Maclay, Charles, 1822-1890.

Charles Maclay, born in Concord, PA, attended Dickinson College and became a circuit preacher in the Methodist Episcopal church before he was sent as a missionary to California in 1851. He settled in Santa Clara and became one of the first trustees of the University of the Pacific. Maclay turned to farming and later set up a mill, a tannery, and a store in Saratoga. He served as a member of the state assembly (1861-62) and as a state senator (1868-73), and he introduced bills encouraging the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the establishment of the University of California. In 1874, along with George Keating Porter and Benjamin F. Porter, Maclay purchased a portion of the Rancho Ex-Mission de San Fernando which had previously belonged to Eulogio de Celis. On his part of the property, Maclay founded and developed the town of San Fernando, and in 1885 he endowed the Maclay College of Theology, which later became a department of the University of Southern California.