Dwinelle, John W. (John Whipple), 1816-1881

Dwinelle was a lawyer and state legislator, of San Francisco, Calif.

Biography

Collected papers of prominent San Francisco lawyer, legislator and settler of 1849. Among his achievements while residing in California he was mayor of Oakland, a correspondent for the Daily Evening Bulletin, a founder and later regent of the University of California, Berkeley, and a state legislator.

Biographical/Historical note

Dwinelle was born in 1816 in Cazenovia, NY, and was descended by William Whipple, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, on his mother’s side. His father, Hon. Justin Dwinelle, was in Congress from 1823-1845 and later the Judge of Common Pleas in his district. In 1834 John Dwinelle graduated from Hamilton College and took a position in the Supreme Court and Court of Chancery in New York. He left for Ann Arbor, MI, in 1838 to work in their Supreme Court but returned to Rochester after an illness. Dwinelle also edited several local newspapers. He was the city attorney of Rochester, NY from 1844-1845 and the Master of Chancery and Injunction Master from 1845-1849.

He sailed to California via Panama from August-October 1849. In 1850 he was elected to the San Francisco City Council, and was involved in the famous “Pueblo case” which won SF several leagues of land. From 1866-1867 he was the Mayor of Oakland. He authored the legislation AB 583 (1868) which established the University of California, and Dwinelle Hall and Dwinelle Annex at U.C. Berkeley are named for him after he served as its regent. He was also a Daily Evening Bulletin correspondent and a state legislator.

In 1877 he married Caroline McLean. He was known for his absent-mindedness, so severe that he supposedly would often walk past his intended destination and fail to recognize relatives on the street. Dwinelle died January 28, 1881 when he ran off the Port Costa (near Crockett, CA) ferry pier while trying to catch the Solano to Benicia, CA. Because of the rough waters off the Carquinez Straits, his body did not wash ashore for three weeks.