California Biographies, Santa Cruz County HON. J. B. MAHER. Transcribed by Peggy Hooper Source: History of Santa Cruz County, California Pacific Press Publishing Company San Francisco, Cal. 1892 By E. S. Harrison This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives HON. J. B. MAHER. In point of years of active association with the lumber industry Mr. Maher has the distinction of being the oldest dealer now engaged in the business at Santa Cruz. When he came to California during the year 1884 and settled in the city where he still resides, he turned his attention to the buying and selling of lumber as offering an excellent field of labor in a growing community. Few men had preceded him as lumbermen in the region and he was a pioneer along the line of his specialty. From the first he was able to earn a fair livelihood. Encouraged by the start, he decided to continue in the enteri3rise and devoted his time to building up a larger trade. It soon came to be known that all of his orders were filled with the utmost promptness possible and also that he endeavored to secure the best grades of lumber obtainable. The Casino at the beach was constructed of lumber furnished by him under a contract and many other structures in the city and surrounding country were built of lumber purchased from him, so that this name is associated with many local building enterprises of importance. On a farm in Columbia county, Wis., where he was born in 1852, J. B. Maher passed the years of boyhood and mean- while acquired the habits of industry and self-reliance that characterize his manhood. Ever since he was sixteen years of age be has been interested in lumbering, for at that age he went into the woods as an employe of a lumberman. Later he acquired a knowledge of mill-work. For a considerable period he worked in the Wisconsin woods, but in 1875 he started for the west, going first to Idaho. For some years he engaged in freighting in that state, Oregon and Washing- ton. His principal work was the hauling of freight to mining camps, and he drove the first large freight teams from Wood river in the Salmon river district to the mines of Idaho. The wages were excellent, but the work exhausting and the sur- roundings unsatisfactory, so he was led to remove to California in 1884, since which year he has made Santa Cruz his home. The Democratic party has received the ballot of Mr. Maher in local and general elections ever since he attained the right of franchise on reaching his majority. On that ticket he was elected a member of the city council of Santa Cruz. In his work as councilman he displayed no partisanship, but ever made manifest a desire to aid the general welfare of the city, and his service of fifteen years in the position reflected credit upon his patriotic spirit and intelligent civic pride. As the Democratic nominee in 1908 he was elected a member of the state assembly, and there, as in the council, he manifested the same devotion to the common welfare characteristic of his private life. Although not an office-seeker, he has excellent ability for service along public lines and the positions he has filled are conspicuous for his faithful work therein. During 1890 he was united in marriage with Miss Zena A. McClosley, member of a Santa Cruz family. Fraternal relations have brought him into membership in the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias, and he had held official chairs in both branches of the Odd Fellows.