The Bixby family is an American family that was heavily involved in the development of California ranches and real estate in the 19th and 20th centuries. Through
various companies, they controlled at one time or another large swathes of California real estate, much of it derived from Mexican land grants. Over several generations, their holdings included
Rancho Los Cerritos :''This article refers to the land grant. For the Rancho Los Cerritos adobe, see Los Cerritos Ranch House''
Rancho Los Cerritos was a 1834 land grant in present-day southern Los Angeles County and Orange County, California The grant was the res ...
and
Rancho Los Alamitos
Rancho Los Alamitos takes its name from an 1834 Mexican partition of the 1784 Rancho Los Nietos, a Spanish concession, covering an area in present-day California's southwestern Los Angeles County and northwestern Orange County. Los Alamitos me ...
, and parts of
Rancho San Justo
Rancho San Justo was a Mexican land grant in present-day San Benito County, California given in 1839 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to José Antonio Castro. The lands of the rancho include current day Hollister.
History
General José Castro was ...
and
Rancho Palos Verdes
Rancho Palos Verdes (Spanish for "Green Sticks Ranch") is a coastal city located in Los Angeles County, California atop the bluffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, neighboring other cities in the Palos Verdes Hills, including Palos Verdes Estate ...
, totaling well over 100,000 acres. Parts of the towns of
Long Beach
Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California.
Incorporate ...
,
Bellflower,
Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...
,
Signal Hill,
Lakewood, and
Los Alamitos emerged from former Bixby-held lands. Within Long Beach, the
neighborhoods
A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; American and British English spelling differences, see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community ...
Bixby Hill,
Bixby Knolls
Bixby Knolls is a neighborhood in Long Beach, California, named after the Bixby family.
Location
Bixby Knolls is an area of Long Beach adjoining North Long Beach to the north, California Heights on the southeast, Wrigley on the southwest. It ...
, and Bixby Village are named after the family, as well as Bixby Park
in the
Alamitos Beach neighborhood.
The key members of the family connected to California real estate are the brothers Llewellyn and Jotham Bixby, their first cousins Thomas and Benjamin Flint, and a cousin of the next generation, John William Bixby. Llewellyn's daughter
Sarah Bixby Smith
Sarah Bixby Smith (1871–1935) was a California writer and an advocate of women's education. ''Adobe Days'', her memoir of growing up in southern California, is considered a classic of the genre.
Family and education
Sarah Hathaway Bixby was bor ...
wrote a well-known memoir of growing up on the Bixby family ranches in the late 19th century; her second husband,
Paul Jordan-Smith
Paul Jordan-Smith (April 19, 1885 – June 17, 1971) was an American Universalist minister who also worked as a writer, lecturer and editor. Academically, he is regarded as one of the foremost authorities on the 17th-century British author an ...
, was also a writer. Jotham's daughter
Fanny Bixby Spencer
Fanny Weston Bixby Spencer (November 6, 1879 - April 30, 1930), also referred to as Fanny Bixby was an American philanthropist and antiwar writer. She joined the fledgling Long Beach police force in January 1908, making her one of the country's ea ...
was a philanthropist and anti-war activist who was also one of the nation's earliest policewomen.
Bixby genealogy
(1) Joseph Bixby (1620-1701) born in Suffolk, England, emigrated to Boxford, Mass. before 1638; m. Sarah Herde
children
(13) Benjamin Bixby (1650-1727) born in Ipswitch, Mass.; m. Mary --
children m. Mary --
children
(134) Samuel Bixby (1689-1741) born in Topsfield, Mass.; m. Martha Underwood
children
(1343) Samuel Bixby (1721-1809) born in Sutton, Mass.; m. Lydia Bond
1 children
(13436) Solomon Bixby (1761-1835) born in Sutton, Mass.; m. Lucy Taylor
2 children
(134363) Amasa Bixby (1794-1872) born in Norridgewock, Maine; m. Fanny Weston (1794?-1869);
3 children***
Llewellyn Bixby
Llywelyn, Llewelyn or Llewellyn is a name of Welsh language origins. See Llywelyn (name) for the name's etymology, history and other details.
As a surname Arts
*Carmen Llywelyn, American actress and photographer
* Chris Llewellyn (poet), American ...
(1825-96) m. Mary Hathaway
children****
Sarah Hathaway Bixby (b. 1871) m.
Paul Jordan-Smith
Paul Jordan-Smith (April 19, 1885 – June 17, 1971) was an American Universalist minister who also worked as a writer, lecturer and editor. Academically, he is regarded as one of the foremost authorities on the 17th-century British author an ...
***
Jotham Bixby (1831-1917) m. Margaret Winslow Hathaway
children****
Fanny Weston Bixby (1879-1930) m. William Carl Spencer (1871-1950)
(134368) Simon Bixby (1803-1862) born in Norridgewock, Maine; m. Deborah Norton Flint (1806-76)
0 children***
John William Bixby (b. 1848) m. Susan P. Hathaway (d. 1906; sister of Margaret Winslow Hathaway)
See also
*
Bixby land companies
The Bixby land companies were a group of California-based land companies founded by various members of the Bixby and Flint families from Maine. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the firms of Flint, Bixby & Company, J. Bixby & Company, J. W ...
*
Los Cerritos Ranch House
Los Cerritos Ranch House, also known as Rancho Los Cerritos or Casa de los Cerritos, in Long Beach, California, was "the largest and most impressive adobe residence erected in southern California during the Mexican period". Los Cerritos means "t ...
*
Bixby Slough
Bixby Slough (American English pronunciation: “slew/slu”) was an ancient wetland in Los Angeles County, California.
Sometimes called Machado Lake, the slough was a “large freshwater wetland in the Carson-Harbor City- Wilmington area” ...
*
Bixby Marshland
Bixby Marshland is a wildlife area operated by the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts in Carson, California, as part of the environmental mitigation of wastewater.
The space is in area and is a restoration of the old Bixby Slough. The o ...
References
External links
Bixby correspondence, 1867-1923. California State Library, California History Room.
*Harris, Marcia Lee. ''Fanny Bixby Spencer: Long Beach's Inspirational Firebrand''.
*Smith, Sarah Bixby. ''Adobe Days: A Book of California Memories''. Los Angeles: J. Zeitlin, 1925. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1926 (2nd ed.). Reprinted 1987 by the University of Nebraska Press.
"Finding Aid for the Sarah Bixby Smith correspondence, 1871-1935" Online Archive of California.
Rancho Los Cerritos website
{{Authority control
Families from California
Ranchers from California