United States
Now free to own land in his own name, Larkin turned his attention to his new opportunities. In partnership with Robert Semple, he established the city at the Carquinez Straits that became Benicia, but Larkin’s business interests were in San Francisco and he sold out his share after a few years. As he took control of his own affairs, his relationship with Leidesdorff fell apart. By the time of the Gold Rush, Larkin had permanently settled in the city by the Bay and was there in time for the economic boom that followed. It was as a representative from San Francisco that he served at the 1849 Constitutional Convention, held in Monterey.
Early in 1850, he built the first brick building in San Francisco at 1116 Stockton Street. Later that same year, he returned to New York and remained there until 1853 for the education of his children. During this time he pressed the Federal government for compensation for money he claimed he had spent on Naval supplies and for work on the Monterey Customs House and the wharf there, without satisfaction.
Larkin acquired several land grants including Rancho Jimeno, Rancho Boga, Rancho Cienega del Gabilan, Rancho Pleyto, Rancho Cotate, and Rancho Larkin’s Children. In his last years, Larkin engaged in land speculation and was thought by some to be the richest man in America. On October 27, 1858, while at Colusa, California, he contracted typhoid fever and died within a week. He was buried in what was the Laurel Hill Cemetery in San Francisco, but is now interred at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.
The Larkin House is a National Historic Landmark and California Historical Landmark. Larkin Street in San Francisco is named for him. An elementary school in Monterey, now closed, was named for him.
Read more about this topic: Thomas O. Larkin
Famous quotes related to united states:
“Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Places where he might live and die and never hear of the United States, which make such a noise in the world,—never hear of America, so called from the name of a European gentleman.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I hate to do what everybody else is doing. Why, only last week, on Fifth Avenue and some cross streets, I noticed that every feminine citizen of these United States wore an artificial posy on her coat or gown. I came home and ripped off every one of the really lovely refrigerator blossoms that were sewn on my own bodices.”
—Carolyn Wells (1862–1942)
“In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.”
—Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928)