850
Birthplace: Massachusetts
Home in 1850: Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, USA
Line Number: 16
Dwelling Number: 164
Family Number: 211
Inferred Father: E Rockwood Hoar
Inferred Mother: Caroline D Hoar
Household Members (Name) Age

E Rockwood Hoar 34
Caroline D Hoar 30
Caroline Hoar 8
Samuel Hoar 4
Charles E Hoar 0
Elizebeth Calahan 26
Catherine McNulty 17
Elizabeth Babcock 35
Jonathan M Fairbanks 18

1850 United States Federal Census

CHARLES EMERSON HOAR
Born in Concord, Massachusetts on March 27, 1850
Son of Ebenezer Rockwood and Caroline Downes Hoar (Brooks)
Prepared at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire
Harvard College: 1866-70, AB 1870
Died in Ventura, California on June 7, 1912

Soon after his graduation from Harvard he entered the railroad business in the West in the service of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. He was stationed in Nebraska, and after working there a few years he received an invitation from his classmate, Thomas Leslie Hinckley, to join him in conducting a sheep ranch in southern California. The invitation was accepted, and Hoar then went to Simi, California, where he remained for the rest of his life. Within a year after his settlement at Simi, Hinckley died, and thereafter for some years Hoar continued in the sheep-raising business alone. Later he gave that up and engaged in agriculture. He acquired a considerable area of land and devoted himself to raising on an extensive scale the various products for which southern California is famous.

Hoar never married, and during most of his long career in California he lived quite alone, except for the company of those who aided him in his farming pursuits and by whom he was cordially liked. Nevertheless, his life was not lonely. He found solace and diversion in his intimate association with nature. His marked taste for reading became also to him an unfailing source of comfort and entertainment. He read widely and with discriminating judgment. He was well versed in the best classical literature and likewise kept in touch with the development of modem thought and achievement. He became a trusted leader in the little community in which he dwelt. He was very fond of children and enjoyed arranging pleasures for them in a generous way. He was a delightful letter writer, and his keen sense of humor enabled him to find entertainment in the incidents of a simple life as well as in the current world drama which he followed closely.

Hoar died at a hospital in Ventura, near Simi, of heart disease, after a brief illness, the culmination of a year of failing health, against which he had struggled with characteristic courage, cheerfulness, and philosophy.

Harvard College, Class of 1870, 50th Anniversary, Tenth Report

Simi Valley History

Hummingbird's Nest Ranch