Crosby, Elisha Oscar, 1818-1895

E. O. Crosby was a California pioneer of 1849 and one of the framers of the California state constitution.

E. O Crosby was a California pioneer of 1849 and one of the framers of the California state constitution.

Crosby was a California pioneer of 1849 and one of the framers of the California state constitution.

E. O Crosby was a Californian pioneer of 1849 and one of the framers of the California state constitution.

Crosby was a member of the Calif. Constitutional Convention of 1849, and U.S. Minister to Guatemala, 1861-1864.

E.O. Crosby was a Californian pioneer of 1849 and one of the framers of the California state constitution.

Elisha Oscar Crosby (1818-1895) traveled to San Francisco, California in 1849 as part of the gold rush, and prospered by exchanging currency for gold dust and buying real estate in the Sacramento area. In August of 1849, he was elected to the California State Constitutional Convention and became the chair of the Finance Committee. He then became the election officer for the Sacramento District for the constitutional election, where the voters ratified the constiution and elected Crosby as state senator. He took up his position as California senator in San Jose and was elected chair of the Judiciary Committee. He left the senate in 1852 and went into private legal practice in San Francisco, specializing in defending Spanish-speaking Californios whose land grant titles were being challenged. In 1859, Crosby traveled to Guatemala, where he befriended the "president for life," Rafael Carrera. Owing to this friendship, Abraham Lincon appointed Crosby as resident minister to Guatemala In 1861. After finishing his appointment in Guatemala, Crosby traveled to Philadelphia, and then to Europe to attend the 1867 Exposition in Paris. After a brief residency in Fremont, Nebraska, he returned to California in the early 1870's, where he continued his law practice and served as a justice of the peace, judge of the police court, and city recorder in Alameda.

Elisha Oscar Crosby, a New York lawyer, sailed for the West in December 1848 arriving in San Francisco aboard the Steamer "California" on February 28th, 1849, after a stop in Panama. In California he had a distinguished legal and political career that led to his appointment as U.S. Minister to Guatemala. Elisha Oscar Crosby was one of the delegates to the first Constitutional Convention at Monterey, acting as Chairman of the Finance Committee. He was also appointed Prefect of the Sacramento District, which constituted all land east of the Sacramento River and north of the Cosumnes River. Elisha Oscar Crosby held the position of Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the State Senate, during the First and Second Sessions of the Legislature of California. He was involved in convincing the State Senate during its first session of Legislature to have California adopt a Common Law system rather than the Civil Law rule which was in place at the time.

California pioneer of 1849 and one of the framers of the California state constitution.

Elisha Oscar Crosby (1818-1895) came to California in 1849 from New York City. He attended the California constitutional convention in Monterey in the early fall of 1849 but ended his term as a state senator after 1850.

E. O. Crosby was a Californian pioneer of 1849 and one of the framers of the California state constitution.

Elisha Oscar Crosby was born July 18, 1818 in the town of Groton in New York. He studied law with his uncle, Elbridge Gerry Spaulding and was admitted to the Supreme Court of the State of New York in 1843. In 1848, after a stop in Panama, he traveled to San Francisco to take part in the California gold rush. In California he had a distinguished legal and political career that led to his appointment as U.S. Minister to Guatemala. Elisha Oscar Crosby was one of the delegates to the first Constitutional Convention at Monterey, acting as Chairman of the Finance Committee.

Elisha O. Crosby was a California pioneer of 1849 and one of the framers of the California state constitution.

Historical Background

Elisha Oscar (E.O.) Crosby was born on July 18, 1818, the second son of seven children born to a farming family in the upstate New York Finger Lakes district near what is now Ithaca. He studied law under several lawyers, including his uncle, A.G. Spaulding of Buffalo, and received his legal diploma on his twenty-fifth birthday. He then moved to New York City to practice with Abner Benedict doing admiralty (maritime) law at 27 Wall Street.

Crosby joined those responding to the news of gold in California, arriving in San Francisco, via Panama, on February 28, 1849, aboard the "California." Rather than mine gold, Crosby made money by exchanging currency for gold dust and then began to buy real estate in the Sacramento area, even purchasing land from Captain Sutter of Sutter's Fort fame. He laid out a town called Vernon, but this venture failed when winter floods made the tiny community an island and all the homeowners left. He also guided a delegation from the United States government that had come to investigate the stories of California gold.

In August of 1849, Crosby was elected a delegate to the California State Constitutional Convention convened in Monterey on September 1, 1849, and became the chair of the Finance Committee. He wrote an account of the Convention describing his fellow delegates and the constitution writing process. He unsuccessfully argued for an appointed state judiciary to achieve judicial independence. Crosby then became the election officer for the Sacramento District for the constitutional election that was held on November 13, 1849. The voters ratified the constitution and elected Crosby a state senator.

Crosby, at age 31, took up his position as a California senator in San Jose (Sacramento would become the capital, following Benicia, in 1854) and was elected chair of the Judiciary Committee. As chair, he championed the adoption of English common law as the basic legal system of California while retaining what he viewed as some superior elements of Mexican law, including the concept we now know as "community property." The Committee also organized the first Supreme Court of California, as well as district courts, and divided California into counties.

He left the Senate in 1852 and went into private legal practice in San Francisco, specializing in defending Spanish-speaking Californios whose land grant titles were being challenged. He argued over one hundred such cases before the United States Land Claims Commission during its 1852-1856 tenure. Crosby would write that the United States Supreme Court "perpetrated the grossest outrages upon equity and common honesty" in its California land decisions in violation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) which had guaranteed Californios the same rights as other California citizens.

In 1859, Crosby traveled to the East Coast to argue some of his land grant cases before the United States Supreme Court but stopped in Guatemala for several months. There he met and befriended the ruler and "president for life" of Guatemala, Rafael Carrera (1814-1865). This would prove auspicious, as in 1861, a newly-elected Abraham Lincoln appointed Crosby as resident minister to Guatemala. During his tenure (1861-1864), he also served as a presiding judge and umpire on a commission that successfully attempted to avert war between Great Britain and the Honduran government in a territorial dispute.

After finishing his Guatemala appointment, Crosby returned to the United States to Philadelphia. Then he went to Europe to attend the 1867 Exposition in Paris. After a brief residency in Fremont, Nebraska, where he helped to open the Fremont Opera House, Crosby returned to California in the early 1870s to spend his remaining years. Despite severe eye trouble, Crosby continued his law practice and served as a justice of the peace, judge of the police court, and as city recorder in Alameda. Crosby was a member of numerous organizations including the Society of California Pioneers, New York Ethnological Society, Knights Templar, Veteran Tippiecanoe Club, Free and Accepted Masons, Lincoln Grand Guard of Honor, and the Republican Party.

Crosby died in Alameda on June 25, 1895, following a fall, at the age of seventy-seven. He was one of the last surviving members of the California constitutional convention. According to his obituary, he was survived by his wife and an only son, Edward Crosby.

These materials were collected by John B. Goodman, III, and were donated by him to UCSD Libraries in 1995.